Arts & Mysteries

I really appreciate the overwhelming response I received from my tool offerings. Thank you all so much for your interest and support. It really means a lot to me personally. As I said when I [...]

As you will soon learn in your favorite magazine, I am building a chippendale chair. So naturally I’m looking at as many chairs as possible. I’ve had the opportunity to examine [...]

I’ve been offering my sense of the changing world of reproduction furniture making for a few years now. I won’t repeat it here accept to say yesterday’s reproductions probably [...]

As many of you know, I demonstrate early woodwork at Pennsbury Manor. We were visited a few weeks ago by a reporter from a local newspaper who wanted to see why we do what we do. You can read his [...]

I’ve been working on making chisels for close to 9 months now. I’ve finally made up a number of sets for review. As comments come back, I’ll make some final tweaks. If the [...]

One of the unique things about Popular Woodworking’s Arts and Mysteries column is that it has long, sometimes year long, series. Let’s face it. Woodworking magazines have been in [...]

To hear Chris Schwarz describe it, writing for Popular Woodworking meant endless parties and very little “real” work. Now in my fourth year, I find it more similar to a vocational [...]

I’m making a few tools for sale. I just want to say, that I’m thrilled Mike Dunbar is writing for PW. Have you been reading his articles? I think he is my favorite ww author. Dunbar [...]

I just got my copy of “Early American Life” magazine in which I was listed in the “Directory of Traditional American Crafts”. I was included in the “Furniture, [...]

Sea Captain James MacPherson built Mount Pleasant to ensure his ascention into a social class to which he was not born. The building’s carved interior may be ostentatious to some. [...]

If you buy into the sentiment in my previous blog, the next logical question is “But where do I start?” “Must I start by flint knapping a stone plane blade?” “Adam, [...]

This question arose in the earliest days of Christendom. I believe St. Paul, himself a Jew, provided the definitive answer: Naah. For my own part I understand those who felt Christianity is a [...]