Fine Woodworking

Woodworkers rely on the versatile mortise-and-tenon joint for making sturdy frames, panels, stools, tables and stands. Frank Klausz shows you how to make the joint cleanly and quickly, using hand tools or basic woodshop machines. You will learn about: laying out for handwork, chiseling the mortises, sawing the tenons, laying out for router and handsaw, routing the mortises, bandsawing the tenons, laying out for mortiser and table saw, making a hollow-chisel mortiser , and working tenons on the table saw.

If it's properly fitting drawers you're after, this is the video workshop for you. Professional cabinetmaker Frank Klausz cuts quick, precise dovetails without jigs or templates, then glues up and fits the finished drawer. You will learn about: dovetail drawer anatomy, transferring dimensions from the scale drawing to a full-scale "story-pole", choosing lumber, marking out, ripping and crosscutting drawer parts, marking out the dovetails and pins, hand sawing the pins and tails and chopping out the waste gluing up, and applying finishing touches with a smooth plane.

Want to build your own Shaker-style dining table? You can -- once you've watched how furniture maker Kelly Mehler handles the task. You'll watch a skilled craftsman organize the entire process of making a traditional leg-and-apron table, from stock selection to finish preparation. And you'll be able to use his techniques for any furniture project you want to tackle. You will learn about: selecting and milling wood, laying out, jointing and gluing the top, milling and tapering the legs, mortising and tenoning with the router, fitting the joints, gluing up the table base, sizing and smoothing the top, edge treatments, and final detailing.

Discover dozens of ways that the router can be used to increase your productivity -- and creativity -- in the shop. In this video, you'll learn basic router joinery and how to rout the subtle shapes necessary to create a handsome hand mirror (plans for the hand mirror are in the accompanying booklet).

Handplanes In The Workshop is a great introduction to using hand planes. Mario Rodriguez reviews how to tune and use the smoothing plane, the jointer plane, the block plane and the shoulder plane, with a special emphasis on tuning the Stanley N4, a complicated task.

Frame-and-panel construction is a fundamental strategy in woodwork, because it can accommodate woods inevitable seasonal expansion and shrinkage. In this DVD, Graham Blackburn tackles the basic frame. He explains the functions and design opportunities of stiles, rails, and muntins and shows you how to combine them into a frame. He also shows you how to think out the proportions of the frame parts and their relation to the panel they contain. Working with both classic hand tools and common woodworking machines, Blackburn joins his frame members with mortises and haunched tenons. He shows you how to get a perfect match between the mortises and the grooves that take the panel, and also demonstrates drawboring -- a traditional method of making tight joints in a frame, without glue. Blackburn discusses the benefits of various shapes to make your panel -- wider versus taller -- and orientation of the grain. He demonstrates how to feather, rabbet or raise the panel; and he shows you the merits of different design possibilities such as double-fielded panels, centrally beaded or reeded panels, carved and even painted panels. This video is a compilation of two Video Workshops: Frame and Panel 1: Making and Joining the Frame and Frame and Panel 2: Panel Raising.

Using skills learned from over 30 years as a professional cabinet maker, Frank Klausz brings you shop-proven advice and instruction to help you turn out handsome bookcases and cabinets using biscuit joinery. You'll see firsthand exactly how to do the work?the tools, the techniques, and timesaving tricks that can help you work efficiently. Frank takes you step-by-step from start to finish, demonstrating each process in detail.

In this one-of-a-kind DVD, woodworker Bob Flexner gives you the working knowledge you need of the practical and decorative aspects of refinishing. He shows you when to rejuvenate an old finish, how to remove a finish that has failed, and how to finish all your fine furniture.

Woodworkers of every skill level will find something useful in this DVE about the most versatile power tool in the shop. For router expert Pat Warner, the basic idea is to use the router as a "finishing" tool: do all your rough-cutting and hogging with other power tools, then remove the last 1/32 in. of wood with the router, in a clean, surgical stroke. Warner shows you how to rout clean circles and holes; how to make half-lap joints at the ends of boards, and laps in the middle of boards that cross each other at any angle you choose. There's a section on the anatomy of a fixed-base router, another on the use of the collar guide for precise template work, and a lesson on getting two different shapes from the same decorative-profile bit. Warner explains how to get the most out of your router. He shows you how to rout perfect dadoes and grooves, how to make through mortises without tearout, and how to set up and use the table-mounted router. You'll also learn all about bearing-guided bits, how to rout sliding dovetails, and how to manage full-thickness cuts to make edge treatments like bullnoses. This DVD is a compilation of two Video Workshops: Versatile Router 1 and Versatile Router 2.

Now you can watch your own private demonstration on chairmaking with this valuable DVD from Jeff Miller. In clear, simple language, he shows you precisely how to create and put together framed chairs, post-and-ring chairs and chairs with plank seats. By simplifying the complex and providing step-by-step techniques that are easy to follow, Miller's advice will have you ready to build extraordinary chairs in no time. In this DVD, Jeff Miller demystifies the art of chairmaking. He shows how to build comfort, strength, and good looks into three different structural chair styles: framed chairs, post-and-rung chairs, and chairs with plank seats. This classic Fine Woodworking DVD takes you right into an expert woodworker's shop. So you can see firsthand precisely how to do the work. And it gives you the flexibility to move at your own pace, reviewing any section as often as you like.

Through his books and magazine articles and in seminars across the country, Mark Duginske has helped thousands of bandsaw owners tweak their wayward machines into precision tune. He will show you how to do that and more, including some really extraordinary bandsaw tricks and techniques.