And, while we love to watch movies, getting out to them can be a real trick. I think most of our local theaters now offer easy financing at the snack counter. When they don’t post the price of the popcorn-and-soda snack deals, well – as they say – if you have to ask the price, you probably can’t afford it anyway.

So, when we go out to see a movie, we have to choose our selections carefully. And, there was a stretch back in 2005 when the only good movies out were animated. Hoodwinked was a great one. So was one of the Shrek franchise films. But, the one that we liked the most was Wallace and Gromit and the curse of the Ware-Rabbit. Now, it sounds kinda hokey, but if you haven’t seen it, it’s definitely worth a watch.

I don’t want to give away the entire plot, but it does involve a giant veggie-stealing rabbit and the hijinks that go along with putting an end to the terror plaguing the contestants in the annual Giant Vegetable competition.

Sometimes in woodworking, we need to look to rabbits as well. Or, is that rabbets? A quality rabbeting bit can be a big time player in your arsenal.

Me, I’m happy to have a big rabbeting bit I picked up from Infinity tools. This baby is a real brute. It has a half-inch shank and a two-inch diameter slug of metal with a full one-inch depth of cut.

Why such a massive bit? Options, my friend. With the rabbeting bearing kit, you can take this massive bit from an 11/16” cut all the way down to a flush trim. Of course, for a very deep rabbet, you’d want to do that in steps as to not get all kinds of tear out. For that, you may want to lower the bit to the proper depth over a few passes, as opposed to changing the size of the bearings.

The one-inch cutting surface is pretty cool as well, making flush cutting easier. And, if you want identical parts for a project, template routing makes it easier to get the accuracy you want.

The thick carbide tips lean forward (positive shear angle) so you get fine wood shavings. Yes, you get shavings, not dust or chips with this bit.

I have found mine to be useful for rabbeting the backs of cabinets to allow for a back to be mounted. And, when paired with a router based tenon cutting jig, you can make mortise and tenon projects easily.

Those are just a few uses for a quality rabbeting bit, and I’m sure once you get some experience using one, you’ll be able to pull a few woodworking rabbits out of your own hat.

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Unfortunately, they also have a bunch of articles and reviews about powerful sports cars. Before long, I was drooling over the muscular exotic beauties. Their sleek styling. Their tremendous power to weight ratios. Their ability to sit in the corners and ride them like they are on rails.

When I did purchase my new car, it wasn’t anything like I had fantasized about and my dreams were thwarted again.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t get to handle the corners. In fact, I have a fast, nimble set of tools that allows me to ride right on the edge of my projects and leave me breathless.  They are my Lee Valley cornering tools.

These little babies are very handy.  Before I had them, I used to do a number of different things to round over the edges of my projects. I would sometimes break out the random orbit sander and do the deed that way. The problem with this method was that I could round some areas more than others – it was difficult to control. Or, I could use hand-held sandpaper, which was great. But, it could take some time to get everything rounded over, and I was back to the troubles I had with the random orbit sander – I could have uneven round overs.

When I really wanted to get everything identical, I would break out my router. But, that was a little bit of a pain in the butt to get everything set up, break out all of my safety gear and dust collection. And, if the piece was small, it was tough to balance the router on it, and I might have to shift to the table-based router. This seemed like overkill.

These babies didn’t cost too much (about $25 for the set) and have tools to create a 1/16″ and a 1/8″ round over. The 1/16″ model is great for just breaking the edge of your projects.  If you want to go for the larger radius, the recommendation is to start with the smaller model then move to the larger.

Their unique look may make you wonder how they are used, but they couldn’t be any easier. There is a groove on the bottom of the curve that registers right on the edge of the board.  These tools cut on both the pull and push strokes, but after getting a few sharp splinters shoved into the tips of my fingers while pushing, I’d recommend that you stick to the pull. A few quick strokes and your edge is perfectly rounded over.

These tools not only cut with the grain, but – when kept sharp – can cut across the grain as well.  As with any other work across end grain, it’s best to work from both sides to the middle to prevent any blow-out on the tool’s exit.

