Monthly Archives: January 2009

Quick Polls

Quick Poll

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Building kitchen cabinetsWhen it comes to building large projects, there has been a big shift in the past 30 years.  For instance, if I go to the Reader’s Digest Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual published in 1973, their instructions to build a set of kitchen cabinets indicated that you should build them piece by piece on site.  Judging from what I have seen my friends tear out of their kitchens from homes built in that time period, it seems that was the primary, if not only, way to build.

Fast forward to the 1990’s, and wow, what a change.  New kitchens are built in modular units in workshops close to the large table saws, miter saws and workbenches to ensure a high level of accuracy.  Then, once assembled, these modules are brought to the site to be installed.

While this applies primarily to kitchen cabinets, plans to build other large projects have reflected this change.

Yet, still, I have seen and heard of woodworkers who still build their projects the old way, stick by stick on site.

So, my question this week is about your building process.  Do you build on site, in your shop or have your methods changed?

[poll id=”57″]

Link of the week

Link of the week

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Fine Woodworking’s Reader’s Gallery

A Japanese-inspired chest featured in Fine WoodworkingLooking for inspiration for your next project?  Every month, Fine Woodworking magazine features a selection of the outstanding projects built by their readers.

Some are classic pieces – authentic reproductions of Shaker, Hepplewhite or other historic woodworking styles.  Others are quite modern – artistic visions realized in wood.

Regardless of the style, this showcase of projects is one of the most valuable features published every month in Fine Woodworking.  Besides being the ultimate brag book for the featured woodworkers, these completed projects can serve as a jumping off point for woodworkers looking to design and build their own projects.

This page features the works published in the 2000 – 2006 editions.  They are definitely worth a look.

Spotlight

Woodworking Spotlight: Pat Warner

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Pat WarnerThe router is one of those tools you are not sure that you will need before you buy it, then you wonder how you ever got along without one after you get it.  There are scores of tasks a properly equipped and skillfully handled router can tackle. Of course, discovering everything a router can do is frustrating trying to learn on your own.  It’s easier if you have a knowledgeable guide along to point out the pitfalls and steer you in the right direction.

Pat Warner is just the kind of person who can help you along the way. You see, Pat is a big fan of the router, and has found a number of good uses for the tool. It’s amazing, considering his first experiences in the craft.  “As a small child, I knew I wanted to build with wood.  Back in the second grade, I made two small chairs out of pine and a few nails.  Of course, this wasn’t during shop class – I had been ushered out for causing a ‘disturbance’ and there were no witnesses to the fact.”

Router Edge GuideTurns out that this child prodigy had to wait another 30 years before he got active again in woodworking.  While learning the ropes on his own, he got his first exposure to the router.  “It was 1972, and I got a Craftsman 1 HP router with a 1/4″ collet.  I was hooked, but surprised to learn that this tool could do a lot only with extra cutters, jigs and other fixtures.”

Today, Pat runs a successful commercial website offering sound advice and jigs for sale, as well as writing such books as The Router Book, Working with Routers and Fast, Easy and Accurate Router Jigs.  Pat designs and builds jigs that put accuracy and safety first.  “My jigs are designed to give incredible control to the routing process.  While there is always an inherent risk with any power tool, by using the tool properly and with great forethought, you can significantly reduce that risk while gaining tremendous accuracy.”

Fast, East and Accurate Router JigJigs such as the four-faced tenoning jig which I built are very clever and well thought out.  Warner offers this and many other completely built jigs for sale on his website.  “If you are the kind of woodworker who would rather be building furniture than laying out and building jigs, check out my site.  I’m pretty sure you can find the jig that will do the task you need.”

It’s not just jigs with Pat.  You can buy a series of replacement base plates that can make your router more versatile, and Pat even offers one-on-one classes at his southern California workshop.  “Students love to come to the sunny workshop to learn all about routing.  It sure beats trying to learn about advanced routing techniques by yourself in your northern shop in the dead of winter…”  Pat also works closely with router and router bit manufacturers to help develop and test their new products before rolling them out to the public.

Sliding DovetailsOne question Pat gets frequently is about how a router novice should acquire bits. “There are two schools of thought.  The first is to buy one of those huge mega sets of 100 or more super-cheap offshore router bits and learn on those. Understand that you may become frustrated with the quality  and end up replacing the ones you use the most.  But, that’s OK – you will learn a lot.  The other is to buy high-quality bits one at a time as you need them. Sure, you may drop some big bucks on a very high quality bit, however, you will enjoy the results for a very long time.”

