Fine Woodworking Magazine

Our Unlimited membership provides exclusive access to a dynamic menu of woodworking talent, techniques, and projects—combining our print subscription with our online membership—all for $99 a year. For details on all the benefits, go to FineWoodworking.com/members. Online extras Visit FineWoodworking.com/321 Slicing up a slab Breaking down a slab for furniture is not a common practice. Rob Hare shares his tricks for sawing a large slab and utilizing the best parts. VIDEO Hide-glue hacks Lost Art Press utilizes hot hide glue for many projects, often in unexpected ways. Learn how to prepare it in different forms and how to apply it to furniture and other pieces. Remembering Kelly Mehler Peter Galbert, Andy Glenn, and Brian Boggs share memories of the wonderful woodworker and mentor Kelly Mehler and reflect on the impact…

Doug King (“Glass-Top End Table” and Master Class) began his journey into woodworking with studies in forestry at the University of Montana. He immediately fell in love with the vast, dramatic landscapes. His passion for rock climbing kept him in the area, and he embarked on years of traveling and climbing throughout the western United States. To support this, he worked as a carpenter and timber framer. Seeking a deeper engagement in the work and material, he studied at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Maine and then at the College of the Redwoods, where he delved deep into the art of woodworking. He says, “Krenov’s influence has been instrumental in my evolution as a craftsman and educator.” Megan Fitzpatrick and Chris Schwarz (Handwork) met at a now-defunct publishing company…

Intrepid makers To mark Fine Woodworking’s 50th anniversary this year, we made the rash promise to publish a freshet of articles examining, explaining, and celebrating our shared field and the people who have appeared in the magazine’s pages. So far we’ve had one article tracking a timeline of advancements in woodworking tools and machines, two on younger woodworkers who are making a mark, and another on prominent teachers and mentors—and there will be several more to come. The year has not been long enough to contain them all. This issue’s anniversary article, “Enlarging the Envelope,” is focused on a handful of American furniture makers whose work we judged to be among the most impactful of the past half century. We chose makers whose work not only was supremely well designed…

When applying solid-wood strips to plywood edges, you usually need quite a few clamps to apply even pressure along the length of the strips. Bar clamps will do the trick, but not all of us have enough of those for the job, and wide pieces of plywood require relatively long clamps to reach the opposite edge. Here’s an easy way to attach edging strips using F-style clamps, which tend to be more plentiful in most shops. Any size clamps will work. In my experience, this approach works even better than using purpose-made edge-banding clamps. Attach the F-clamps to the plywood panel, with the bars placed a consistent distance away from the edge, and then drive small wood wedges between the bar and the edging. If your edging is thin, you…

■ SHARPENING Affordable sharpening-stone kit delivers MY SHARPENING STONES HAVE EVOLVED STEPWISE since I began woodworking. After a few weeks of using sandpaper, I used oilstones for a few years until I discovered waterstones. Now, Zen-Wu Toolworks’ ZenSharp starter kit has taken me forward by a huge leap. The system cuts fast, is super convenient, and leaves a great edge. The ZenSharp kit includes four thin, magnetic cards—three diamond cards and one charged strop—which affix to a stout, mostly nonslip base. The diamond cards are coarse, medium, and fine, which Zen-Wu says are 45μm (i.e., 45 micrometers), 20μm, and 9μm, respectively. The cards measure about 3 in. by 7 ⅞ in. and, according to Zen-Wu, are flat to within 0.015 mm. A slotted maple block to hold the cards is…

Furniture makers who work the craft-show circuit often build a bunch of simple, lower-cost items to place around the big and expensive furniture pieces they make. These “smalls,” as they are called in the business, are a great way to meet new customers and make some gas money. We’ve always admired good-looking smalls. But because we don’t travel to sell our work, we build smalls for other reasons: charity donations and gifts for family, friends, and good customers. These little projects use up scraps and are gratifying to make after finishing an intense project. The smalls shown here are all built using small pieces of wood, simple joinery, and easy finishes. Most often, they feature cut nails (sort of) and paint, with maybe one or two dadoes or dovetails as…