Now, my throatplates, push sticks, tape measure, pencils and angle gauge store in there. The drawer gives me a place for extra blades, dado set, small jigs, featherboards and the blade guard when I need to remove it. This combo unit is just the storage solution I’ve needed!

– Edwin J. Santiago
West Allis, Wisconsin

The post Adding Extra Table Saw Storage appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

I drilled it just deep enough to recess one magnet. A second smaller hole in the middle of the magnet recess goes all the way through the plywood. To use the jig, I place both magnets on top and swipe the top magnet off of the bottom one with my finger. Then, I poke the recessed one out of the jig with a dowel.

-John Jakobs
Mason, Ohio

The post Simple Magnet Separator appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

– Jim Wilson
San Marcos, Texas

The post Bolt Makes Blade Cleaning More Efficient appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

I first applied a small dab of multipurpose adhesive inside the collet (inset photo) to hold the ball in place. I’ve been using the original Space Ball for more than a year now. It hasn’t fallen out, and I haven’t had a stuck router bit since.

– Gary Storme
Anacortes, Washington

The post Space Balls Prevent Stuck Router Bits appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

I’ve never been much of a bystander, so I quickly set to work on prototypes for personal protective equipment (PPE) that I hoped to produce in sufficient quantities to at least cover the needs of my closest friends and family. And since “crazy” seems to know my exact location at all times, it took less than 48 hours for a major national news network to find me and place an order for 8,500 face masks for the purpose of protecting their reporters and staff who would be so critical in covering news of the crisis.

To make this essential, yet (then) extremely scarce piece of gear a reality, we ramped up from a single parttime employee to a team of 10 to seamstresses working from home. Calavera purchased many thousands of the most expensive vacuum bags known to our woodworking and construction industries and scrounged for every inch of elastic we could get our hands on. By the time of this writing, we have shipped well over 20,000 high quality, well-fitting masks, including a couple thousand donated outright to veterans hospitals, food banks and many other good causes around the community. (And yes, I made sure Mom and Dad had plenty from the start to stay safe.)

We must take responsibility for one another, regardless of politics, beliefs or any of the other factors that make individuals out of each of us. I have been extremely grateful for the opportunity to put whatever skills I have to use for the greater good, in whatever small manner that may be. And well, if I’m being honest, I do enjoy a good challenge and a little bit of chaos now and then. Stay safe, good people, in these challenging times.

Michael Williams is the founder of Calavera Tool Works

The post Apron-maker Shifts to PPE Amid COVID Crisis appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

Making the Carcass

Get this station underway by cutting the bottom panel to size. Then download our elevation drawings so you can lay out and cut the four uprights to shape from 3/4″ plywood. Label them A through D, to index them from left to right on the final assembled project. Carefully glue and clamp uprights C and D together so their edges and ends align to create a double-thick upright. Rout 3/4″-wide, 1/4″-deep dadoes across the appropriate faces of the uprights for the upper cabinet bottom panel, wide and narrow shelves and web frame. Here’s the dado schedule:

• Upright A: Dadoes for the upper cabinet bottom, web frame and wide shelf in the right face.
• Upright B: Dadoes for the upper cabinet bottom in the left face and two narrow shelf dadoes in the right face.
• Upright C/D: Two narrow-shelf dadoes in the left face.

Cut the wide and narrow back panels to size. These are differently sized so that their shared seam will be hidden behind upright B when assembled. Rip and crosscut a pair of solid-wood edging strips to hide the outer edges of the two back panels. Glue and clamp them in place. If you have a biscuit joiner, a few #20 biscuits can help to align the parts and make the clamping process easier. When the glue dries, plane or sand the edging flush with the plywood faces as needed.

Plow a 1/4″-wide, 1/2″-deep groove along the inside edges of the back panels that will house a continuous spline. I used a slot-cutting bit in a handheld router for the task. Plane a strip of 1″-wide stock down to 1/4″ thick to create the spline. Or, use 1/4″ plywood for the spline instead, as I did. Either way, make sure the spline fits easily but snugly in the panel slots.

