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As with woodworking skills, design and drawing skills take practice. For many woodworkers, design seems like a leap into the unknown. It’s one thing to teach our hands to saw to a curved line; [...]

On my most recent project I needed an elliptical arc. Although my arc conforms to the Golden Ratio (1:1.62), the method I use works for an ellipse of any proportion. Determine the overall size of [...]

Has anyone else tried modeling an entire project in SketchUp Free yet? If you haven't heard, SketchUp is pushing users to use their web-based version of SketchUp.

I’m currently working on a variation on L & J. G. Stickley’s No. 220 prairie settle. The settle’s three sides consist of frame and panels. Because I’m building a shorter version, I need to [...]

When I teach woodworkers about SketchUp we always reach a point where I say, “the level of detail to include in your model is up to you”. Then I explain the level that I usually work [...]

Of all the variables of design, context is the easiest to miss. That is one of the powerful things about using SketchUp, you can easily compare one piece to another, add a human figure to the [...]

I’m in the early planning stages for an upcoming project build for Popular Woodworking Magazine. The project will be a reproduction of a wardrobe cabinet from the early 1900s. I was trying [...]

One of the reasons I prefer to plan projects from SketchUp models is how easy it is to extract information from the model. In my earlier days I  prepared shop drawings with pencil and paper, and [...]

Bob Lang goes over the details of the new release of Sketch 2013, shows the new features and explains the difference between the free SketchUp Make and SketchUp Pro

Before I jump onto my soapbox to spout off, I’ll share a bit more about drawers for my upcoming workbench. I plan to have two stacks, each with five drawers. Sizes range from a small [...]

In 2006, as I began my first round at Popular Woodworking Magazine (PWM), I was told I had to build a workbench. Even with then editor Christopher Schwarz chest deep in workbench publications, it [...]

Traditional approaches in woodworking are generally reliable and efficient. If you know something has worked well for other woodworkers for a few hundreds years, you can likely assume that [...]