You should also work to read the grain direction of the board you are working on. The cuts are silky-smooth when you pull with the grain, but the tool can raise an ugly splinter when pulling against the grain. Always start with the smaller tool and light passes, adjusting your direction based on performance.

Sure, these cornering tools are specialty tools, but after one try with them, your heart will be pounding as you watch them handle the corners.

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It seems to work very well with straight-grained, thick hardwoods. It can plane those all day, leaving a bit of a divot at the rear, but better than satisfactory everywhere else. But, get that wood thin or figured and it’s Katie bar the door. I’ve seen rough board surfaces turn into moonscapes of tear out and snipe marks everywhere. Just awful.

There are plenty of tricks out there about how to reduce this nastiness. Build an extension board. Check. Take very light passes. Check. Moisten the top of the board before planing. Check. Push it through on an angle. Check. And, none of these tips worked. At all.

So, last night, when I got home from work, I decided the time was right to take the plunge. I grabbed up all the Home Depot gift cards I got for the holidays and trucked on down the road to big orange. There, I bought the latest and greatest Ridgid planer – the model  R4330 thickness planer.

Why this model? Well, first of all, I’ve had a lot of success with Ridgid tools – my spindle sander, miter saw and table saw are all nice and orange. This model also has a three blade cutterhead – and, from what I read, that gives a better result than the two blade cutters.  It has the Indicut control, which shows me when the cutterhead assembly contacts the board and how much material I’m taking off. Plus, I can’t get enough of the built-in dust collection. I hate shoveling the shavings after I plane boards with my Delta – they get everywhere.

I had fun loading it into my Corolla, and I hauled it to the shop with some help from my son Dominic. The assembly was very easy, consisting of putting together the dust collection shroud and the height adjustment handle. The fit and finish of the tool was very nice, and I loved the features such as on board tool storage for assembly and blade changes as well as a convenient cord wrap.

Sure, I should have read all of the directions carefully before I began, but DUDE, I needed to try it out!  So, I plugged it in and took some curly maple I had resawn and attempted to plane on the Delta (Boy, was that a bad idea). I figured that the pieces may already be a total loss, so what was there to lose?

I set the cutterhead to where it just kissed the board’s top and turned the motor on. I carefully fed the board through, and it slid right under the knives. OK, maybe a little lower next time. And, I could hear the knives just graze the board’s rough top. Another pass, and more knife contact.  Soon, I was removing the ugliness of the previous night’s attempt, and things were looking good. And, I mean REALLY good.

So good, in fact, that I believe that sanding these curly maple panels would ruin the very nice surface I put on them!  I didn’t think it was possible to get this kind of smoothness straight from the planer, but wow, I was totally impressed. And, yes, that board is 1/4″ thick… with that kind of smooth surface on it.  Unreal.

The planer does fold up into roughly the same sized footprint of the Delta, so stowage shouldn’t be an issue.  With this new planer, I think I can get over my phobias and start looking forward to getting more use out of the tool.

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This now allows me to play my iPod on the system – heck, it charges the stupid thing, and I can control it from the stereo system faceplate. Or, if I’m feeling lazy in my compact car – use the silly remote control.

While I was sitting in my driveway installing this contraption (no, I had never installed a car stereo before.. this was gong to be fun), I read the directions very carefully to ensure I didn’t have to pull the center console apart a second time (I did). And, while trying to secure the four 10 mm bolts back into the deep recesses which secured the stereo mount, one fell off the socket and fell down behind the center console.  Damnit!  The instructions warned me several times to use magnets to capture the nut and keep it from doing this very thing.

I got the other three installed and was entering my second half hour of fishing for a bolt that I couldn’t see, when it hit me. Why the heck was I looking for it?  I grabbed the mount and shook it. It was rock solid. It didn’t shake. It didn’t shimmy. Nada. I made the command decision to just close up the interior panels I had to remove and get the car back into workable condition.

Why so cavalier?  Well, with me, when I buy a car, I tend to drive the sucker until it falls apart. We got rid of our 2001 Dodge Caravan earlier this year when the odometer clicked over 150,000 miles and the vehicle was preparing to wheeze its last. The Corolla the stereo is in is already five years old, and will probably be handed down to my oldest son when it’s time to go to college in four years.

