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WOODWORKING TIPS
Sanding those small parts can be a real chore sometimes. You have to try to hold them still with one hand while operating
your sander with the other. This large piece of 80 grit sandpaper glued onto a sheet of plywood will hold the smallest piece
of wood in one place even while running a powerful Festool sander.
| Sanding Aid |
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| 30 X 30 sandpaper |
When I had my 8" jointer I'd always put a rare earth magnet on a metal rule, stand it on edge and use that to set the
height of my blades. It worked fine. But when I upgraded to a 12" machine this technique just wouldn't work. Too much length
I guess. I couldn't get the blades an even height across the length. So with a piece of melamine, some two part glue and some
rare earth magnets I made this jig that works great. Perfect set up, first time.
| Setting Blade Height |
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| Jointer Jig |
Even when I can find someone willing to help me lift 400-500 pound machines it's a real struggle. For 130.00 you can
get one of these shop cranes that will enable you to lift just about any home shop machine and you can do it by yourself.
| 2 Ton Shop Crane |
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| Lifts anything in my shop |
EDGE BANDING PLYWOOD
There's many different ways to edge band plywood. They all require trimming the banding afterwards, whether it's iron-on
or solid wood edging. You can plane it, sand it, scrape it or rout it. My favorite method of edge banding and subsequent
trimming is solid wood and router trimmed. This can be a problem with safety if not done properly. My method is to clamp
the plywood to my workbench in such a way that the routers' base rests squarely on the top of the bench. A flush trim bit
does the rest.
| The router rests flat on the benchtop |
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| The flush trim bit does the rest |
SPLINE CUTTING
The use of splines on mitered corners, both internal and external, add strength via additional glue surface to end grain,
plus a decorative accent to otherwise plain looking corners. As usual, there are different methods of cutting splines in
a woodworking project. I prefer to cut mine on the table saw with a spline cutting jig. You can make a simple jig from plywood
and drape it over the table saw fence, or you can use one of the many tenon jigs available on the market today.
| Spline Cutting |
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| With A Home Made Jig |
| Spline Cutting |
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| With the PM Tenon Jig |
LARGE CROSSCUTTING SLED
This is from a plan that I got from David Marks at the DIY Network. I used oak plywood and solid oak with UHMW runners.
Mine doesn't look quite as nice as his. Why is that?
| Large Table Saw Sled |
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| 36 X 40 |
STRAIGHTLINE RIPPING JIG
jgrout from the Woodnet Forum provided this straightline ripping jig for those people who don't have a jointer at their
disposal. A simple, yet effective, solution to the problem.
| Straight Edge Ripping Jig |
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DIGITAL READOUTS
Having a digital readout on a planer can be a great benefit. However, some of the ones on the market aren't made for
anything other than a benchtop planer. The Wixey is one of these. With a couple of brackets made from aluminum angle, you
can adapt this DRO for your floor model planer.
| Wixey Digital Readout |
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| 15" Bridgewood Planer |
To be updated
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