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The online manual for our “I Can Do that Column” has been updated and is now ready for a free download. This manual, in pdf format, adds chapters on cutting egg crate joints and layout tools. These skills and tools will help you build the Egg Crate Shelves featured in the August 2006 issue.

If you’re not familiar with our “I Can Do That Column,” here’s a primer: It’s a column that focuses on building nice furniture with just a handful of decent tools.

The manual will help you select the right tools that strike a balance between price and function. You need to use these tools correctly; we’ll show you how to use them to build furniture (something you rarely find in the instruction manual).

You need a place to work; a driveway, garage or corner of the basement will do nicely. You need good materials; we’ll show you how to get everything you need from the local home center. And you need plans and ideas for things to build that look nice and can be constructed with these tools, methods and materials.

The plans are in a column featured in every issue of Popular Woodworking magazine. We call the column “I Can Do That” because we want readers to say that (out loud or in their heads) when they open our magazine to that page. This online manual is the instruction book for every single project featured in “I Can Do That.”

Eventually, we think you’ll outgrow this manual as your skills improve. I bet you will want a table saw someday. And a drill press. And a smoothing plane. When that day comes, however, you’ll also have a house full of well-proportioned, well-built projects under your belt. You will be ready for those awesome tools, and the learning curve will be mercifully shorter.

Check it out.

Christopher Schwarz


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