Building Tongue and Groove Doors

Building tongue and groove doors is easier than you might think, and you do not need an array of fancy tools to do it. Depending on the wood used, these simple-to-build doors can be used on shop cabinets or upscale interior applications.

Building Arched Panel Doors

Forming an arch in the top of a panel-style door adds a look of elegance to the finished product. The same procedures can be used to form arches in the top and bottom of the panels, or split the arch across two doors.

Building a Flat Panel Door

A flat panel door can be defined as a door in which the panel has no bevel or hip raise. It can still be considered a five piece door, as it consists of two stiles, two frames and a panel. The stiles are the vertical members of the frame, while the rails are the horizontal members.

Build A Banjo

Full beginning to end instruction on building a quality banjo.

Build A Workbench

Step by step instructions to building a workbench.

Making Wooden Hinges

Choosing and installing hinges has always been a frustrating part of the process of making a hinged box. The array of hinges available is staggering, yet often it is difficult to find just the right hinge for a particular project.

Make Crown Molding

Nothing dresses up a room or a cabinet like the regal presence of crown molding. This classical accent defines a project the way a frame embellishes an oil painting. And with such a wide array of profiles available, there's a crown molding made to fit every space.

Medicine Man Glider

I started talking with Eddie, the World War II vet who lived across the street, and during those 3 months he taught me the fundamentals of model airplane building. His lifelong hobby, which he had learned during the Great Depression, became my own, and it inspired my career as a flight instructor and developer of UAVs for the U.S. Air Force. I designed the Medicine Man to reintroduce this largely lost art, drawing on my own experience and discussions with fellow modelers. I made it a glider because gliders are the purest form of flying machine, they’re cheaper to build, and they develop piloting skills without the distraction of engine management. It’s R/C compatible so you can fly it in city and suburban parks, or you can make a free-flight version for larger expanses. Its 5-foot wingspan makes it stable enough for beginners (larger planes are more stable), yet with the wings dismounted it will fit in a small car.

The Walk-Around Workbench

I designed this bench to fit the small garage at my home in England. There was no room in that garage to open the doors of my compact car, so for years I'd pushed it in and pulled it out by hand. To fix this, I cut a wide doorway in the concrete block side wall, supported the roof with a steel joist and fitted a sliding door with a 1/3 height window. The garage was now too good for the car; instead, I moved my workshop into it from the rather smaller garden shed.

Creating Furniture From Architectural Finds

In my shop, old doors, windows and hardware are staples. Let me explain. After deciding it was time to do something that I had always been interested in, but of which I had little experience or knowledge, I enrolled in a heritage carpentry program at a local college. I intended to work at restoring some of the lovely old properties in Ottawa, Ontario, where I live. Maybe that was a little naive considering the amount of work it entailed, so I scaled my aspirations down a bit. I turned my attention to salvaging and using the doors and windows from vintage buildings, which hold a special appeal to me. I appreciate the craftsmanship of each piece.

Workbench Accessories

Before I set out to make a workbench a few years back, I asked myself two questions: "What do I need?" and "What do I want?" My need list was easy. After working on the rock-solid benches, I knew that my bench had to be flat, sturdy, well equipped with good vises and built for my 5'9" frame. I pored through books, websites and magazines before compiling my want list: a board jack, a twin-screw end vise and lots of bench dogs.

Making a Trestle Table

Like most woodworkers, I had some lumber I was saving for the perfect project, some large planks of 8/4 angelique — a heavy, dense South-American hardwood similar to teak but without the oil. Apparently, it was reclaimed off an old barge that sat in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, for almost 80 years. A friend and fellow wooden-boat builder acquired it and gave me two precious boards. After a couple of years, I finally decided to use it to make a trestle table. I used 5/4 mahogany for the tabletop to provide a nice reddish contrast to the darker browns of the base.

Simple Raised Panels by Hand

Making a raised panel for a frame-and-panel door with power tools typically involves a large router, a router table and an expensive 3-1/2" diameter bit. Or you can make raised panels on the table saw with a dedicated jig (for safety) and a good deal of sanding to remove the saw-blade marks. The third option that many woodworkers forget to consider is to make the raised panels by hand. If you have only a few panels to do, making them by hand is just as fast as setting up your machinery. And the results are crisp, ready to finish and have a nice handmade look about them.

A Project of Magnitude: Building a Boardroom Table

When the opportunity to design and build an executive boardroom table presented itself, I felt both excited and a bit overwhelmed. I knew working with such large veneered panels would be challenging, but, with the assistance of my associates, I was able to overcome my trepidation. In this article, I will describe how we built this rather distinct piece of furniture and share some of the tricks we employed. Most of what you read here could be used in making a beautiful dining table.

Build a Wall Niche

If you need to carve out more storage space in your bathroom, we've got the project for you. Bathrooms are notoriously cramped, so we designed this cabinet to fit inside a wall, where it won't take up valuable space. We kept the width slightly narrower than the 14-1/2-in. stud space, so the cabinet will fit even if the studs are a little off center or bowed. We installed our cabinet in a bathroom, but it will work in any unobstructed wall cavity.