So, who is ever going to notice this one missing screw?

I bring this up because I do obsess. I obsess about the condition of my tools. I like to leave them as close to the way I purchased them, not making any changes that could identify them as my own. Why on earth do I do this? I have no idea. Maybe it’s because I like to fool myself into thinking the tool is brand spankin’ new. Maybe it’s because I think should the absolute worst happen to me that my wife will be able to see my tools for what they cost me when I bought them.  Maybe it’s because I think I’ll ruin them if I modify them to work better for me.

I remember once when Jim Heavey was teaching a class at a Woodworking Show here in Tampa. He suggested that – perhaps – it would be easier for woodworkers to do a certain task if they scribed the exact mark on the top where the left side of the carbide teeth of a table saw blade would begin to cut. For some attendees, this was a nearly blasphemous statement.  How COULD Jim even suggest that someone defile the surface of his saw by doing something so permanent?

Well, Jim made it clear that when the time came to resell the saw, there was going to be a significant amount of depreciation – regardless of how much money was spent or how much time was lavished on its upkeep. And, that it was very proper – thank you very much – to customize your saw to meet your needs.

Many of you may have gotten tools under the tree yesterday. If you did, good for you! Now, get out there. Work with them. And, if they need to be modified to suit your needs… do so judiciously.

This week, I have to finish a set of pantry doors. I have this Rousseau router plate that holds my Freud FT2000 router. I picked it up about eight years ago.  Those little insert rings have never quite fit right – they have always been too tight. I have been holding off doing anything about this because – you guessed it – I didn’t feel right about ‘customizing’ the plate to meet my needs.

That ends today. If I’m going to get good results on my cope and stick joinery, I’m gonna need a very flat table. So, out comes the 220 grit paper and I’ll be shaving the rings down to size to make them fit.

The sounds of a happy client who got perfectly milled doors? I’m sure that will be music to my ears!

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The reason why I am so late is that I had my ‘maiden voyage’ (as the nurse put it) into one of the routine rites of getting older… Let’s just say it involved a liquid diet, some medication and a touch of  anesthesia.

I was kinda woozy for most of the day, but I was good enough to take a visit from a neighbor on the other side of the block. He’s a fellow woodworker – actually, more of a tinkerer. He and his wife have moved quite a few times in the past few years, and he was getting tired of hauling everything from house to house. He asked me if I was interested in getting one of his old tools.

Free tool?  Of course!

It’s a Delta Shopmaster AP100 dust filter. According to the specs, it can pull 450 cfm of air through the filter, capturing the fine stuff that gets airborne. This isn’t the kind of tool that I would buy for myself, but, judging from the dust on my tools and shelves, I’d say I could probably use it.

It’s in pretty decent condition, with a few dings and bangs. But, I plugged it in and it drew a lot of air.  Fairly quiet unit as well.

The added bonus is that is has a light on the bottom.  Actually, a pair of florescent lights run on a pull chain. Maybe not bright enough for me to move to the bench, but, hey, I have a good place for it near my air conditioner.

Not what I had planned on writing today, but, hey, it’s always good to welcome some new tools!

Now, for a something completely different – if you are member of the Wood Whisperer’s Guild, check out the profile Marc Spagnuolo did on my workbench. It’s kinda interesting.. and I discovered that when I take pictures in my shop, I need to clean up!

Not a guild member? What the heck are you waiting for?  Marc runs one hell of a show there on the Guild, and your membership lets you in on some exciting members-only content. With the holidays RIGHT UPON US – maybe it could be that last minute gift that pays dividends all year!

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While he was showing me all of the neat features (Height adjustment? Blade angle adjustment? Rip fence? Someone pinch me!), he lamented one important thing – he couldn’t find a ten inch diameter dado blade to go with his ten inch saw. This really seemed to bother him.

It got me wondering… why the heck doesn’t anyone offer a ten-inch dado blade for hobby woodworkers? Come on, I want to use all the saw I bought, right?

