Machinery, Tools, Research, Reviews and Safety

Donate to Homes For Our Troops and you'll be automatically entered to win our awesome Bessey K-Body's. We are proud to announce the giveaway of some wonderful clamps as contributed by our sponsor Bessey Tools! We will feature our Bessey Tools K-Body REVO clamps valued at $220.00 for the 30 day period from September 23rd through October 22nd, at the end of this time period we will choose one lucky winner at random from a pool of Homes For Our Troops donors. All proceeds are deposited directly to Homes for our Troops, we have no interaction with the transaction. We are only issuing the grand prize. Here is the breakdown for your donations and chances to win. 1 …

Yesterday my Freud 3.25hp router that I have had for 8 years died. So I did some research on routers and have a budget of $350 to get a new router and a new mounting plate for the router table. Being that this router will be only for router table use and not hand held use, and that I really wanted a router with adjustments from the top through the plate, I had few options. So I decided on the Triton 3.25hp plunge router with through the plate and the price for the router and a new plate to fit the router and my table out the door was $330 from Rockler. I got it home and spent a couple of hours getting it all set up in my router table and running some test pieces of wood a…

I had to swing by Rockler to pick up a gallon of Titebond 3 glue for making cutting boards. While I was there I saw the 3 Piece Silicone Glue Set next to it. I did a quick search on the cell phone and checked out the reviews for it and decided to pick it up. When doing cutting boards you either need to use a brush, roller or your finger to spread the glue. I had used regular brushes and they did not work well and neither dd the roller. So I have just used my finger to spread it which worked good for me. I have to say that the silicon brush works really well, even better than using my finger. I also gave the silicon spreader a try and it worked well as long as it is on a w…

I saw this in another group's website. A new dust collector arrangement for drill presses called the "Drillnado". Sort of interesting: A penturner had modified it to fit to his tailstock for use when drilling pen blank on the lathe.. http://www.drillnado.com/

When I was at the Rockler Woodworking Store the other day just meandering around, I came across their new "Dust Right Universal Small Port Hose Kit". Not only is a mouth full to say or type, it really does work well. It has an expanding flexible hose that easily stretches from 3' to 15' and has fittings that will fit 2.25" opening on a shop vac along with a 1" and 1.5" coupler that will fit most power tools. The big thing is that all the fittings thread into the expanding hose and they all rotate freely so that your hose doesn't get twisted or kinked. When I was sanding all the parts for the 5 kids rocking chairs that I made this week it really made my life so much easier…

I have a 6in Delta bench top joiner with a stand that I'm willing to give to a Vet in the Los Angeles area. All I ask is that you served in the military at some point and that you pick it up. It works great, I have new blades that I never installed, it was just time to upgrade. You can reach me through this posting and thank you for your service. Jaime

I have had some time with my new DeWalt contractors saw now and I must say that it is super at about every thing so far. However there is a problem............me. The start switch is on the left and I am right handed and so was my old Sears saw. I keep going to the old switch that is no longer there Then there is that very innovative fence. I love the idea of how it works, but it takes me time to figure it out because I seldom need to make it expand. There is that old "me" factor again. I installed a new remote switch for my vacuum. It has two controls, one on my DeWalt saw and one on my Jet band saw. Now when I start either saw, I still reach for the old s…

I needed a new shop saw. I have limited space and it had to fold away, yet be a really good saw. I did my research and the chose the Dewalt. It had terrific reviews and I could not believe its versatility and accuracy. I will miss my on board router, that my old saw had, but it is worth it. The only down side on it so far was the assembly instructions. They could have done a better job. Check out this video.

A while back I bought a couple of these http://www.craftsman.com/craftsman-12-in-bar-clamp/p-00931482000P And posted that I rather liked them. I still do, but they are not 12" I was doing a glue up of some drawer boxes and wanted to use the clamps to put the squeeze on the Box Joints. They didn't fit. I measured the box measured the clamp it was a mis match But I observed a limiting factor. The factory drove a plastic stop in the bar. The intent is to prevent one from letting the head slip off the end and at the same time serve as a mounting location stop to flip the little clamp end around for spreading. So I dr…

