John English

It can be hard for a woodshop to keep current with bits and blades.

Rising out of the ashes of war, Ikea spent the second half of the 20th century developing ways to flat-pack furniture.

A few years ago, I was asked to make felloes for a wagon wheel.

It’s one of the most visible and tactile signs of a good job.

Nanyang Technological University in Singapore is a research-intensive public campus with 33,000 students in its pre- and post-graduate classes.

By now, most woodworkers are quite familiar with the phrase “Industry 4.0”, which describes the current and fourth industrial revolution.

If you didn’t catch it at AWFS last summer, Benz Inc., (benztooling.com) introduced a couple of adjustable angle head systems at the show.

Whether it’s drawer slides, pulls, corbels, aluminum doors, moldings or lighting, there’s a world of possibility out there for casework designers.

While many woodshops use prefinished hardwood veneered panels to cut down on construction time, there has been resistance among others to jump aboard because of a belief that the coating will scratch in transit or use, and also because of an impression that the choices are limited to a clear UV on natural veneer.

Remember back in shop class when joinery used to mean lap, butt, mortise or dovetail? Well, times have changed.

Woodshops that produce flooring are usually among the first to notice new consumer appetites.

Battery advances and a new generation of brushless motors are combining to make life on the jobsite a whole lot easier, and more productive.

Finishes are mostly fluid, and so is the nature of the cabinet and furniture coatings industry.

There’s a lot happening with the tools that we use for finish sanding. These include rotary, orbital, belt and inline sanders, and all of them are seeing significant technological changes. Not least of these is the power source.

Blade technology is moving right along, and it’s not just tungsten compounds or plate geometry that’s evolving. Profiles are also benefiting from Industry 4.0 technologies.

In December, three companies with CNC connections got together and presented a productivity workshop in California.

It sounds so simple – turn on a vacuum and suck up the dust. But there is so much more to effective dust control in a woodshop. And it begins with the question: Why bother?

The market keeps expanding as manufacturers focus on safety, cordless options, software and new designs.

Sign making is definitely one route that a woodshop can take to turn an idle CNC router into a profitable investment. Pretty much any model can carve signs in wood, foam or plastic, and the major physical limit is usually just the size of the machine’s work area.

The only way to spot a trend is to search for its trail. By looking back, we can often guess the way forward. We can never know definitively where it will lead, but perhaps it’s enough to just enjoy the ride, and perhaps even influence the direction a little.

Finish carpenters and cabinet installers have had a routine for decades that is slowly being erased. They have backed a truck up to the shop door in the morning, rolled a ‘portable’ compressor outside, and then lifted it onto the tailgate.

Everybody in construction knows that framing lumber prices are up more than 20 percent over a year ago, and the rebuilding effort after California’s fires and some major hurricanes will only strengthen that market over the next year.

Securing sheet stock on a CNC bed is a large part of the machining process. Clamps, jigs and vacuums hold the material steady while the spindle moves. But when it comes to turning parts on a CNC, everything changes. That’s because the work is no longer stationary: the wood moves too.

It’s hard to believe, but hand sanders have been around for more than 90 years. The first one, which looked remarkably like a modern belt sander, was invented in 1926 by Art Emmons at the Porter-Cable factory in Syracuse, N.Y. Before his ‘Take About Sander’, according to the company, “workers

A recent article (Oct. 2) by Tim McKeough in The New York Times (“Putting a designer’s polish on Ikea products”) describes how a supplier used off-the-shelf Ikea boxes and custom designer doors to create a small but very stylish New York kitchen – for $1,600 without the doors.

There are more than 40 brands of finish nailers on the market, and most manufacturers offer several models.

Physical size seems to be less of a consideration than budget, at least when smaller shops begin shopping for a CNC router.

Looking at the Dow Jones Industrial Average, one might think that the U.S. economy is firing on all cylinders and we’re in for some great times.

Buying prefinished panels can be a real time saver and offer a number of other advantages

With an abundance of options, the time is right to explore cutting, engraving and marking with lasers

Cost, availability and in-house expertise are playing larger roles in choosing a work-holding system

While it’s the most effective way to achieve a perfect surface, sanding is also the most challenging to manage

Choosing the correct adhesive can be a challenge, but it doesn't have to be

There really is a useful app for almost any task you can envision in the woodshop

“It’s possible to learn more in one week from a master woodworker than you could learn in years from your own experience.”

Having been born and raised in Ireland, I can honestly say that a good jig — musical or woodshop — always lightens my heart. And here’s one that any casework installer will like.

Twenty-four years ago, Max Hunter and his family founded one of the first woodshops that was specifically designed to make parts for other cabinetmakers

The biggest problem with software is that it’s constantly changing. Of course, that’s also the attraction.

Powder coating equipment is moving into more and more woodshops because MDF’s density and uniform surface are so well-suited to the technology.

It runs the gamut from a hands-on, one-cabinet-door-at-a-time benchtop activity to a fully automated industrial process where machines do all the work.

British writers first began using the term “joiner” in the 14th century to describe people who fixed wooden parts together. It wasn’t until 1678 that the word “joinery” emerged, but the practice itself dates to the ancient Egyptians.