“Well, it’s not quite like that,” said David Venditto of Infinity Cutting Tools. “Your saw can handle up to a ten inch blade, but dado blades are a completely different animal. Yes, they both do cut, but it’s all about the weight.”

David explained to me that a regular crosscut, rip or combination blade for a saw is a single circular plate with teeth cut in it, carbide pieces added to those teeth and a hole precisely bored in the center to ride on the saw’s shaft. That one blade has a limited amount of heft to it, and that’s what the saw manufacturer designs the tool to use. “The weight differential between a single ten-inch blade between models isn’t that great. So if you are using one of our blades or one that came with the saw originally, the saw won’t really care.”

This all changes when you move to a dado blade. In order to cut the larger groove, you have to expand the cutting area of the blade. In order to accomplish this, there are two approaches. Wobble dado blades use an eccentric hub which can be dialed to size. The blade flutters as it cuts the material, doing the dado in one pass. “Sure, you can go this way to cut dadoes. It’s a technology that has been used for years, and it works fairly well, if you don’t mind rounded bottoms of your grooves.”

The other technology which is used is to stack a number of blades together on the saw’s arbor to achieve the desired width of cut. “Stacked dadoes give better results than wobble units, but it comes with a significant increase in weight. That’s where we as blade manufacturers have to downsize the blades to help the saw compensate.”

A ten, eight and six inch blade for comparison

That’s why most manufacturers offer eight inch dado stack sets. The two extra inches of reduced diameter makes the stack considerably lighter than it would be with a ten inch diameter. “To give you an idea of weight differences, our 8” Dadonator stacked set (with 24 tooth outside blades and full-body 6-tooth chippers) weighs in at 10 lbs, the 6” Dadonator Jr. set (with the same blade and chipper design) weighs a full 4 lbs. less. The Jr. is clearly the best choice for anyone using less than a 5 H.P. cabinet style table saw. In all of the years I’ve been making saw blades, I’ve never heard one person complain about not being able to cut a three and a half inch deep groove in a board. But, they all seem to love the flat bottom cut they get.”

Stacked dado blades have the two outside blades which – when used alone – can cut a ¼” groove with no problem. To further widen the cut, chippers with a reduced number of teeth are stacked between the two outer blades until the desired width is reached. “With our Infinity Dadonator line, we make the only blade sets with six teeth on the chippers – where many other manufacturers may use as few as two. The 6” Dadonator Jr. is the only dado set on the market to feature outside blades with 24 teeth and chipper blades with 6 teeth. Those extra teeth help ensure your cut is crisp in solid wood or plywood. That does mean that our sets are going to be heavier than other dado sets you can buy.”

David’s answer for those who want to use his dado sets on a smaller saw? “There’s nothing wrong with looking at our six inch dado set. With that, you can still cut grooves as deep as one and a quarter inches, which is more than adequate for most joinery tasks while not straining your saw’s motor to keep up with the demands placed on it.” David was also quick to point out that the 6” dado set also costs less than its bigger cousin. “If you are in the market for a new dado stack and you don’t have a beefy cabinet saw, the six inch blade represents a heck of a value without sacrificing performance.”

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So, you can understand why I don’t like to be bored. I have plenty of opportunity to make sure that I never get that way.  Woodworking also helps me stay out of that dreaded state or boredom.

That’s why I can’t understand why talking about drills and what they do is called boring. It’s anything but. Whether in a drill press or a hand-held unit, there are dozens of things you can do with the right selection of bits.

Just as with the router, drilling tools are nothing but fancy paperweights without bits. The bits come in a bewildering array of sizes and shapes to do a great number of tasks. Don’t be misled by looking at the selections in the local home improvement center.  There, you will typically see your basic twist drill bits which do an OK job on wood and metal. But, if you haven’t tried bits specifically for fine woodworking, well, let me be the first to welcome to you a brave new world!

When it comes to drilling smaller diameter holes in wood, it’s hard to beat the brad point. They look very similar to the regular twist bits, but have a sharp brad point at the business end with two cutting spurs at the outside diameter. These two features allow you to start your drilling without the fear of the bit wandering. And, with the cutting spurs, the hole is very clean. If  you are the kind of woodworker who likes to drill your mortises, these are two very important traits you want in your drill bits.

