The snow is finally melting. You can see the greenish-brown grass again. That means we are heading into spring. That, in turn, signifies that I need to get busy preparing for upcoming teaching gigs and you need to get on the phone to schedule classes. So to be as self-serving as I can ? and to help get you motivated to attend the schools that have so graciously invited me to teach ? here?s my schedule, along with a snippet of information to help prompt you to action.

Rolling down the calendar, the first class I come to is in April, the 24th and 25th to be exact. That weekend I'll be in Franklin, IN at Marc Adams School of Woodworking (MASW). The class is "Giving Your Furniture a Leg Up." As you might guess from the title, the class is all about feet and legs. This is not just a lecture class. You're going to work on a few different feet and legs over the weekend. The need for good design is a given, but knowing secrets that make the work easy is usually learned through trial and error. I have a few shortcuts to pass along such as how to develop patterns from antique originals and quick and easy setups. With each leg or foot design, you'll pickup hints about proper shaping and learn various ways to work depending on what tools you have available in your.

May finds me up in Minnesota at Mike Siemsen's School of Woodworking. On the 24th through the 29th, we?re building a Chippendale Small Chest.  This project was my first woodworking DVD.  The class introduces case construction, including dovetails (hand-cut, if you please), sliding dovetails and proper 18th-Century drawer construction. The techniques learned throughout the week enable are a proper foundation to building quality case furniture from the mid-1700s design to contemporary chests. There?s a true mix of hand tools and power tools. Hybrid woodworking at its finest.

Beginning the 28th of June, I'm back to Kelly Mehler's School of Woodworking in Berea, KY to for a week long "Baltimore Card Table" class. This project, from the pages of Popular Woodworking Magazine, is an example of the most iconic pieces of furniture from the Federal period. Veneer, string inlay, marquetry and edge banding are part of the class, as is bricking the front apron which is a great way to make things curve in woodworking ? the good kind of curve. Slip on your safety glasses. This class is power tools producing handwork results. As I write, there one bench open.

During the month of July, join me just outside Philadelphia in East Coventry, PA for a class at The Acanthus Workshops. Chuck Bender has me coming in the 19th through the 23rd to build a Chester County Chest. This isn't an ordinary chest. The drawer fronts have line-and-berry inlay. The original inlay was scratched into the surface and fill with string ? which we will do some of as part of the learning experience ? but in our class we'll power up the process to work with patterns and routers. Acanthus accepts six participants per class. Call or click to register.

The following month I?m back at MASW for two classes that run back-to-back. Beginning the 23rd, we'll build the Shaker Press Cupboard from my first book, "Fine Furniture for a Lifetime." This piece was the most-often purchased piece in my days as a "for pay" furniture maker, but you won't find it in any Shaker books. This piece began as a blind-door cupboard, but when a customer suggested true divided-light doors, the piece changed dramatically. From a woodworking perspective, this cupboard offers a multitude of instruction from mortise-and-tenon joinery to dovetails to pegged shelves set in dados. But the most interesting technique is how to build glass doors without router-cut rabbets for the panes.

Immediately following the Shaker Press Cupboard is a one-day class on "Finishes That Pop." This process I use to finish most of the pieces in my books or in Popular Woodworking Magazine. Find out there is a difference in aniline dyes and that there is a reason to apply boiled linseed oil to your work. Also, discover how to use shellac even if you aren?t setup with spray equipment. Take your projects to the next level. If you cannot make the finishing class, and by all rights you should if you can because of the "hands-on" aspect, you can pick up a copy of "Finishes that Pop" from our Woodworkers Bookshop. (Click here)
If you have any questions about these classes, please contact me. But more importantly, contact the schools and sign up. It looks like a great woodworking year.

? Glen D. Huey

A couple weeks back, I wrote about the step-chair I was making for my niece, per a Fitzpatrick family tradition that began in the 1950s. The project plan was from U-Bild, which discontinued the plan probably in the early 1990s, said a company official who cited poor sales as the likely culprit. But I had a fair number of people request the plan, so I e-mailed U-Bild again, and they kindly gave permission for me to post it.

I've done so in the PDF below (compatible with Adobe Reader 7.0 and later) ? and my apologies in advance for the image quality. This is a scan of a photocopy of a photocopy from a plan from the '50s, shrunk down to work on our server ? it's the best I've got to offer.

Note: I did modify the plan a wee bit by trimming the bottoms of the base pieces so the sides would rest on the floor in the step-stool position. If I built it again, I'd simply shape the sides with more of a swoop, or move the dowel down (it seems to me important to have the sides rest on the floor; otherwise, the thing is tippy).

And I had to chuckle at the first paragraph under "Recommended Finish," which reads: "Use plenty of sandpaper. The beauty of the finished article depends largely upon the amount of time spent in sanding." My grandfather (the original owner of this much-used plan) didn't enjoy time spent in sanding. But to be fair, neither do I ? which is why I love my No. 4.

By the way: We're working on our own design for a flip-stool; look for that in the August "I Can Do That." Glen's building it out of scrap tiger maple (natch).