Decide where you want the shop vacuum hose to pass through the miter station in what will become the chambered area behind the saw, and determine how large this hole needs to be to suit your shop vac hose. For my saw, I chose upright C/D for this “pass-through” hole, but a hole through the back panel might be a better choice for some saws. Bore the hole now. I cut mine with a 2-1/2″-diameter hole saw in a drill press. While you’re at it, mill two rows of 1/4″-diameter shelf pin holes into the right face of upright A and the left face of upright B within the upper cabinet area so you’ll have plenty of adjustment options for a shelf. When that’s done, arrange and fasten the uprights to the top face of the bottom panel with countersunk 2″ screws. Locate upright B so its left face is 34-1/4″ from the left end of the bottom panel.

Now you can install both halves of the back panel on the carcass, joining them along the middle seam with the spline glued in place. Fasten the back panel to the uprights and bottom panel with counterbored 2″ screws. The bottom end of the back panel should extend 3/4″ past the bottom face of the bottom panel. Make sure upright B is also centered on the back panel’s splined seam.

Rip and crosscut the short and long bottom cleats to size, and install them with glue and countersunk screws or brad nails. Align the outer edges of the cleats carefully with the bottom panel edges. While the project is still lying down, locate and mount the four casters on the bottom cleats. I positioned the caster mounting plates flush with the outside edges of the bottom cleats. Arrange the locking casters in front and the non-locking casters in back. Bolt them on and stand the project up on its wheels.

Cut the plywood top panel to size, and glue strips of short and long solid-wood trim to its ends and edges to hide the edge plys. When the glue dries, install the top on the carcass with 2″ counterbored screws. The ends of the top panel should overlap the outer uprights by 1″. Its front edge should overlap the front edges of the uprights at this stage by 1-3/4″.

Head back to your stack of plywood to cut the narrow shelves, wide shelf, a panel for the web frame and the shelf supports to size. Make two large cutouts in the web frame panel that form a pattern of 2″-wide “stiles” and “rails” around its perimeter and across the center. The purpose of this web frame is to form an attachment point for the drawer divider and to enable easier access inside the drawer compartments for installing the slides, later.

You can also cut plywood panels to shape for the drawer divider and the upper cabinet’s bottom panel. Make the notched portion of the drawer divider measure 3-1/4″ x 12-1/4″. Now dry fit the wide and narrow shelves, web frame, upper cabinet bottom and drawer divider in the carcass to make sure they are ready for installation. Then remove and finish-sand them.

While you still have easy access to the carcass’s inner surfaces, now is a good time to apply finish to it, as well as to the shelves and upper cabinet bottom panel. But first, mask off the ends of those parts that will fit into dadoes to keep finish off of these areas. On the left face of upright B, keep the full area below the dado for the upper cabinet bare — you’ll be gluing the shelf supports to these surfaces. As you apply finish, keep it out of the dadoes and off of the ends and back edges of the cleats and bottom panel — the skirt boards will need to be glued to these surfaces after a few more steps.

When the finish dries, glue the narrow shelves into their dadoes in uprights B and C. Glue the wide shelf and web frame into their dadoes in upright A. Spread glue on the shelf supports and set them into place against upright B so they straddle the right ends of the wide shelf and web frame.

Now install the upper cabinet bottom into its dadoes. Slide the drawer divider into place; be sure its front end is flush with the front edge of the web frame. Carefully center the divider between uprights A and B and along the length of the upper cabinet bottom panel. Attach the divider by driving 18-gauge brads down through the upper cabinet bottom panel and countersunk screws up through the web frame.

Adding the Face Frames and Work Surface

The lower face frame consists of two end stiles, a middle stile and a short drawer stile, three long rails, two short rails and a bottom rail. Rip and crosscut these parts to size from solid wood, but make the end stiles about 1/16″ wider than the other members. Doing this will give you a bit of extra left-to-right adjustability when installing the face frame on the carcass.

Arrange the parts into the face frame shape on a large work surface, and mark the joints for pocket screws. Assemble the rails and stiles carefully, connecting the parts with pairs of 1-1/4″ pocket screws at each joint.

Set and clamp the face frame into position on the front of the carcass, adjusting it so the middle rail covers upright B and the shelf supports; adjust the bottom rail flush with the bottom faces of the bottom cleats. If everything fits well, glue and clamp the face frame to the carcass. You can reinforce the glue joint with brad nails, if you wish. Repeat the process to assemble and install the upper face frame. Make its end stiles a bit wider than necessary, and take note that the top rail for this face frame is 2″ instead of 1-1/2″.

