Innehållsförteckning för June 2019 från Woodworker's Journal

When is the last time you checked out the Premium Video series on woodworkersjournal.com? We recently added all three volumes of Ian Kirby’s The Way to Woodwork series. That’s 40 episodes of woodworking instruction, covering everything from designing projects to hand-cutting dovetails and using a hand plane. This series is sold as a DVD set for $ 79.99, but it’s available to our subscribers for FREE. You will find these videos, along with several more Premium Video series, by clicking on the Premium Videos button located under the Premium Content tab on our website navigation bar.…

What first comes to mind when you think of a dining table? Likely something large enough to seat four or more people. But folks who are downsizing to smaller spaces, newlyweds and those settling into first apartments need a place to sit down for a meal, too, without it taking up too much space. Here’s one solution: a dining table made for two. When its drop leaves are up, this compact table offers a 36" x 36" tabletop: just enough for two chairs and place settings. Swing the tapered gate legs closed and drop the leaves, and this table’s top reduces to about half its raised width. Building the project will give you a chance to put your tapering jig to work on the table’s two-piece legs. You’ll also gain…

Charles Limbert produced furniture in the early 1900s, and many of his forms have stood the test of time. Not only are there surviving examples of his chairs and cabinetwork, which is no small feat, but his best forms still look stylish over a hundred years later. Limbert took the best part of Gustav Stickley designs, with honest and sturdy joinery, and fused it with Dutch influences to create a truly unique style in America. Traditional square furniture legs were replaced with wide planks, and decorative cutouts harkened back to age-old Western European designs. Inlays and adornments were used sparingly and to good effect. Limbert has inspired many furniture pieces over the years, and I thought his style was fitting for this two-piece office hutch I’ve designed. Do the Legwork…

I find it very ironic that I, as a non-whiskey drinker, have such a fascination with whiskey cabinets. My husband loves highbrow whiskey, so I decided he needed a fancy way to display it. I had an ulterior motive in choosing this particular project for this article, because I have been trying to work out a more approachable way to build beautiful, one-off hanging cabinets regardless of their intended purpose — be it whiskey, heirloom tool display or toilet paper. Spoiler alert: this project didn’t get me anywhere near the “simplified, two-day build” design I was going for. All told, I have about 50 hours in this project. Granted, a lot of that time was spent head scratching and problem solving. So, in theory at least, the next few cabinets…

Treats for Tricks WE WILL GIVE YOU MONEY, NO KIDDING! Our Tricks of the Trade department continues to be some of the most popular pages in our magazine. “Tricks” has been our number one read department for all of my 20-plus years here at the Journal — and I confess it is a favorite of mine. I am impressed and surprised by the inventiveness of our readers (yup, that means you). And, because I share what we might, with kindness, call a “thrifty” nature, I can get a bit excited by them as well. Some of the ideas are not quite as good as others. The reader who would screw his worn-out tennis shoes to the wall to use as a holster for his drill drivers did not get published.…

As predicted by Larry Crum of Appleton, Wisconsin, we got “a lot of correct replies” to the February mystery tool belonging to the son of Robin Porter from Jackson, Michigan. Delton Denzer of Winona, Minnesota, even “helped make them for many years.” Delton called it a “lever lock,” but Leonard Stanski of Plains, Pennsylvania, and others called it “a tire chain hook,” clasp or latch. “The round hook on the top is affixed to the main end of the tire chain,” said Michael Auer of Whitewood, South Dakota. “The lower part slips through a chain link on the other end and swings around counterclockwise,” said George W. Ames of Winthrop, Maine; in the process, noted Rick Leamy of Glenmoore, Pennsylvania, you’re “putting tension on the chain.” “The little hook shown…

In form and function, a drill press is as simple as it gets. Pull a lever to lower a spinning drill bit into a workpiece. Raise the lever and it leaves behind a hole. But here’s the thing: that hole is perfectly vertical, at the perfect depth and perfectly repeatable. Tilt the table and any angle becomes drillable. Adjust the speed and you can drill a host of materials, not just wood. Replace the drill bit and the machine becomes a drum sander, polisher/buffer or even a lathe. Then there’s the mortiser, the drill press’s first cousin that uses specialized cutters to drill square holes. They may be simple in concept, but they’re anything but when it comes to woodworking usefulness. Requiring a minimum of bench or floor space, it’s…

The Rockler Corner Key Doweling Jig clamps to the corner of a box and guides an extended-length drill bit through the joint at a perfect 45° angle to the sides. The resulting holes allow users to add visual interest with contrasting wooden dowels, nonferrous metal rods, tubes or more. Because the dowels or rods are oriented across the joint, they also increase its strength, much like splines. The jig includes interchangeable 1/8"-, 1/4"- and 3/8"-diameter drilling guides and is adjustable to work with different thicknesses of stock and to allow fine-tuning of the hole position. Once set, the jig can be moved and reclamped to drill a series of matching holes. A clear hairline indicator window enables precise positioning. The Rockler Corner Key Doweling Jig (item 59517) is priced at $35.99.…

Why would anyone confuse programming a computer with woodworking? One reason is that a CNC (computer numerically controlled) router can do some things that you just don’t want to do. In the same way that you could plane a huge board of rough stock smooth with a hand plane, but instead choose to use a jointer and planer, a CNC router can take the drudgery away, leaving you with the fun stuff. 1. Carving the easy way. From time to time, a carved panel just might look wonderful in a piece of casework: a pair of doors, perhaps with matching motifs; a backsplash that has a geometric pattern repeating across its length; a carved architectural component. If carving is outside your wheelhouse of woodworking skills, a CNC router can come…

As per usual with new designs, I sat down at my computer and drafted some scale drawings. Building the entry bench from the ground up in CAD helps tweak dimensions and scale without wasting materials on mis-cuts and rebuilds. I determined I’d start with a frame made from 1" x 2" select pine. The back would be made with 1" x 6" pine tongue-and-groove lumber, which brings in that lovely look of shiplap for a timeless and sturdy backdrop. I designed the seats and shelves to be made from a piece of 4' x 4' paint-grade 3/4" plywood. All of this lumber is easy to find at your local big-box home improvement store. When you are shopping, take the time to sort through the dimension lumber in order to find…