For larger holes, there’s another specialty bit that you should consider – the Forstner bit. These bits feature straight shanks with a larger sized cutting head at the bottom. Forstners excel at cutting smooth, straight holes with flat bottoms.  But, not the only thing you get with them. Since the bit is large and the rim of the bit does the cutting, you can bore on an angle, or just use part of the bit to drill an arc. And, if you are looking to mount something like a clock insert, it’s as simple as chucking the right sized bit and drilling until you get the proper depth. Since the cuts are so clean, there’s little – if any – clean up required.

You can also pick up a forstner bit extender, which allows the user to drill deeper into the work. You may not use it every day, but when you need that extra little bit of reach, well, it’s a very handy attachment.

There are also  a number of other specialty bits available. For instance, for most countersinks, the drill bits are tapered.  It seems like a small thing, but if you are using traditional tapered wood screws, a tapered bit is going to give you excellent thread contact for the entire length of the screw.  More thread contact means better holding power.

From there, well, where can you go?  Plug cutters? Tenon cutters? Hole saws? Spade bits?  Hey, let’s talk about them later.  I’ll need something to do the next time I get bored!

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The band saw is one of those tools you wonder if you need at first, but wonder how you got along without after you  have used one.

“Band saws are amazing tools,” said Dan Walter of Eagle America. “When set up and properly tuned, even the most basic of band saws can improve your woodworking capabilities.  Slice your own book matched veneers. Make elegant band sawn boxes. Heck, you can even cut hand cut dovetails without touching a hand saw simply by using your band saw.”

The band saw works by – as you might imagine – pulling a narrow band of steel with saw teeth cut into the edge through the saw’s table. The energy for the cutting is provided by one powered wheel, with a second idler wheel on the top of the saw that keeps the band spread and helps it track. “The size of the saw is based on the diameter of each of these two wheels. So, a 14″ saw has two wheels 14″ in diameter… and, no, it doesn’t take a 14″ long blade…”

Band saw blades are exceptionally thin under some tremendous pressure, so the steel has to be both flexible and strong. It also has to have hard teeth in order to slice through wood with little trouble. “It’s a delicate balancing act for saw blade manufacturers, and it takes a lot of thought to get things to work just right.” Dan explained to me that Eagle carries the Olson line of bandsaw blades. The standard Flex-Back models are a great value general-purpose blade, and the All-Pro blades have additional elements added to them to make a harder steel that gives more durability while still maintaining flexibility.

Because the blades are cut and then welded together, there’s a chance that a rough weld could give you a rougher cut. And, curves are easier if the back square corners of the blade are rounded slightly. Eagle sells a special band saw blade stone that can be held against the back corners of the running blade to smooth  things out, or a standard whet stone can be used as well. And, once the blade is polished with smooth back corners, a blade lubricant can help improve the quality of your cut.

What those blades ride on are the wheels – and the tires that cover the wheels.  “Tires are so often overlooked on band saws, but they play a major role in how true a blade will track.  Rubber tires can crack and wear over time, and urethane tires give a better ride for the blades.  If you have trouble with your blade tracking true, you might want to check the condition of those tires and replace them if needed.”

The blade on most band saws is guided both above and below the table. They help keep the blade running true and prevent unnecessary twisting as the cut is being made. “Your standard-issue blade guides in most saws are metal blocks that help to contain blade movement.  They are adequate, but they tend to create a lot of heat as the blade rides through. To help extend the life of your blades, you might want to consider something like Cool Blocks that deposit a dry lubricant on the blade as it brushes against them, or upgrade to ceramic blocks which also reduce friction heat build up and can ride very close to the blade.”  Dan pointed out that even a standard set of blade guides can be replaced with a product called Band Rollers, which use bearings to guide the blade, meaning that the guides can touch the blade body with no chance of heat build up.

In order to reduce costs, many manufacturers don’t include a fence in most entry-level band saws. To overcome this, you can build your own fence system, clamp a flat, straight piece of wood to the table or you can purchase an aftermarket fence system like the Kreg precision band saw fence with an optional micro-adjust feature and a resaw guide to make working safer and more accurate.