When both face frames are in place, trim their end stiles flush with the outer uprights using a block plane or sanding lock. Rip and crosscut the short bridge rail, and glue it to upright C/D between the upper and lower face frames.

The side and back skirt boards hide the long and short cleats and bottom panel from view. Make these skirt boards from strips of 3/4″ x 1-/2″ solid stock. I rounded the outer corners of the side skirt boards with 3/4″ radii at my disk sander to help them stand up better to wear and tear. Install the side skirt boards on the carcass so their front ends are flush with the front of the lower face frame. Glue and brad-nail them in place. Then fit and install the rear skirt board with more glue and brad nails.

The drawer slide hardware will be mounted on filler strips located inside the drawer openings. These filler strips enable the slides to be installed flush with the inside edges of the face frame stiles. A pair of thin filler strips attach to either side of the drawer divider, and a thicker filler strip is located on upright A and B. Measure the amount of actual recess behind the face frame for each of the four filler strips, and prepare stock to match these recesses at your thickness planer. Rip and crosscut the strips to size. Install them on the uprights and divider with countersunk 1-1/4″ wood screws, centering the filler strips vertically in their drawer openings.

Next up, cut a panel for the work surface to size. You can use ordinary plywood for this workpiece, of course, but consider the option of white melamine or covering the work surface with plastic laminate. Either material will enable you to mark the work surface with a pencil when crosscutting multiple pieces to the same length, then wipe off the marks when you’re through. It’s a nice convenience to have. Glue and clamp a strip of solid-wood edging to the ends of the work surface. I reinforced these joints with three #20 biscuits per end to keep them aligned during clamping.

When the glue dries, plow a 3/4″-wide, 3/8″-deep groove into the top face of the work surface to fit a T-track. Position this groove so the T-track will be located 1″ behind your miter saw’s fence (or sacrificial fence facing, if you use one) when the saw is installed in the station. To determine the groove’s location, set the work surface and your saw temporarily in place on the project. Raise the saw on scrap blocks until the saw’s table is flush with the work surface. Use a long straightedge, held against the saw fence, to register where the T-track will need to be. Then cut the groove with a dado blade at the table saw or on your router table with a 3/4″-wide straight bit. Cut a piece of aluminum T-track to fit the full length of the work surface groove. Install it on the work surface with short flathead wood screws, making sure they don’t protrude beyond the work surface into the drawer compartments below.

Go ahead and install the work surface on uprights A and B with countersunk 1-1/2″ screws driven down through the edging strips and into the uprights. I decided to leave these screw heads exposed, in case wear-and-tear on the work surface should ever make me want to replace it in the future.

The upper cabinet still needs a shelf, so cut one to size, and glue a strip of solid wood to its front edge to hide the edge plys. Plane or sand the edging flush to the shelf faces when the glue dries. Apply finish to the shelf, then mount the shelf inside the upper cabinet on four shelf pins.

Your miter saw’s base will stand on and be attached to a pair of saw supports that consist of top and bottom blocking pieces with two risers in between. The blocking pieces need to be wide enough to enable you to bolt or screw your saw base to them with the blocking also flush against uprights B and C/D. Set your saw back in the compartment to determine the correct blocking width for your saw base, then cut the four blocking pieces to width and length.

The height of the four risers will also vary, depending on the working height of different miter saw bases. To determine the correct width for your saw, stack the blocking face to face in pairs and set them in place in the station. Set the saw on these stacks. Now measure the height from the saw table to the work surface; this measurement determines the riser width. Cut the risers to width and length, then assemble the four parts of each saw support with glue and brad nails or screws.

Final-sand and apply finish to the face frames, saw supports and any other bare surfaces at this point to complete them. When it dries, set the saw supports into place in the saw compartment. Attach them by driving countersunk screws through the upper narrow shelf from below and into the bottom blocking of the supports.

Building the Drawers

It’s time to install the drawer slides in their openings. To do that, unclip the cabinet-side components of the slide hardware from the drawer-side components. Position the cabinet-side components on their filler strips so the hardware will be centered in the drawer openings, vertically. The front ends of the slides should be flush with the back edge of the face frame. To make sure the slides will be parallel with one another, set them in place on a scrap spacer before driving the attachment screws to secure them. Choose the horizontally slotted holes in the slides so you can move the hardware forward or backward slightly, if needed, when the drawers are hung.

