WoodworkingONLINE.com

My fascination with hand planes began one year when my Dad gave me a Stanley 4-1/2 smoother and a Stanley 78 rabbet plane for Christmas. He found them in his shop and since he’s a power tool kind of guy, didn’t have any use for them. I had always used power tools in my woodworking because that’s what Dad always used.

The last time I had tried to use a hand plane was when I was a young boy. I’d go down to my Dad’s basement shop and spend hours “building” things. But trying to use his hand plane was so frustrating, I gave up. It wouldn’t cut and it kept tearing out the wood. Read the rest of this article »

But apparantly, there is such a thing as a free table saw blade:
Time for a Giveaway

Maybe he should make this dust collection system upgrade:
Better Cyclone Supplemental DC System

Here’s one for Randy Maxey:
Six for One Trade

Very nice bowls:
Coupla Bowl Pics

Once Doug had the bending jig completed, he was ready to get started building the legs for the side table.

RIPPING THE LEG STRIPS

With the bending jig all done, I actually started making the legs. The first step was to rip a number of thin strips from 6/4 (1-5/16” thick) cherry. After some experimenting, I discovered that I could bend an 1/8”-thick strip around the arc of the jig. Any thicker than that and it wouldn’t bend around the jig without breaking. Since the finished legs were to be 1” thick, that meant I needed 8 strips per leg, or 32 strips for all four legs. Read the rest of this article »

Our readers are often our best source of information, especially for tips. For example, in ShopNotes Issue No. 88, Clark Robbins of White Lake, Michigan sent in an idea he came up with for an easy way to make micro-adjustments to his router table fence with just the turn of a screw.

Now, for most operations, a tap to the fence is all that’s needed to make adjustments. Occasionally though, a more precise adjustment is required. That’s where Clark’s micro-adjustment tip comes in.

But according to David Eaton of Anaheim, California, there was one important piece of information left out of the article. “I like to know how much adjustment I’m making when I turn the screw?” To help him determine how much his fence is moving, David uses his Screw Accuracy Chart as a handy reference.

Here are David’s comments from an email he sent to ShopNotes readers’ mail:

I have been reading Shop Notes from your 1st issue. Keep up the good work.

In Issue No. 88 on page 6, you have an article about how to Micro-Adjust Your Router Table Fence. Good idea. But in none of your 88 issues has there been anything published about the accuracy of a screw to control movement for positioning.

Engineers (and metal workers) use micrometers for making precise measurements. The spindle of an inch-system micrometer has 40 threads per inch, so that one turn moves the spindle axially 0.025 inch. As you can see in my chart, a screw with a 6-40 thread has the same movement as a micrometer: One full turn equals 0.025″ or approximately 3/128″ (Note: all decimal to inch conversions are rounded up to the nearest 1/128″.)

I found the best 3 screw sizes to use are:

• 6-40 thread, one full turn = .0250″ (3/128″)
• 10-32 thread, one full turn = .0312″ (1/32″)
• 3/8″-16 thread, one full turn = .0625″ (1/16″)

Editor’s Note: I’ll use the chart for reference, but I still like to make test cuts in a piece of scrap, just in case.

I probably would have started woodworking a lot earlier in life if my experience in 9th-grade shop class hadn’t been so abysmal. I don’t remember what I tried to build during the class, I just remember that I didn’t finish it.

That’s not to say that the class was a total waste. I did learn a few things. My shop teacher was a stickler for safety, so I’ve always paid close attention to that. But, the one thing we didn’t have available back then was good dust collection or air clearners. Consequently, I breathed a lot of sawdust into my lungs before I began to see the benefits to wearing a dust mask.

I suspect there are a lot of things we all wish our shop teacher’s had taught us during those woodworking shop classes. Doug Hicks has come up with a few of his own and in November, he’ll be teaching a seminar at the Woodsmith Store in Des Moines on this very topic.

Doug is more than qualified to teach the seminar. Early in his career, he was a shop teacher in Illinois and New Hampshire. Here are a few examples of things he wished he’d learned while in high school (and tried to teach in all his classes):

• How to set a hand plane
• How to properly drill screw holes
• How to use test pieces
• How to sneak up on a cut
• How not to use pencil lines
• How to sand “across” the grain.

So that begs the question — Do you have any high school stories about things you wish you’d learned in woodworking shop class? If you do, send them to me using the comment section below. Or email them directly to Doug Hicks. Then later on, I’ll have a follow up after his class on all the tips we’ve come up with.