StepChair.pdf (171.3 KB)

Blade-braking technology is a vital part of the table saws from SawStop ? the ability to stop a spinning blade in 1/100 of a second is what put the company on the map. SawStop table saws are the only woodworking machines with this technology. Is that about to change? Below is a link to a Boston Globe article detailing a jury-awarded verdict for a lawsuit that's the first of its kind. We're working on what this might mean to woodworkers and the woodworking industry. What do you think?

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/03/06/man_wins_15m_in_first_of_its_kind_saw_case/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed5

What changes do you see springing from cases such as these? If you don't think changes are in the pipeline, take a look at this link.

http://tablesawattorney.com/index.php

For more background information, check out this article from INC. Magazine.

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20050701/disruptor-gass.html

? Glen D. Huey

I dislike writing about the magazine business because it's not useful for our readers, who expect us to write about woodworking instead of engaging in navel-gazing.

But because we have received a lot of questions and mail about the merger of Popular Woodworking and Woodworking Magazine, I'm going to make an exception, lift up my shirt and take a quick peek.

First: Thanks for your letters ? both positive and negative ? about the new magazine. We read them all and respond to every one that we can. In my e-mail inbox, the sentiment about the new magazine is about 2-to-1 in favor of the changes. The criticisms have mostly been about the addition of advertising and the amount of woodworking information we are now delivering. So let's take a look there.

The April 2010 Popular Woodworking Magazine is a 68-page issue with 19 pages that are advertisements. That's 49 pages of "meat," for lack of a better word. Let's check the "meat index" of an issue of Woodworking Magazine. There are 36 pages in each issue with only one page of advertising (the "Extras" page on page 35). That's 35 pages of meat.

What about Popular Woodworking before the merger? The February 2010 issue was 76 pages with 17 pages of advertisements. That's 59 pages of stories. (Note that we have averaged about 60 pages of meat in each issue during the last couple years.)

It looks like Popular Woodworking Magazine is smaller than Popular Woodworking but larger than Woodworking Magazine. Right?

It's not that simple.

The design of the new magazine is quite different. The paper is larger than what we used with Popular Woodworking, and we have less white space. We also have constrained the size of the photographs at the beginning of each article ? no more full-page spreads. And we have tightened up the columnists. "Arts & Mysteries," "Flexner on Finishing" and "Design Matters" are all two pages each instead of three. We tightened things up with old-fashioned editing, by the way. Instead of removing information, we removed unnecessary words that weren't doing their jobs.

So counting pages isn't a good indicator. Why don't we count the words instead?

Personally, I think counting words is silly. No one will argue that Golden Corral is better than The French Laundry because the Golden Corral gives you more calories. But it is one indicator. Here are the numbers:

1. During the last year, Popular Woodworking has averaged 33,642 words of editorial coverage in each issue.

2. Woodworking Magazine has averaged 24,850 words of editorial per issue.

3. The April 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine has 34,254 words of editorial coverage ? about the same as you would get in an issue of Popular Woodworking during the last couple years.

Second Complaint: Those tinyurls
At the end of each article in the magazine is a box that points you to online stories and web sites that are related to the article so you can dive deeper into a topic that interests you. In this issue we used "tinyurls," a long-standing Internet redirect service, so you don't have as many characters to type.

A fair number of readers don't like tinyurls. We don't particularly like them, either. But they are a stopgap until we get a new web site in place this summer. We won't use tinyurls going forward, and if you want to find any of the links listed in the print issue you can go to this page: popularwoodworking.com/apr10 (we're building out this page right now. Links are being added as I type).

Third Complaint: When Does My Subscription Run Out?
Some customers have been confused by the merger, especially if they had subscriptions to both publications. If you want to confirm the number of issues remaining in your subscription, check the line on the mailing label above your name; the last issue in your subscription is printed there. If you'd like to clear up a problem, send a message with your name and mailing address where you receive your subscription to Debbie Paolello, our subscription specialist: debbie.paolello@fwmedia.com.

But Why Did You Do It?
The other big question from readers is "Why?" While I tried to address this in my column in the April 2010 issue, I'll add some more details for you.

Many of my colleagues in the magazine business think we're all swirling around the toilet bowl to our watery grave. I'm not that grim, but it's hard to ignore the fact that a lot of my friends in media are out of work.

We know that big changes are coming. And instead of waiting to have it roll over us, we decided to sprint in front of this boulder. While both our magazines were profitable and stable, they consumed all our staff's time and energy to produce 11 yearly issues (those of you who get e-mails from us during nights and weekends can attest to this).

We decided that we had to put more energy into growing our quickly growing online business. And we knew there was no hope of expanding our staff in this time of dwindling corporate resources.

So that's what drove the decision to merge the two magazines. And it's the honest truth. Any speculation you might read on the message boards is simply not grounded in our world, which is based on raw number-crunching, decades of media experience and a desire to stay employed in the best job in the world ? getting to write and edit a woodworking magazine.

It is indeed a dream job. But it's a dream that has to live in the real world.

? Christopher Schwarz