Reinstall the drawer-side components of the slides onto the cabinet-side components, and measure the distance between the slides for each drawer. This measurement sets the final length of the drawer fronts.

Rip and crosscut enough 1/2″-thick stock to make the fronts, backs and sides for both drawers. For now, leave the drawer backs overly long. Make up a couple of test pieces to help you refine your joint-cutting setups in the next step, too.

I used a dovetail jig to rout half-blind dovetails for joining the box fronts to the sides. Be sure to rout test pieces first, to fine-tune your jig’s settings, before milling the actual parts.

The drawer backs fit into 1/2″-wide dadoes that are located 1/4″ in from the back inside faces of the drawer sides. Cut these dadoes at the table saw or router table. Then switch to a 1/4″-wide dado setting or a 1/4″ straight bit so you can mill grooves in the drawer sides and fronts for the drawer bottom panels. These grooves are 1/4″ deep. Position them so they’re hidden inside the lowest tail sockets of the drawer fronts and behind the lowest tails of the drawer sides.

Go ahead and dry fit the drawer sides on the drawer fronts and square up the corners carefully in order to verify the final length of the drawer backs. Cut the backs to length, slide them into place on the drawer boxes and take a final measurement for the drawer bottom panels. (The back end of the bottom panels will extend to the back faces of the drawer backs.) Cut the bottom panels to size from 1/4″ plywood.

Final-sand the parts before gluing and clamping the two drawer boxes together. Do this carefully, measuring their diagonals before the glue sets to make sure the drawer boxes are square. When the drawers come out of the clamps, drive a few 1″ brads up through the drawer bottoms and into the drawer backs to fix the bottoms in place. Give the outside surfaces of the drawers a final sanding, as needed, to flatten the dovetailed surfaces.

Your drawers are ready for hanging! Lay out the drawer slide locations on the drawer sides, and install the slides on the drawer boxes with screws. The front ends of the slide components should be flush with the drawer fronts. Connect the slides again, and test their action to make sure the drawers open and close smoothly. If they do, rip and crosscut a couple of drawer faces from 3/4″ stock. Size the drawer faces to allow for about 1/16″ of clearance all around when the faces are installed in the drawer openings. Final-sand the drawer faces, then position the faces on the drawers temporarily with pieces of double-sided tape. When you have them located and adjusted to your satisfaction, drive several #6 x 1″ screws through the drawer fronts and into the drawer faces to secure them. Mark the faces for drawer pulls, and install the hardware with long screws driven into them from inside the drawers. Tweak the drawer slide positions, if needed, so the drawer faces close flush and fit evenly. Then you can install more screws into the slides to lock their positions.

Adding Steel-clad Cabinet Doors

Cabinet doors don’t have to be hard to build, and I’ve kept these easy for any skill level. The corner joints are 3/8″-long stub tenons on the ends of the rails that fit into 3/8″-deep grooves in the stiles. This same groove is milled along the inside edges of all four stiles and rails to receive the door panels and a facing of 24-gauge galvanized sheet steel.

Start by ripping and crosscutting the four stiles and rails from flat, straight 3/4″-thick stock. Then carefully measure the combined thickness of the sheet metal and the plywood you’ll be using for the two-piece drawer panels. This thickness determines the actual width of the rail-and-stile grooves as well as the final thickness of the stub tenons on the rails. Plow a 3/8″-deep, centered groove along one edge of each rail and stile with a stacked dado set to match the panel thickness you need or by making two cuts with a standard blade. Make a test cut first on scrap stock that matches your rail-and-stile thickness to confirm your blade and rip fence settings.

Now stack a wide dado blade to mill 3/8″-long stub tenons on the ends of the rails. Make these cuts with the rails backed up with your miter gauge equipped with a sacrificial fence to reduce tearout. When the sawing is done, dry fit the door frames together to inspect the corner joints, as well as to take inside width and length measurements for the final panel sizes. Cut the plywood and sheet metal to these proportions. Carry out another dry fit with the plywood and sheet metal installed; make sure the corner joints still close properly. Final-sand the face of the plywood panels that will show when the doors are opened, then glue and clamp each door together. When the doors come out of the clamps, final-sand the frames and fit them in the cabinet opening. Trim their edges and ends at the joiner or with a hand plane, as needed, to create even clearance all around when they’re hung.

