The number of finishing choices available today for protecting your woodworking projects is almost dizzying. Some options are simple like wipe on/wipe off finishes, while others may require special equipment to apply, like a spray gun system, in order to achieve satisfactory results. One finishing choice often overlooked is called French polish. French polish is […]
The altogether autumn-like weather we’ve been experiencing in New England this week has made me start thinking about when I won’t be able to go out to the garden every day and pick fresh vegetables for dinner. Luckily, my boyfriend Bradley gave me a solution for my birthday – a design for a planter we […]
Here’s the story of an old saw handle that I restored. It was actually a pretty lame handle, with the hard lines in the gripping area, which is pretty indicative of a low $$ saw. The saw plate was in decent condition, so I thought I’d see what I might be able to do to […]
As these things tend to do, our floor finishing project dragged out over 3 weeks, rather than wrapping up in the two days I had (naively) imagined. But I will say, now that I’m standing on my beautiful wood floors at the end of the three weeks, I think it was worth it. I wrote […]
Many woodworking books fall under two distinct categories, the inspirational, giving us food for thought or highlights of a particular vein of woodworking, or the the more practical, providing hands-on step by step guidance. A book that straddles that line is Made By Hand by Tom Fidgen, published by Popular Woodworking Books. Fidgen belongs to […]
I just went down to the shop and counted my turning tools. I have 19. Most of them I never touch. Some of them I don’t use well and some of them are so bad that I will not use them, and some I have yet to learn how to use. I have one favorite […]
We were hoping to have our friend Matt, from Matt’s Basement Workshop, come down to Atlanta this fall for Peter Galbert’s chairmaking class. We know from listening to one of his recent Wood Talk episodes (hosted by The Wood Whisperer, Mark Spagnuolo and also featuring Shannon Rogers) that building a Windsor chair is one of […]