Indholdsfortegnelse for March/April 2024 i Popular Woodworking

I’ve long talked about woodworking containing a variety of disciplines such as turning, carving, scroll sawing, etc. In my opinion, there’s one type of woodworking that shaped this country (and possibly even the world)—patternmaking. Imagine building something out of wood precisely to an engineered drawing to the thousandth of an inch. I guess that sums up patternmaking in a nutshell—woodworking with metalworking tolerances. Building patterns out of wood so that a foundry could cast parts. This was truly the building blocks of the industrial revolution and beyond. One of the friends that I’ve been able to make over the last several years is a patternmaker by the name of Norman. Norman (who also goes by Josh—don’t ask, as it’s not my story to tell) spent his working career as a…

Low-Tech Alignment Tool This simple jig enables you to quickly and accurately align your saw’s blade with a miter slot. Perfect alignment helps prevent kickback and burned cuts. You can also use a jig to align your fence with a miter slot. First, make a 12" long runner that fits snug in the slot. Position a block of wood on the runner 1/2" away from the blade and glue or fasten the block to the runner. Screw a round-head brass screw into the end of the block facing the blade. To check your blade, unplug the saw and color one tooth with a marker. Rotate the blade so this tooth sits just above the front of the throat plate. Back out the screw until it just touches the tooth. Rotate…

PROJECT #2404_ Skill Level: Advanced Time: 3-6 mos. Cost: $250 I love to be outside no matter the weather conditions. I am rarely without binoculars and always have an eye to the sky. When I catch a glimpse of something wild and wonderful, I’m often amazed I was in the right place at the right moment. When I was recently asked why I carve birds—“why birds?” Honestly, the answer is endless. At the heart of it is a connection to nature. Birds kick my curiosity into overdrive—bird calls, plumage colors, feather shapes, amusing behavior, mechanics of flight, migration patterns—and it all invites me to learn more. The concept of using a rigid material like wood to create a visually soft, lofty bird carving—recreating and sharing a moment in time—challenges and…

When it comes to modern day furniture designers, few were as influential as Wendell Castle. Wendell’s designs have influenced and shifted the perception of furniture and art as we know it. When recently talking to one of our contributing editors, Scott Grove, he mentioned that Wendell’s shop is being turned into a woodworking school. The official press release is as follows: “The Wendell Castle Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the artist’s legacy through education, conservation, and programming, is launching a school in Castle’s longtime studio. Focused on the intersection of creativity, design, and technique, the Wendell Castle Workshop invites woodworking enthusiasts, emerging and established artists, designers, and makers to learn, collaborate, and innovate in a supportive and stimulating environment. Located in the studio where the world renowned artist…

Have you ever read a magazine article that piqued your interest and then a few years later you wanted to find it but didn’t know where to start looking amongst the issues in your library? Well for 25 years, the Woodworking Magazine Index has been the solution to this problem. The index is online and continually updated with each new issue. With the index you can search over 34,000 magazine article listings and 6,000 project images using a variety of filters and keywords. We checked in with Rick Van Schoick, a woodworker and publisher of the index. Hi Rick. Tell us how you got into woodworking. Well, my father was always building things in the workshop, so I had early exposure to the craft. I also built simple projects in…

Double Dowel Tenon Cutter During AWFS in Las Vegas this last year, I ran across an interesting little company producing and selling a tool called the Double Dowel Tenon Cutter. In short, it’s a router table fixture that cuts a pair of twin dowels on the end of a workpiece. You can see that in the lower right photo. Like many new tools, it’s something that you need to put your hands on to appreciate how it works, but I’ll do my best in photos. The Twin Dowel Tenon Cutter has a baseplate that clamps to your router table and a turntable fixture that holds the workpiece. Using specific setup steps (they’re simple enough to dial in), you turn the router on, slide in the workpiece holder, and spin the…

PROJECT #2406_ Skill Level: Intermediate Time: 3 Days Cost: $35 I was asked by a friend to design a box to hold a bottle of ink and two fountain pens. These days while inkjets and lasers spew out dozens of pages per minute and keyboards are so heavily relied upon to express thought, it may seem unusual that someone might savor the smooth flow of letters from mind, to hand and thence to page, but there are those (thankfully) in the world of a more sensitive type. Designing the Box The first part of designing this box was to settle on the design of the ink bottle. They come in odd shapes and sizes, so there’s no way a box like this can be made to fit all. But a…