I mounted my doors to the face frame with no-mortise hinges to give this project the look of classic cabinetry while also making the door-hanging process easy. To install them, locate and attach the hinge leaves to the face frame stiles with pairs of screws driven into the slotted holes of the hinge leaves. Set each door in its opening, marking the hinge leaf locations on its back face. (It helps to set a thin spacer between the bottom edge of the door and the bottom face frame rail to maintain swing clearance while you mark the hinge locations.) Carefully drill centered pilot holes for the hinge leaf screws, and attach the leaves to the doors to hang them. Adjust the doors up and down, or from side to side, as needed to create even spacing between them — slotted holes in the hinge hardware provide some helpful adjustability here.

When my doors hung evenly, I could really see the end of this big project in sight! I’ll bet you will, too. But we’ve got some ground to cover before we’re through. So remove the doors and bore holes for the pull hardware, then give them a final sanding and apply finish. You can rehang them when the finish cures. Glue a block of scrap behind the top rail so you can mount a simple magnetic door catch to it for each door.

Making the Pull-out Saw Tray

The tray, which captures debris below the saw, is joined at the corners with simple rabbet-and-dado joints. Rip and crosscut the tray front, back and sides from 1/2″ solid stock. The length of the tray front and back should be 1/2″ less than the span between the inside faces of the saw supports.

Mill the tray’s corner joints by cutting 1/4″ x 1/4″ rabbets into the ends of the tray front and back. The tray sides require 1/4″-wide dadoes to receive the rabbet tongues; position these dadoes 1/4″ in from the ends of the parts. You can cut these joints on either a table saw or router table, but be sure to test your setups on scrap stock before machining the actual tray parts. If the joints fit together well, mill a 1/2″-wide, 1/4″-deep groove along the inside faces of the tray front, back and sides for a bottom panel. Dry assemble the tray frame to double-check the proportions of the bottom panel, and cut one from 1/2″ plywood. Finish-sand the parts, then glue and clamp the tray with the bottom panel in place. Be sure it remains square.

Rip and crosscut a face for the tray from solid wood, giving it about 1/16″ of clearance inside the saw compartment opening. Set the tray in place between the saw supports, and position and clamp the face to the tray so the face fits its opening evenly. Drive countersunk 1″ screws through the tray front and into the face to secure it. Then install a centered drawer pull on the face, just as you did for the drawers.

I applied several strips of 3/4″-wide Nylo tape to the narrow shelf alongside the saw supports. They stretch the full frontto- back length of the tray opening and enable the tray to slide in and out almost as easily if it was mounted on metal slides.

Helpful Hardware Finishes Things Up

I installed a pair of plastic 2-1/2″-diameter grommets on each side of the vacuum hose opening I cut in the right upright of my miter station. The grommets add a nice finished touch to this pass-through, hiding the cut edges in the plywood.

Set your miter saw in position, and make sure it will swivel fully, left to right, without contacting the back or side walls of the chamber. I drove screws down through my saw’s base mounting holes and into the saw supports to secure it.

Two pieces of hardware can add even more convenience to this project. First, Rockler’s 2-1/2″ O.D. Dust Right Coupler enables me to attach my shop vacuum to the miter saw’s dust hose conveniently. I used a short length of Rockler’s Flexiport hose and two adapters from its Power Tool Hose Kit to connect the saw to the coupler. This way, my shop vacuum can be used for miter saw dust collection or detached quickly and easily for other clean-up duties around the shop.

Another handy accessory is an iVac outlet switch (yellow in photo). With both the saw and shop vac plugged into it, turning on the saw automatically starts the shop vac. The iVac keeps the shop vac running for an extra 5 seconds after the saw is turned off to clear any remaining dust.

Add a workpiece stop to the T-track of your new miter saw station, and this saw-enhancing project is finished! Now roll it into position next to your drill press, plug it in and enjoy the added convenience it brings to your miter saw’s operation.

