Innehållsförteckning för October 2024 från Woodworker's Journal

This October magazine brings 48 years of Woodworker’s Journal to a close. And that fact has had me pondering what content should fill the very last issue. If you're a longtime subscriber, you know that this publication has provided a rich source of first-rate woodworking education from Ian Kirby, A.J. Hamler, Ernie Conover, Bill Hylton, Michael Dresdner, Sandor Nagyszalanczy, Carole Rothman, Betty Scarpino, Mike McGlynn, Kimberly McNeelan, Ralph Bagnall, Willie Sandry and many other excellent woodworkers. I hope you've also found our tool reviews and sneak peeks into what’s coming from Rockler and other manufacturers informative and helpful when shopping. Perhaps at one time or another, we've answered your woodworking question in an email or in From Our Readers. Maybe you've opened a new issue and been pleasantly surprised to…

Whether you use this moderately sized chest for storing bedding, photo albums and other keepsakes or off-season clothing, it’s also just the right height to serve as a quick seat for putting on your slippers or shoes. I think every woodworker should eventually build a Shaker-inspired chest like this, because it’s one of those enduring woodworking classics. It also provides a good opportunity to practice your dovetailing skills. If you haven’t built a chest like this before, here’s your chance to give one a go! Starting Out with Dovetails Let’s get this project underway by gluing up panels for the chest’s front, back and sides. Flatten their glue seams by scraping or hand-planing, sand the panels up to 120-grit and then cut them to final size, making sure their ends…

As I was growing up, the furniture in our home was Mid-Century Modern style. Of course, then it was just furniture … period. So that may be one reason that I am drawn to the style. Not everything Mid-Century Modern strikes my fancy, but this console certainly does. When you first look at the piece, it is easy to miss many of the fine details. And that is one of the truly pleasurable things about this console — the more you look, the more you like. The wood grain of the solid walnut flows around the carcass. The tambour doors provide excellent access to the interior and are a stunning collection of vertical lines when closed. The angled and tapered legs (also of solid walnut) have the mass to balance…

A folding pocketknife or fixed blade is handy to have around the house or in the field, and stainless steel knife kits from Sarge and Camillus (see facing page) are fun to build, even if you have only modest skills or no knife-making experience. Alternately, consider giving one of these kits to a fellow woodworker as a unique gift! Simple Templating, Drilling There’s no metalsmithing involved in building these knives; you’re simply making the two wooden handle halves, called scales, that attach to the metal liners (on folding knives) or the tang (on fixed-blade knives). We’ll make the larger folding knife here. Start by jointing and planing a piece of stock for the scales down to about ¼" thick. Make it long enough to lay out two scales end-to-end and…

A good friend celebrated a milestone birthday this year, and since he’s a real wine aficionado, I wanted to give him a few very nice bottles of wine presented in a special way. I’ve seen expensive vintage wines sold in wooden presentation boxes, but I wanted to make something that’s well beyond the ordinary. So I designed a box that presents the wine bottles by tilting them up as the lid is opened. Most of this project is a very straightforward build and requires no special hardware. The box itself has sides joined with dovetails and a solid-wood bottom set into a groove. The hinged lid is made with a mitered frame that holds a floating raised panel. The bottle-lifting mechanism attaches to the underside of the lid and has…

Waterfall joints are a subtle but lovely design feature that has gained popularity lately. Featured on kitchen islands in some home improvement shows, this particular type of mitered corner has become nearly ubiquitous. That’s really what we are talking about: mitered corners, conceived in such a way as to allow the grain of your panel to "flow” around the corner. So, what are the details to keep in mind when you are considering a waterfall joint? Let’s start with the most obvious: the panel from which you’ll cut your corners has to be long enough to have continuous grain — in our example here, the “waterfall” flows between the sides and the top. Our bottom panel does not have continuous grain. Next, if you are using a solidwood panel, aligning…

The Stickleys strived for function over flair in their designs, but that early 20th-century sensibility makes some of their furniture seem imposing and “heavy” by today’s standards, particularly with a dark finish. So, we’re giving the conventional Arts & Crafts plant stand a bit of a face-lift here. Instead of straight, wide and thicker crosspieces, gentle curves and a taller stance make our updated version appear lighter on its feet. And those delicate top rails remind me of velvet cordons showcasing a favorite plant. While you can certainly stain this project any “Mission brown” color you like, its compact size makes this project a manageable candidate for traditional ammonia fuming. If you’ve never tried it, there’s no better way to finally know what a fumed finish looks like than to…