Monthly Archives: December 2014

Oak table top with scalloped corners
After discovering an old dilapidated Singer sewing machine in the upstairs storage area of my dad’s garage, I decided to “repurpose” it as a table. The original wooden work surface of the 100+ year old machine was badly warped and discolored due to water damage so I made an executive decision to replace it with […]

Scalloped Corners

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If you cut enough wood, you’ll eventually encounter situations where the saw blade is burning the wood. This usually happens with ripping operations but can also happen with crosscuts. If the burning is really pronounced, it may be accompanied by smoking and a noticeable increase in feed pressure. Although there are a number of causes […]

How to Prevent Saw Blade Burning

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This chart compares sandpaper grits using three different grading systems: 1) Coated Abrasives manufacturer’s Institute (CAMI), 2) Federation of European Producers Association (FEPA), and 3) the “0” or “ought” grade system. CAMI and FEPA are the two most common grading systems in use today. CAMI is used primarily in North America whereas FEPA is used […]

Sandpaper Grit Chart

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Home-made sanding block
Sanding is not the most pleasant woodworking task but it goes a lot smoother (pun intended) if you have a system in place for choosing sandpaper grits. That is: what grit to start with, what grit to end with, and what grits to use in between. This process is sometimes referred to as a sanding […]

Going Through the Grits

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Oscillating spindle sander
I’ve accumulated several different types of sanding tools over the years, some of which are used much more frequently than others but all have their place. My sanding arsenal includes hand-held tools: a sheet sander, a random orbital sander, a belt sander, sanding blocks, a detail sander, and a cabinet scraper, as well as stationary tools: […]

An Assortment of Wood Sanding Tools

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Sanding isn’t fundamentally difficult but its still easy to make mistakes. This is often due to carelessness, such as over sanding the edges of a table top, but can also be due to procedural screw-ups such as not using the right tool or type of sandpaper for the job. Or sanding against the grain. Laziness […]

Common Sanding Mistakes

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Wiping off rust and naval jelly residue 1
One day in the woodshop… I was applying a finish to a newly constructed coffee table and I activated my fume control system.  This involves opening one of the windows and turning on a fan that is positioned in front of the window to blow fume-laden air outside. It actually works fairly well at clearing […]

Removing Rust from A Jointer Bed

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Finishing up the grooves - no spacer for last groove
Here’s a method for routing evenly spaced parallel grooves on a router table that is fast, accurate, and doesn’t require moving the router fence for each pass.  The trick is to create a set of equal width spacers, whose width equals the spacing between grooves. After each routing pass, a spacer is removed to position […]

Routing Parallel Grooves

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