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

Hard-to-Find Hardware:

4″ Polyurethane Casters, Total-Lock Swivel (1) #23030
4″ Polyurethane Casters, Swivel Plate Mount (1) #22410
4′ Universal T-track (1) #20054
100-lb. Full-extension Drawer Slides, 20″ (4) #69876
Satin Nickel Ball-tip Full Wrap Inset Hinges (2) #27505
Narrow Profile Magnetic Catch (2) #26559
Hopewell Bar Pull 3-3/4″, Satin Nickel (5) #1010954
1/4″ Shelf Supports, Nickel (1) #22773
2-1/2″ Brown Grommets (2) #51100
Nylo-tape, 3/4″ W x 10′ L (1) #59739
Dust Right® 2-1/2″ Mountable Dust Coupler (1) #54955
Dust Right® FlexiPort Power Tool Hose Kit (1) #51170
iVac Dust Collector Switch Box (1) #42884
T-track Corner Stop (1) #58673

The post PROJECT: Updated Miter Saw Station appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

Most of the antiques I’ve seen were made of maple lumber, although during my travels through southern states I have also found many made from what appears to be long-leaf pine. I have always assumed that this ubiquitous treenware was made from local trees. I would love to find one made of chestnut.

I am not sure why, but the local and individual manufacture of these items has increased my enjoyment of them. In the practical world where these essential products were made, form follows function. The similarities between all the examples I’ve seen is remarkable.

The occurrence of everyday at-home bread-making is never going to be as widespread as it once was. But if it ever comes to that, I will be ready. However, these bowls can certainly have other uses, and their practical beauty can enhance many decors. For that reason I set out to make a few of my own, inspired by examples from the past.

Logging In

Luckily, there is a drop-off site nearby where our local government lets folks drop off their brush waste and cut tree sections. I “help” the site regularly by grabbing chunks of wood that will make great bowl-turning blanks — or in this case, power-carving blanks. I grabbed some 10″-diameter ash and birch logs. While they seemed very large to me as I was lugging them out of the site, it turned out that I wish I had found some with a 14″ diameter instead. That would have allowed me to carve bowls more to the scale of the ones I’ve seen in the antique stores. They tend to be 12″ wide, at least. With my 10″ boles, I produced bowls about 8″ or 9″ wide.

You don’t need to start with “firewood,” however. If you have some slab stock that is 4″ or 5″ thick and 9″ to 12″ wide, that will work great, too!

Sawyer Saturday

With my logs in hand, I set up my band saw to cut them into the blanks I wanted. I use a simple inverted T-shaped fixture to hold the log as I cut it.

I drive screws through the upright piece of plywood to hold its orientation as I slice off a section.

I have broken band saw blades by not taking that extra step … purchasing a $100 resaw blade has made me more prudent. My band saw has the capacity to cut up large pieces like this, but if that is not possible for you, you can use a splitting maul and wedge to extract your blank from a log.

Once I have a flat surface, I can turn that face down and use my rip fence to complete the blank-cutting process.

But if the log has bumps or a curve along its length, then use the fixture once more to get two flat surfaces roughly 90 degrees to one another. At that point you are ready to cut out a rectangular blank that will serve to make your bowl.

If you are like me, you’ll want to do a couple more steps on the band saw, but it’s your call. Once I have the rectangular blank, I decide on the rough shape I want the bowl to become.

I sketch out the curved ends of the bowl and get an idea of slope of the sides. Then I step back to the saw and form those shapes and angles on the blank. With that done, I’m ready to start carving.

Wood Chips in the Wind

I use an Arbortech TurboPlane mounted on a Makita battery-powered angle grinder. I also prefer to do the carving outside. Power carving throws chips everywhere, so I employ a leaf blower to clean up my driveway. Since the chips fly off at considerable force, I use a face shield to protect my eyes. And while the machine doesn’t make a lot of noise, you’ll be running it for a quite awhile. My hearing has become more sensitive in recent years, so I wear hearing protection.

To keep the blank in place while I’m carving, I screw it to a narrow piece of plywood longer than the blank. Then I clamp the plywood to my workstation. The blank won’t go anywhere, and I can protect the surface of my workstation at the same time.

Carve the outside of the bowl first. The TurboPlane does a good job on end and straight grain, but you do need to hold the angle grinder securely. You will also come to learn which way the cutter does best in each area of the blank. I try to cut “into” the rotation of the cutter rather than pulling it “along” the grain. Work methodically, carving away stock in controlled strokes. I find it very useful to step back and look at the blank from a couple of angles to get a good idea of how the overall shape of the piece is emerging. It helps me keep the shape symmetrical and know where I’m headed with the overall design. I remove the clamps and spin the blank around, when needed, to keep the shape I am forming even and for easier access to the blank.