Note: The Fall Seminars at the Woodsmith Store begin this September 28th with “How to Get Started in Woodworking,” and run through December 14th with “Cabinetmaking 101: The Basics of Designing and Building Cabinets.” They’re every Thursday at 6:30pm (except on Thanksgiving). A full schedule of the classes will be posted in the calendar soon at WoodworkingSeminars.com.

When my wife says, “Can you build a cabinet with display shelves for that nook in the dining room?” I usually grab my tape measure, pencil, and pad of paper to take measurements and sketch out ideas. But I recently found out about a cool computer program by Google that’s great for trying out design ideas. It’s called SketchUp. Everybody is using it to draw three-dimensional models of everything from the Eiffel Tower to cars to furniture, like the entertainment cabinet shown here. Read the rest of this article »

I was reading this thread on WoodNET and it got me to thinking.  Even if you have a shop full of power tools, or “tailed apprentices” some might call them, hand planes have a place in your workshop.  Some woodworkers use hand planes to get that glass-smooth surface after they’ve run the workpiece through their jointer and planer.  Others just enjoy the process of working wood mostly by hand and will dimension and surface stock with hand planes.  Jeff Gorman lives in the U.K. and has a great web site for woodworkers.  He talks about dimensioning stock here.

But I use hand planes for a lot of other things in my shop like smoothing an edge, leveling a joint, or adding chamfers, just to name a few.  I have a nice collection of old Stanley planes, but when I recently built a dining room table, I needed a smoothing plane like a Stanley 4-1/2 that worked better than…well…my Stanley 4-1/2.

So I recently ordered a Veritas Low Angle Smooth Plane from Lee Valley.  I looked at Lie-Nielsen’s Low Angle Smoothing Plane, but decided that I liked the design and price of the Veritas plane better.  I haven’t received my plane yet, so I’ve yet to see how well it performs.  I’ll post an update after I’ve had a chance to use it in my shop.

I’m real interested in hearing your opinions about the use of hand planes (and hand tools in general) in the shop.  Do you use them at all?  For what?  Do you hate them?  Want to learn more about them?  Can’t see the reason to use them?  Let me know your thoughts! 

Recently, Doug Hicks decided to build a much-needed end table for a spot between two easy chairs in his home. After spending some time with his wife Cathy, designing the table and making a cardboard mock-up, Doug got to work by making the bending jig. The jig makes bending the thin laminated leg strips to shape easy.

MAKING THE BENDING JIG

In building the table, I figured I would start with the most difficult part – the legs. And since the legs were to be relatively thin (1”) I decided that the strongest way to make them would be using a bent lamination technique. This involves gluing together a number of very thin, flexible strips and placing them in a bending jig to dry.

So the first step was to build the jig. I found some old exterior 3/4″ plywood left in the attic by the previous homeowner and decided to use that. Something like MDF (medium-density fiberboard) probably would have been better, but hey, “ya use what ya got,” right? Anyway the plywood worked fine. Read the rest of this article »

Knock-down furniture doesn’t have to be cheap, throw-away furniture made from particleboard. In the August/September 2006 Issue of Woodsmith magazine, there are two projects featuring sturdy, long-lasting knockdown joinery.

Weekend Project
The first, a Quilt Rack takes a traditional approach — keyed through-tenons.

Designer Series Project
For the Loft Bed, Woodsmith decided to use a more heavy-duty system — carriage bolts.

Finally, for the Heirloom Project, you’ll find an elegant full-length Dressing Mirror.

But the project articles are just a small part of Woodsmith magazine. Inside you’ll also find technique articles on “No-Fuss Chamfers” and “Sharpening Drill Bits.” Want to learn how to use a “Router Inlay Kit?” There’s some great pointers for using one in this issue. You’ll also find all the Departments you’re used to, including “Tips from our Shop,” “Tools of the Trade,” “Tips and Techniques from Our Readers’,” and much more.

You can get a free preview issue of Woodsmith here: Free Preview Issue

A few interesting links sent to me by Randy Maxey, an assistant editor with Woodsmith and ShopNotes magazines:

Creating Customer Trust

Ryobi Radial Arm Saw Recall

Porter-Cable Cordless Nailer Recall

Super Shop

Randy will be posting his thoughts soon as a regular contributing editor to WoodworkingONLINE.com