Many woodworkers have at some time needed or wanted a dowel for a project, and had to hop into their car to pick one up at the home center. Once there, you have a couple of choices of wood types, and if you are really lucky, the dowel might almost be straight. The sizing of the dowels available […]
The leg design has what I call the “main section” which is curved crotch walnut and then a wider header and footer to help support the width of the table. These two pieces are attached with pegged mortise and tenons. I lay out the mortise location using a pencil and a handy Woodpeckers square. I […]
We featured Gary Smith’s meticulous horse-drawn wagon in the woodcarving column in the November 2011 issue of Wood News. He recently updated us on one of his latest woodworking pieces: These are my new wagons – this time I carved them in even more detail. Everything works the way it would on a real wagon – I […]
To finish up the tenon on the stretcher, I create a small flat spot for the wedge to fit. I simply mark the location with a gauge and use a sharp chisel to remove the waste. I check for square off the tenon as I go. It’s not critical how far down I go, I […]
Thanksgiving is over except for a little turkey soup in the fridge. Back to work tomorrow and time to start thinking about Christmas. Saw my first Christmas lights a week ago, actually. In the spirit of the season, here is my Wish List for the old wood shop. Heads up to my son, Jonathan, up there […]
I really enjoy Christopher Schwarz’s Lost Art Press and the books which just keep coming from there. One of the latest is “Grandpa’s Workshop” by Maurice Pommier. This book is pure magic. It looks just like a children’s bedtime story book with wonderful line drawings, dragons, sailing ships, geese chasing little boys in their dreams, […]
The blind mortise in the leg has angled ends on the top and bottom that create a dovetail-looking mortise. The tenon has a matching angle on the bottom (half a dovetail tail), so it slips into the mortise then lowers down into the matching mortise angle. The picture below is a cross section at the […]