When I’m happy with the shape of the outside of the bowl, I sand it while it’s still secured. For my purposes, I want to leave uniform carving marks in the surface of the wood to mimic the chisel-carving marks I see in the antiques I admire. So my goal for sanding is to smooth the surface but not remove the irregularities of the cutter. I use a random-orbit sander to start off but finish sanding by hand.

Get the Inside Out

With the outside completed, I remove the blank from the piece of plywood and flip it over. Once again, I screw the blank to the plywood to secure it while I carve the interior of the bowl.

I sketch a lip for the bowl before grabbing the power carver. Removing material from the center of the bowl isn’t difficult, but I’ve found that rotating the blank end-to-end regularly helps the process go faster and more easily.

Just as if you were turning a bowl on a lathe, keep your eye on the thickness of the bowl’s wall. Carving through the wall would be a disaster, considering all the work you have put into it so far. Pay special attention to the ends of the bowl: the end grain will blow out more easily than the long grain.

In my experience, this is another reason green wood is best for this task, as the end grain seems more durable before it dries out. Keep carving until you are satisfied.

Finishing Details

Sanding the interior can be a little trickier than the bowl’s exterior. I use a smaller random-orbit sander and then switch to hand sanding.

I’ve used a few different finishes on my dough bowls, including boiled linseed oil, Watco oil and amber shellac. I used tinted Watco on spalted birch because I wanted to add some color to it. Linseed oil ambers the wood tone, but it takes forever to dry. My favorite so far was two coats of amber shellac, rubbed down with a gray synthetic abrasive pad. I put a coat of paste wax over the top of that and polished it with a soft cloth. I think it looked and felt great.

This is a fun project, and the bowls make great gifts — give it a try!

The post PROJECT: Carved Dough Bowls appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

Design and Material Choices

My intent was to make this desk easy to build from materials that are readily available and relatively inexpensive. It’s made from 1/2″- and 3/4″-thick Baltic birch plywood. I’m providing Plywood Cutting Diagrams in the drawings that show you how to cut all the parts from three 24″ x 30″ pieces of plywood.

The range of desk heights is determined by a few factors, including the lengths of the adjustable post, base post and post slot as well as the size of the casters. The dimensions I’m providing in the Material List make the lowest desk height setting roughly 27-1/2″, which is perfect for sitting on a couch. The highest height setting is 37-1/4″, which works well as the standing height for my wife and daughter. It would be better for my son and me if the desk could extend a few inches higher, but that would change the lowest setting, which was more important for our family.

Of course, you can change the dimensions of the above-mentioned components to influence the range of heights that better suit your needs. If you choose to use different-sized casters than I did, be sure they feature brakes for at least two of the casters. If none of the casters have brakes, you may find yourself unintentionally pushing the desk as you work and slowly chasing it around the house.

Cutting the Parts

Use the Material List and Drawings to lay out and cut all of the parts. Most of the cuts you’ll need to make are straight and can be done easily on a table saw or circular saw. The tapers and various curves on the base legs, top side rails and base posts can be cut with a jigsaw or band saw. In a pinch, you could make all of the cuts with only a jigsaw. It’s easiest to cut the cup holder hole with a drill press and 3-3/4″ hole saw, but a jigsaw will also do the job.

Forming the Slot and Bolt Holes

While I experimented with a few mechanism options to adjust the desk height, I decided to keep it simple and go with a slotted post and a couple knobs to secure it in the base. The downside of this mechanism is that it leaves a slight risk of the desk dropping if the knobs loosen.

The top half of the desk is so lightweight that it hasn’t been a concern for me. But if you have young children at home that might loosen these knobs when you’re not there to support the desktop, then I advise adding safeguards of some sort, such as drilling locking pin holes at commonly used heights or replacing the knobs with hex nuts that can’t be loosened by hand.

Drill 5/16″-diameter holes through the adjustable post at each end of where the slot will be located. The Adjustable Post drawing on the next page provides these locations.

Then rout a 5/16″-wide slot connecting the two end holes. If you don’t have a router table, you could also use a jigsaw or a handheld router guided against a straightedge to cut this slot instead.

The knobs thread onto T-bolts. I cut recesses in the back of the base post to capture the heads of the T-bolts and prevent them from spinning freely. To do this, use a 1/2″-diameter Forstner bit to drill two 1/16″-deep overlapping holes. Then, drill a 5/16″-diameter hole through the center of these recesses.