Does Pat believe that the router is the only way to cut any and all joinery? “Not at all.  In fact, if you are comfortable doing a particular task with another tool  – and you get great results – don’t change.  However, if you are constantly scratching your head wondering how to do something better, chances are that their might be a router-based solution that will help to make you a better woodworker.”

What does this router guru find to be the most enjoyable part of his job?  “Well, it would have to be creating a new and unique jig that helps solve a problem.  Oh, and then going out and building something neat with that bugger!”

Shop Talk, Tools

We’ve come to an understanding

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The dreaded belt sanderI’d like to take a moment to introduce you to the tool I love to love – and hate.  This is my belt sander.  A Black and Decker homeowner’s model I picked up at a local Wal Mart about six years ago.

Before I go any further, yes, I am quite aware that I advertise myself as a hand tool enthusiast.  It also obviously has a tail that plugs into an outlet.  Many of you are also thinking that there is no place in the fine woodworker’s shop for one of these crude instruments of sound and dust.  Besides, it’s not even made by a ‘serious’ woodworking tool manufacturer.

It’s all true.  This bright orange baby (by the way, I believe it might be bright orange so motorists can avoid it when it’s pitched into a road) uses some of the most diminutive belts out there – 3″ x 18″.  Even it’s lousy dust bag doesn’t work any more.  I used to take the time to put it on the sander, but it developed a hole near the top zipper that just blows dust straight up into the air.  And, it’s a very hungry machine.  I affectionately call it the belt saw, because if you leave it on the work for too long, it digs out one heck of a divot in the wood.

So, why keep it?

Even in its total nastiness, it’s another one of those shop essentials I can’t seem to do without.  Just recently, I was working on my Christmas presents, I had to reach for it several times.  First when I was making the end grain cutting boards.

In my last post, I alluded to the fact that my milling and gluing operations need to become a little more exacting.  So, when I pulled them from the clamps, they were pretty uneven. So, I had to mosey down the street to the local Home Depot, where, much to my surprise, I discovered that Norton actually makes a line of sanding belts in that tiny size.  There were three grits to choose from – 50, 80 and 120, and I bought the two packs of all three grits.

While it did take the better part of a Saturday afternoon to grind the unevenness out of the boards, I knew it was much safer than trying to run the end grain boards through the planer.  With my iPod on under my hearing, breathing and eye protection, I grooved while my errors were erased totally, leaving a perfectly smooth board.  No mean feat, given that end grain is very tough stuff – making it an excellent choice for end grain cutting boards!

I changed grits to the 80, then finally to the 120 for those last very light passes, leaving just enough for me to sand out with the random orbit sander.

Later, when I tried out the Kehoe jig for a set of the photo bookends, the belt sander came out again.  I trimmed the dovetail splines as close to the work as I dared, and then used the belt sander to take them down flush with the board.

Are there better ways to accomplish these tasks?  Sure. I could get out with a block plane and use that.  But, for some reason, I seem to get better results using the belt sander for the heavy lifting and the hand tools for the fine work.

So, I’ll keep my belt sander.  For now.  It does what it does, but it does what it does pretty well.

But, I’m definitely keeping a wary eye on that tool!

Quick Polls

Quick Poll

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big project in my shopWhile building my new bench, the thought hit me that building large projects are a big pain in the butt.  I would start to work on an assembly, then have to find someplace to store it while I worked on another.  And, then, putting these assemblies together into a more complete project… oy!  No matter where I turned, I was eventually tripping over pieces and parts and I was having some trouble keeping track of all the parts I was working on.

As big as the bench is, it was not my biggest project.  In fact, right now I’m working on a desk system for my son’s room that consists of two huge drawer and bookshelf assemblies flanking a desk suspended across the middle.  That’s a back breaker.

So, this week, I want to know what the biggest project is that you have ever built.  Sure, I don’t have specific measurement categories, but these common items should give you a reference to work with.

[poll id=”56″]

Link of the week

Link of the Week

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Southern Pine Council

Typical southern yellow pineMention the word pine to some folks, and they will think of the soft, creamy white wood harvested in the northern reaches of North America and Europe.  However, here in Florida and other southern locations in the United States, tall southern pine trees dominate, and their wood is really something special.