“The three most important things about the band saw – or any tool for that matter – are to assemble and prepare it right when you set it up, understand the best ways to work with it and to maintain it properly. If you take care of your band saw, it will serve you well for years to come.”

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First on the top I have top and left side is my carpenter’s square.  It’s a very useful tool. Besides measuring large cases for square, this baby also makes figuring out the rise and run of a slope a piece of cake…  There is so much more I can do with this, but that’s for more complicated carpentry projects, and I still have a lot to learn.

I have my combination square.  Got it on special at a local woodworking shop, and it came prepackaged with a center finding head and a protractor head as well.  This is a handy tool for drawing lines across a project, setting the depth of a blade or bit, and, yes, finding square.

To the right are a pair of assembly squares I picked up a few years ago.  These babies are dead-on 90 degrees, and are great for clamping into place to force an out-of-square assembly into square.  They also make gluing up miters a whole lot easier, since the points of the miter can nestle into place in the corner as you clamp the sides into place.

At the bottom of the combination square, you can see my saddle square.  While this won’t help you make an assembly square, it is totally awesome way to transfer marks dead one from a face to an edge.

Next to that is a handy little double square I use a lot when I edge plane a board.  I just press the beam against the face of the board and run the blade over the edge I just planed to ensure I’m getting a nice square edge on the board.  This one is small enough to put into a shop apron pocket… if I wore my shop apron.  Instead, I rest it on my bench.

The orange square is my speed square I picked up at the local home improvement center.  Again, another VERY handy carpentry square with ooodles of uses I would have to work as a carpenter to use, but simply using it as a square is an easy way to get that square assembly you are looking for.  It also doubles as a saw guide for circular saws… a sweet multi-tasker.

The last one is my sliding square… it’s a pretty cool tool for laying out square lines during design. Again, this can help in the marking and cutting, but not so much during assembly.  But, that’s OK…I’m down with that.

Do I need to buy new squares?  Nope. What I need to do is set up something around the bench where I can keep these squares a lot closer at hand.  I figure if I can see them, maybe I will be encouraged to get them when assembling my project. I’m gonna start doing that.

Oh, about the title of this blog post.  Once I wrote the title down, you KNOW this was the song going through my mind…

As a woodworker who came of age during the 1980′s, consider it my gift to you!

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OK, everybody, take a step back and inhale deeply, count to ten and then exhale slowly repeating, “Serenity Now.”  I still love my hand tools and cutting classic joints, and my biscuit jointer is relegated to a few limited but very important tasks.

First, lemme tell you about my biscuit jointer.  It is a Ryobi model that I picked up at Home Depot many moons ago – I believe sometime about 2000 or 2001. You see, Norm used one in just about every project he built, and that convinced me that if I was ever going to build woodworking projects, I was going to need one of my own.  I chose this model because it was dirt cheap – for $99, it was a steal. And, I used it for a lot of tasks when I started out.

Did it get good ratings in the woodworking mags?  Nope.  Has it served me well?  You bet.

I would attach shelves in bookcases with it. I would build cabinet boxes with it. I built this sweet little shoe bench that sits by the front door that allows us a place to stash the shoes when we come in and gives us a place to sit and put them on before we leave. I built it back in 2002, and it has held up for the past nine years with nary a complaint, and it’s still as rock-solid as the day I built it.

As my skills developed, my reliance on the biscuit jointer started to wane. I learned how to cut dadoes and rabbets.  I got my Kreg pocket hole jig setup. I started using more and more mortise and tenon joints.

Today, my biscuit jointer comes out from time to time to help reinforce miters, attach solid wood edges to plywood panels and it makes an appearance when I do panel glue ups.  Did I mention that I have issues when I glue up panels?

Now that I am entering the next phase of the project assembly – creating the actual shelves that will hold the books and span the distance between the two frames – I’ll be using the biscuit jointer to help keep my shelves on an even plane when I glue up the shelf boards. I had to stop to check my supply of biscuits and yes, I have enough to do the shelves.

All I need now is some quality shop time with my old friend and a stack of boards, and we’ll take another big step together toward project completion.

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