Latest Articles

I enjoyed WoodSense (Oct/Nov 2022) on monkeypod. It brought back memories of my time in the Navy in 1970 at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. As a newly married couple, my wife and I, living on base, needed furniture, and the hobby shop on base sold monkeypod.

The San Diego Fine Woodworkers Association is accepting national and international entries for the 40th Annual Design in Wood Competition at the San Diego County Fair. The event will run from June 7 to July 4, 2023, with 23 categories including contemporary furniture, clocks, scrollsaw fretwork, veneering, and several carving and turning categories.

This torture device you have produced is not designed to be read by anyone over 20 years old.

The dimensions for the base of the Chimney Advent Calendar (Dec/Jan 2023) were incorrectly duplicated from the mantel dimensions. The correct dimensions for its base should be 3/4 × 6 × 14".

Last summer I succumbed to a barrage of internet advertising and acquired a PantoRouter. I’d seen other horizontally-mounted routers before, but those were essentially just slot mortisers—a tool I already have access to. The PantoRouter promised to be a much more versatile joint-cutting machine capable not only of cutting mortises, but the matching tenons as well, along with through dovetails, box joints, dowel joints, and more.

“I often use brass hinges, screws, and pulls in my work. I know I can buy products with various antique effects, but how can I customize my own colors and finishes on brass hardware?”

One of my basic woodworking rules is that I can’t make a measuring mistake if I don’t measure. I’m a cut-to-fit guy. But when I do need to measure something, I want a fast, easy-to-read, and accurate result. 

In terms of material removal and eliminating scratch patterns as you move through the grits, I’ve found Diablo SandNet to have a slight edge over other mesh-style sandpapers.

In the early 20th century, furniture maker Gustav Stickley was famous for his solid oak Craftsman furniture. Also called “Mission” or “Arts & Crafts,” this stout, no-frills style is as popular today as it was over a century ago. Stickley’s straightforward designs—made of quartersawn white oak with prominent joinery—were intended to be an “honest” alternative to the fake joinery, gaudy frills, and shoddy work found on much of the mass-produced furniture of the time.