Southern yellow pine is the hardest softwood, has incredible strength and, where plentiful, is a very inexpensive wood to work with.  In fact, Chris Schwarz of Popular Woodworking is a huge advocate of southern yellow pine as a workbench material – even going as far as to build his classic Roubo reproduction workbenches out of the stuff.

If you just can’t mosey down to the local home improvement center to find boards, the Southern Pine Council will help you locate the material you need to build your next project.

Joinery, Projects

Great Jigs: The Four-Faced Tenon Jig

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There is little doubt that the mortise and tenon joint is one of the most important in woodworking. It’s incredibly stout and can be found in many different projects as an essential piece of joinery.

While cutting the mortise has its own challenges, cutting tenons can be even more difficult.  First of all, the tenon has to have very smooth faces and square shoulders. Then, you have to make sure you have the length of the tenon exact.  Finally, how do you cut these tenons on long pieces without creating a dangerous situation?

I’ve cut tenons several ways in the past – on a table saw, on the band saw, with hand tools. All did a fair job, but I may have hit on the solution I will be able to use more often than not.

While building my bench, I had to cut tenons on the end of the long side rails.  I wasn’t looking forward to trying to balance these standing on end on my table saw, and trying to push them flat on the table while keeping them square to the blade could prove challenging.

The Tenoning JigThat’s when I went to my bookshelf and came out with Pat Warner’s book Easy, Fast and Accurate Router Jigs.  There, I found the plan to build this.

The jig is insanely simple, yet yields such incredible results.  It consists of a top and a vertical fin – both made out of scraps (11″ x 17″) of cabinet grade plywood.  The top has a window cut in the middle about 4″ x 9″, and a rectangular cutout roughly the same size in the fin.  This assembly has to be square and tough, so I dadoed the fin into the top and screwed it.  I also used some glue blocks on the back side of the assembly to further reinforce the joint.

The next piece is a fence.  I used a 2×4 and notched it so the fence would protrude into the opening but not block the routing action.  Again, make sure this is perfectly perpendicular to the top, or you won’t like the results.

The board ready to cutI screwed a toggle clamp to the fence, which holds the jig to the board I’m routing.  However, I also throw a second clamp on the board, just to make sure the workpiece doesn’t move at all.

Now, clamp the board you want to tenon to the jig firmly against the fence.  Set the top of the board slightly below the top of the jig – you can use a coin under the straight edge to set the depth.

Next, put a rabbeting bit into your router.  The depth of the rabbet will help determine the width of your tenon.  For this example, I put a 1/4″ deep cutting rabbet bit to use on a board with a width of 3/4″.  This will leave me with a 1/4″ thick tenon 1/2″ shorter than the height of the board.  If I wanted a 3/8″ wide tenon, I would use a rabbeting bit that cut 3/16″ deep.

The router base and rabbeting bitSet the length of the tenon by adjusting the depth of the bit below the router base.  I’ve measured on my Freud router and found I could push the bit to cut a maximum of 1 1/4″ below the base – a decent sized tenon.  If you need to extend the length of the tenon, you can use a top-bearing flush trim bit that can reach even further down the board after the initial rabbet cut.

Another key component of this jig is to use a larger than normal base to ensure the router doesn’t fall into the jig.  Here, you can see I’m using a Turn Lock offset router base to ensure that the router stays firmly in contact with the top of the jig during the cut.  You could use an offset base such as this or even build a ‘ski’ type base made of plywood to get the necessary width.

The final tenonNext, you simply rout around all four sides of the board.  The result is extremely impressive – a very crisp, square-cornered tenon that came out exactly to 1/4″ wide on this test board.  It takes just seconds to cut this, and you never have to change the setup.  So, in effect, you can cut dozens of identical tenons one after another in very short order.

And, what about really long boards that need to be tenoned?  Well, you could clamp the work vertically in a vise and climb a ladder, but the beauty of this jig is that you can actually clamp the board on an angle in your vise.  Put one edge on the ground and tip the rail over until the end is at a comfortable height for you to work.  Put the jig on the board with the fence to the top of the work and clamp it in place.  Sure, you’ll be working with your router at an angle, but I had no trouble with this setup as long as I kept the router pressed firmly against the top of the jig.

If you cut your mortise with a router bit, you will have to round the corners of the tenon.  I did this on the rail tenons for my new bench by carefully paring back with a sharp chisel and then sanding the corners perfectly round to fit the radius.

Even after cutting just a few tenons with this jig, I know I’m going to be using it again and again to cut tenons.