What have you made lately?

Bill Kovalick

Worn out dowel hole — It’s not uncommon for dowel joints in older furniture to fail over time. In some cases, the dowel will snap off. In other cases, the hole may become oversized so the dowel will no longer fit snugly into it. Once a dowel hole starts to wear, it just gets worse over time because the loosened […]

Repairing a Worn Out Dowel Hole

This entry was posted in Joinery Restoration on October 2, 2014 by Bill Kovalick

4-way equal pressure clamp — Like most woodworkers, I have accumulated quite an assortment of woodworking clamps over the years. As someone once said, you can never have too many clamps. Of course, I love, er… I mean like some of my clamps more than others… The clamps I use most often are trigger-action mini bar clamps. They’re lightweight, adjust […]

Clamps I Have Known (and Loved ??)

This entry was posted in Accesories Tools on September 30, 2014 by Bill Kovalick

Sanding with bench cookies — Looking to “fill out” an order of woodworking supplies, I decided to buy a four pack of bench cookies. I was somewhat skeptical of these relative newcomers to the woodworking scene, but for 12 bucks, how could I go wrong? I figured I could always use them as drink coasters if they didn’t perform well […]

Bench Cookies – Not Too Crumby

This entry was posted in Accesories Finishing on September 30, 2014 by Bill Kovalick

Woodshop air filtration unit — Dust is not our friend. It coats our tools, work surfaces, and worst of all, our lungs. Centralized dust collection systems do a good job of removing wood chips, chunks, shavings, and larger dust particles but you need something more to remove the fine airborne dust particles. That’s where an air filtration device comes in. […]

Roll Around Woodshop Air Filtration System

This entry was posted in Accesories on September 9, 2014 by Bill Kovalick

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I used to use a commercial blade cleaning product with the no-nonsense name of “Saw Cleaner” to remove pitch from my circular saw blades. It did a great job — you just sprayed it on, let it sit for a few minutes and then wiped off with an old tooth brush and warm soapy water, […]

Cleaning Circular Saw Blades

This entry was posted in Tools on September 9, 2014 by Bill Kovalick

Short board cut diagonally — A technique for lengthening a board that involves cutting it in half diagonally.

How to Make a Board Longer

This entry was posted in Techniques on September 9, 2014 by Bill Kovalick

How to cope base board molding to create a gap free joint.

How to Cope Molding

This entry was posted in Joinery on September 9, 2014 by Bill Kovalick

Joiner's mallets — A wooden joiner’s mallet is a very useful shop tool for project assembly, chiseling, inserting dowels, and general purpose pounding operations. Compared to a conventional metal hammer, it is less damaging to wood or metal surfaces, especially if the faces of the mallet are covered with leather. The relatively large face of a typical wooden mallet spreads the […]

Joiner’s Mallets

This entry was posted in Projects on July 8, 2014 by Bill Kovalick

Restored garden bench — We bought this garden bench about 15 years ago from the local Lowes home improvement store. It held up fairly well for about 10 years but inevitably the oak slats on it started to rot and break apart. The finish also disintegrated over time (yes, I didn’t maintain it) and the bench took on a gray, […]

Restoring a Garden Bench

This entry was posted in Projects Restoration on July 8, 2014 by Bill Kovalick

Walk into most any hardware or Home Depot type store and invariably you’ll find boxes upon boxes of drywall screws but only a meager selection of woodworking screws. Not only that, the drywall screws cost much less than the woodworking screws. As a consequence, I suspect many a woodworker has pondered the question: “Can drywall […]

Using Drywall Screws for Woodworking

This entry was posted in Fasteners on July 7, 2014 by Bill Kovalick

After reading about the virtues of aniline dyes for years, I finally decided to take the plunge and try them out on a rustic grandmother clock that I inherited from my dad. The unfinished maple clock had been sitting in a barn for at least 25 years and over that time, the wood had darkened […]

Aniline Dyes – First Impressions

This entry was posted in Finishing on July 6, 2014 by Bill Kovalick

Choosing the right saw blade for a cutting task can mean the difference between misery and glory. If you’ve ever tried to rip a piece of 4/4 oak with a saw blade that’s not designed for ripping, or tried making a cross-cut on a piece of plywood with a rip blade you know what I’m […]

Choosing a Saw Blade

This entry was posted in Accesories Safety Tools on July 6, 2014 by Bill Kovalick

Multiple cedar bird houses — When embarking on a new woodworking project, I ask myself if the item of interest would be a good candidate for making more than one. This usually comes down to answering these specific questions: Can I use multiple copies? If I’m building a Murphy bed for the man cave, there’s no need to build more […]

Making Sense of Making Multiples

This entry was posted in Techniques and tagged bird house multiple copies on July 6, 2014 by Bill Kovalick

My dad added a porch to our house back in the 1970’s and I must say he did a pretty good job overall. Especially for someone who wasn’t a professional builder or carpenter. However, there was one critical flaw in the construction: the main sill plate running across the front of the porch was made […]

When Wood Goes Bad

This entry was posted in Projects on July 4, 2014 by Bill Kovalick

Sleepy cat lounging on cat tree — After adopting a kitten from the local animal shelter, we decided to build a “cat tree” for the young mischief maker. I did a bit of Googling and came across what seemed to be a decent set of plans at CatTreePlans.com. For only $10, they offer plans for six different cat trees, all available as downloadable […]

Cat Tree

This entry was posted in Projects on June 26, 2014 by Bill Kovalick

End result of coffee table with new finish. — I bought this parquet coffee table from some neighbors that were moving and didn’t want to haul their old furniture with them. I got a good deal on the table, especially considering that it had one of those spring-assisted pop-up mechanisms for adjusting the height of the table top. The table was in good condition […]

Adventures in Refinishing a Coffee Table

This entry was posted in Finishing on June 16, 2014 by Bill Kovalick