Drilling a large diameter counterbore at an angle “freehand” is difficult because the bit will only be in partial contact with the wood when starting to drill and it will have a tendency to skip across the surface. This was the situation I found myself in when I was volunteered to add diagonal braces to […]
Bill Kovalick
The hand cranks for raising and tilting the blade on my General cabinet table saw were getting progressively harder to turn so I decided it was time for a little maintenance. The blade tilt mechanism was particularly in dire need: not only was it difficult to turn the crank but it produced a horrible screeching […]
Table Saw Clean and Lube
While building several sets of cornhole boards, I needed a way to create an evenly-spaced painted ring around the hole. That’s when I decided to build this “compass cutter”, which is essentially an over-sized compass with a blade in place of a pencil. It’s used like a normal compass but instead of drawing a line, […]
Compass Cutter
I wish I had made this plywood cutting table a long time ago. It makes quick work of breaking down a piece of plywood into more manageable sizes, especially if using a track saw. Perhaps the best feature of the table is that it is portable, allowing it to be assembled in an area with […]
Plywood Cutting Table
The Dewalt Track Saw has a unique advantage over other track saws: a double-sided rail – a rubber edge strip on both sides – which allows cutting along both sides of the rail. This means there’s no need to flip the track around to cut from the opposite direction and the overall life of the […]
Dewalt Track Saw Crosscut Table
I recently purchased a Makita track saw to help cut some panels for cabinets that I was planning to build. Before buying the saw, I read a number of online reviews and concluded that this product offered the best bang for the buck, especially if one is not a full-time carpenter/woodworker. In terms of cutting […]
My Very Brief Experience with a Makita Track Saw
This simple router circle cutting jig was made from a piece of left-over 7/16″ PVC board that I found in the scrap bin. My impetus for building it was that I needed to cut 6″ wide holes for several corn hole game sets and I decided that the manual scroll saw approach with resultant wavy edges […]
Router Circle Cutting Jig
The requirements for this wishing well were rather simple: it had to be relatively compact but large enough to cover an unsightly well pipe, but also inexpensive and easy to make. Of course, I also wanted it to look half-decent. I think I succeeded on all counts. The well was built over the course of a […]
Simple Wishing Well
Here is a nifty calculator for making items via splayed joinery that was graciously provided by Gerald R. What exactly is “splayed joinery” you say? Well imagine a tube made from multiple pieces of wood (staves) in which one end of the tube is larger in diameter than the other. An example is a tapered round […]
Stave Calculator for Splayed Joinery
I’ve been dabbling with intarsia for the last few months and it’s been quite the learning experience. If you’re not familiar with intarsia, it refers to a woodworking technique/art form that involves inlaying different pieces of wood to create a pseudo 3-D picture. It relies on the natural variations in wood grain and color to create the […]
Getting Started with Intarsia
I’ve been the proud owner of a government surplus 1970s-era magnifying desk lamp for more years that I can remember. For most of that time, it sat unused in a closet collecting dust but I finally found a use for it – as a magnifying light for my Dewalt 788 scroll saw! But the trick was to […]
Mounting a Magnifying Lamp on a Dewalt Scroll Saw
I recently decided to try my at intarsia and I quickly realized that it involves lots of sanding. Much of this sanding involves rounding the edges of pieces in order to create a 3D effect and perhaps the best way to perform this task is with either a flex or pneumatic sanding drum. The softness of […]
Intarsia Flex Drum Sanding Station
1 It seems that lots of people have come up with solutions for making their scroll saw mobile so I thought I would throw my hat in the ring. I recently purchased a Dewalt 788 scroll saw with the base and work light (BTW, Grizzly has a pretty good deal on this package) and I quickly realized […]
Retractable Casters for Scroll Saw Stand
My big project over the latter part of winter was this outdoor bench made from reclaimed redwood. The lumber for the bench came from an older, weather-beaten bench that had been exposed to the elements for 20+ years. When I realized the bench was made from relatively expensive and rare redwood (possibly old-growth), I decided it […]
Reclaimed Redwood Bench
1 Penetrating epoxy has been used for years to seal and repair wooden parts on boats but it also has value in protecting outdoor wooden furniture from the elements. It’s designed to be applied to bare wood where it soaks into the wood, filling the small gaps in the wood surface and creating an impenetrable moisture barrier. […]
Penetrating Epoxy
6 When I built this cedar bird house last year, I was hopeful that it would attract blue birds or some other colorful song birds. So I was somewhat excited to see a “bird” sticking his head out of the house as I was doing some yard work recently. But as I got closer to the house I realized the bird was […]
Frogs in the Bird House
More than once I’ve found myself in a situation where I needed to drill a hole or insert a screw in a hard-to-reach location but lacked the technology to easily accomplish the task in a satisfactory manner. Typically, these are situations where there is insufficient room to position the drill directly over the hole so I usually resort to […]
Milwaukee and Ryobi Angled Drill Adapters
3 In addition to repairing nail holes in a collection of reclaimed redwood lumber, I was also faced with the task of repairing a number of voids in the wood made by carpenter bees. This task involved two basic types of repairs: 1) plugging holes, and 2) filling tunnels. The holes consisted of either entrance holes where the bees burrowed into […]