We are proud to announce the giveaway of some wonderful clamps as contributed by our sponsor Bessey Tools! We will feature our Bessey Tools K-Body REVO clamps valued at $220.00 for the 30 day period from July 10 through August 9, at the end of this time period we will choose one lucky winner at random from a pool of active users of our community. RULES You must be active in our community during this promotional period from July 10 through August 9. Does this mean our woodworkers need to write essays or lengthy topics? Not at all, we just want to see your smiley shiny avatar here in our community and active. All members, and hosts are eligible for the random draw at…

Just ordered one. Got it with the Dust Extractor. And got a bunch of abrasives with it from Beaver Industrial $999 for the sander and Extractor comes with the power supply. 6" diameter in 5mm orbit ( they sell 8mm and a 2.2mm orbit sanders too) Like a dummy I managed to order two sanders. Can you believe that? Two at more than half a G each and I still hit CONFIRM. I swear it's the age. Growing old is the one true extreme sport But two minutes on the phone and they straightened that out. Pleasant enough to deal with I was pole sanding sheetrock mud and hating it (ohh how I hate it) and remembering why…

I saw this posted on Facebook and had to share it. Really ingenious design to make boxes and joints using a stacked dado set and this new design specialty blade. This is NOT on the market yet as the designer has a patent pending for it and is soliciting tool manufacturers. Very cool looking! http://www.homesteadnotes.com/one-cut-with-this-blade-makes-a-corner/2/

This is a continuation of the Easy Wood Tools review. Included in the “kit†were Easy Wood’s three basic turning tools: The Easy Rougher, The Easy Finisher and the Easy Detailer. These were the mid sized tools. The first thing you notice, when picking them up, is the comfortable design and the quality of the finish. The long handles and square tool bars provide excellent control. I found virtually no vibration during the turning process, even when the tool was extended over the tool rest. Easy Wood has even provided a “safety†marker to indicate the maximum safe overhang during turning. I used each of the tools during the turning the project’s base, s…

My Hammer rip fence died. AT LAST~!!!!! I hated that thing. It was as if some one brought their 12 year old to work and let her design and engineer the rip fence. So I order some stinkin bleedin OVERKILL metal 0.200" thick 2" x 3" steel tube 1/4" thick 3" x 3" angle Some more smaller angle and some 2"x 3/8" bar. I had a hunk of 3/8 x 6" laying around Here's my progress so far: End view of the Fence in progress There are 13, 1/4-20 bolts holding them together pinned on the ends with dowel pins Yes I hand tapped them. I hung it on the saw tonight. There is also an end support. This is about 60 …

I just wish they made a bench top or stand alone mortiser. But, they don't. So I went with a Delta, thinking Black and Decker surely couldn't screw up the brand too much. Wishful thinking!! I took delivery of the machine in late March of this year. Now, that POS Delta mortise machine is at the Authorized Repair Shop in Phoenix FOR THE SECOND TIME! This time, four teeth stripped off the cog wheel. Crappy Chinese pot metal. Three weeks (estimate) until the part arrives from Delta. Twenty minutes to install and test it. Then I get to drive another 3.5 hours to pick it up. Oh well, it lasted through 8 legs for the Morris chairs. It crapped out on the …

We were approached by a viewer at Lumber Jocks asking for the Shop Notes plans to build this guard at http://lumberjocks.com/projects/46742 The member on LJ's is our own Mike Dillen, he has the signature with our community site in it, how cool is that, so the fellow who contacted us asking for the Shop Notes edition with the plans, is under the impression he can see the plans from us, I know it's confusing, but hey, we want to help the fellow. Apparently he tried getting in touch with Mike, but had no luck. So now he's asking us, he is a woodworker in Mexico, they don't have much down there in the way of woodworking retail stores, so he wants to build his own guard. An…

Christmass in June I ordered this a dragons age ago and they had 'em back ordered. Got shipping no charge Assembly was a snap. It came while I was welding my Table Saw Fence Got it running this evening. It works. Gotta adjust it tomorrow It's not parallel yet.

Got some for some hot water radiator covers I have that need cleaning up. Spent more than I wanted, but took a chance Those things are not cheap. Anyway They are GREAT~!! They don't load up, they don't burn, they don't get dirty. They are like new each time I present them to the work. It's like they are fresh out of the package no matter how I use them on layers and layers of paint and rust. I haven't worn one out, but I'm going to try.

http://www.metalgeek.com/ There's a coping calculator here that is intended for pipe and tube. But it works for any rounds. Input the sizes of the rounds that you want to being together, Tell it the angle and offset and hit calculate. Then print off the result and wrap that around whatever you need to cut.