Assembling the Desk

Round over all of the sharp edges and smooth the part surfaces with a sander and 120- or 150-grit sandpaper. Then assemble the desk parts with wood glue and #8 x 1-1/4″ screws, following the Exploded View drawing as a guide. Drill countersunk pilot holes for the screws to recess their heads. Start with the base parts, using the adjustable post as a spacer between the base posts when attaching the base post sides. There should be slight friction between these components, but the adjustable post should still slide freely inside the base assembly. Next, assemble the top parts of the desk and attach them to the adjustable post. I didn’t use screws to install the cup holder base on the top. Instead, I just glued and clamped it to the underside of the top.

Apply two coats of water-based polyurethane or the finish of your choice. This desk would also look nice painted, but I would not paint the adjustable post and inside faces of the base posts, because their painted surfaces would likely stick together and impede their ability to slide past one another easily.

After the final coat of finish has cured, attach the four casters to the bottom feet with panhead screws that are no more than 1-1/4″ long, to prevent the pointed tips from breaking through the top feet. I mounted the two locking casters on the front side of my desk so the brake levers are easy to access.

Finally, slide the adjustable post assembly down into place. Install the T-bolts in their holes in the base and through the post slot, seating their heads in the recesses. Secure the bolts with washers and star knobs, then raise the desktop to whatever height you need and tighten the knobs.

This project has worked better than expected around our house. Now the problem is deciding who gets to use it. I just might need to make another one…

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

Hard-to-Find Hardware:

1/2″ Baltic Birch Plywood, 24″W x 30″L (1) #63446
3/4″ Baltic Birch Plywood, 24″W x 30″L (2) #63453
2-1/2″ 1/4-20 T-Bolt, 5 Pack (1) #37295
Rockler Easy-to-Grip 5-Star Knob, Female Threading (2) #58085
3″ Aluminum Caster with Polyethylene Tread (2) #64837
3″ Aluminum Caster with Polyethylene Tread and Brake (2) #60876
Wall Brackets for Rockler Lock-Align Drawer Organizer System (1) #52058
Bins for Rockler Lock-Align Drawer Organizer System (1) #53186
Rockler Utility Caddy (1) #52562

The post PROJECT: Adjustable Mobile Desk appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

Miter Saw Station: Give your compound miter saw a hard-working home base when you build this rolling shop fixture. It offers ample workpiece support when cutting and plenty of offcut storage, plus two forms of dust collection and a closed upper cabinet.

Adjustable Mobile Desk: If you’ve considered switching to a standing desk for health reasons, our design is easy to build and enables you to work wherever you like. Two knobs lower the telescoping column for seated use.

Carved Dough Bowls: Pick a cool, pleasant day and a couple chunks from your firewood pile to do a bit of outdoor woodworking. These carved dough bowls are a perfect excuse to let your imagination — and the chips — soar!

Bamboo Fly Rod: Contributing author Jeff Day wasn’t satisfied to hit the trout streams with manufactured fly rods. So he set out to make his own. If you’re up to the challenge, Jeff’s article and related online content will show you how.

Woodturning: The classifieds and estate auctions can offer huge savings on a full-sized lathe if you don’t mind buying one that’s gently used. Be sure to read Ernie Conover’s tips for sizing up a used lathe in this issue before you buy.

Tool Tutorial: Hand plane nomenclature can be confusing, especially when you’re trying to choose which hand planes to own and use. Our publisher hopes to bring some clarity to the topic with a brief overview of hand plane history.

Tool Preview: A dedicated drill press is handy, but it’s not the only option for drilling precisely. Rockler’s new Portable Drill Guide and Self-centering Vise offer a viable, high-quality alternative to a drill press in a much smaller package.

Hardworking Woods: Yellow poplar may not offer the visual pizzazz of expensive exotics or figured woods, but what it lacks in curb appeal it more than makes up for in utility. We pay tribute to this often-unsung hardwood.

Six Simple Finishes: Yellow poplar may not offer the visual pizzazz of expensive exotics or figured woods, but what it lacks in curb appeal it more than makes up for in utility. We pay tribute to this often-unsung hardwood.

The post Woodworker’s Journal – July/August 2020 appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

Understanding Bench Planes from Popular Woodworking

Sargent Planes By Number

Bench Plane Model Number Chart

The post More on Using Hand Planes appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.