Innehållsförteckning för December 2018 från Woodworker's Journal

It’s already November! For me, that means it’s time to decide if I’m going to commit to making holiday gifts (and, if so, how many?). Nothing beats the feeling of giving someone a gift that you made specifically for them — but making those gifts can be a big commitment. We can’t make your gifts for you, but we can offer project ideas and plans that should help speed up the process. You’ll find a bunch of great project ideas in this issue, and you can find even more on woodworkersjournal.com. Some are free for anyone to view, but many more are exclusively available to you and your fellow subscribers as Premium Content. Finding them is easy: just go to woodworkersjournal.com/gift-project-plans to browse through over 50 of our favorite plans.…

Anne of All Trades - anneofalltrades.com Anne Briggs is a woodworker, farmer, builder, blacksmith, musician and more. In short, she’s Anne of All Trades. Anne is not afraid to tackle a new skill, and she wants to share that enthusiasm for learning with her audience. Her YouTube channel (youtube.com/allaboutanne18) initially featured woodworking and hand tool videos, but she is now also sharing projects around her small farm and even a few cooking recipes. Instagram (@anneofalltrades) is where you’ll find the most recent updates and content from Anne. Her assortment of farm animals, including a couple of alpacas and miniature donkeys, routinely steal the show. The Wood Whisperer - thewoodwhisperer.com There are lots of sources of woodworking content on the web, but Marc Spagnuolo was one of the first to share…

In response to August’s mystery tool, “I don’t think you have a tool so much as an accessory for an accessory,” said Scott Ryburn of Maplewood, Minnesota. The item belonging to Jim Allen of Lakeside, Oregon, is “a tilting table accessory for a drill stand which was widely available from Sears, Vermont-American and other brands,” said Jon Johnson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. “Some had the drill head included; others used your handheld drill with a mount,” said Martin Addie of Springfield, Missouri. “The stand is made for portable electric drills to function with the stand like a small drill press,” said Dwight Franke of Lancaster, California. Jim’s is a Craftsman, says David S. Gold of Encino, California, who “just completed disassembling and packing [one] to send to my grandson … with…

In discussion earlier this year, Woodworker’s Journal editor Joanna Takes and I thought that making some turned earrings would be a splendid holiday project. For me, relating the process brings back a flood of good memories of a friend. Although I taught King Heiple (former head of orthopedics at University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio) to turn, it was he, a few years later, who taught me to turn earrings. One of his favorite demonstrations was to place a mini lathe onto a large lathe such as a ONEWAY 2436 or Powermatic 3520b and turn one earring on each lathe — a graphic demonstration that you did not need a big lathe for the project but, if you only had a big lathe, that was fine, too. Yes, moving the honking…

The Rockler Convertible Benchtop Router Table can switch from table to handheld routing without changing the baseplate. The baseplate is round at one end to match the shape of most router bases, while the other, square end is ideal for use against straightedge guides during handheld routing. The nested, two-part design of the plates allows the router to be rotated to various positions within the plate so its handles will fit easily into the table opening during installation. A pair of mounting screws secure the plate to the table. Two versions of the plate are available: one for mid-size routers and one for compact routers. The mid-size plate comes with an insert ring with a 2½"-dia. center opening; a set of insert rings with additional center opening diameters is available separately.…

A couple of issues ago, I pondered whether I was getting older and wiser — at least when it came to keeping the guards on my table saw — and wondered if I was alone in my journey to sagacity and safety. I heard back from a lot of you and, while you’ll see the responses from several of your fellow readers in the Letters department of this magazine, there were more than we had room to print. Solution? One of those wondrous miracles that has developed during my decades on this Earth: the Internet. Check out even more commentary on saw guards in the Feedback section of the November 13 Woodworker’s Journal Weekly, Issue 553. (If you’re not already subscribing to this free newsletter, you should — you’ll get…

Thirty years ago, every serious woodshop had a shaper to cut complicated contours onto solid wood stock. Now router tables and router bits have replaced shapers in many shops. Large bits and better routers have led the way in this workshop trend. 1. Speed matters. Large-diameter router bits, the kind that helped replace shapers, have optimal rpm limits. In general terms, the larger the diameter, the slower the speed setting. Check the instructions that come with the bit. While it seems counterintuitive to slow down your rpm for better cutting, it is imperative to set the router correctly. If your router does not have a speed control, you should not use it with large-diameter router bits. 2. Straight talk about straight bits: straight bits are perhaps the most versatile router…

Round Skew For this tool, simply take a 1/4” high-speed steel bar or a drill bit and grind two bevels to make a skewed edge. It is like an oval skew, only better, and it’s great for cutting very small beads or for planing surfaces. Pointed Tool The pointed tool is made from a 1/4"-diameter bar. Turn a small handle and drill a 1/4" hole into its end. If using a twist drill bit as your starting point, epoxy the twist drill end into the handle and use the shank for the tool point. Grind three equally spaced flats on it to create three edges. Some turners grind the point to a slight radius, while others bring it to a sharp point. In use, it can be made to work…

Pizza Peel You may have seen your favorite pizza restaurant using a pizza peel (essentially a giant spatula) to lift your pizza pie in and out of the oven. With this project, you’ll be able to replicate that restaurant experience in your own kitchen. The first step is to glue up a panel to create your peel. We used 1/2"-thick walnut and curly maple stock, but you can utilize scraps of your own choosing — maybe some small, interesting pieces or leftovers from other projects that are lying around your shop. Just remember not to make your blank too thick to begin with: the peel needs to be skinny enough to fit under your pizza. Rip strips from your stock and arrange them in an attractive pattern, then glue them…

Whether you use a router made long before you were born, like the 1950s Stanley router at right, or one of the technologically advanced models built today, either machine can perform a range of essential woodworking tasks that can’t be bested by any other power tool. If you’re a woodworking novice, I’ll go so far as to say it should rank near the top of your “short list” of tools to buy first, even ahead of a table saw — routers are that useful. A router can help you turn sharp edges into decorative profiles of all sorts. It will machine dadoes and grooves, rabbets, dovetails, mortises, tenons, box joints and more. Need to duplicate a bunch of parts? That’s no problem for a router and a template. It can…

Q I have considered going to battery-powered tools for a few years. However, I often don’t use a particular tool for a long period of time — say, anywhere from a week for a drill, to a few months for a circular saw. My question is this: Since I want batteries charged at all times, would I have to put them on chargers and remove them frequently? Or, do the battery/chargers have a way to know when to start recharging a battery that has lost charge? (I had a couple of battery-powered drills in years past that you had to cycle on/off a charger constantly. I don’t own any cordless tools now, but I would sure like to cut the cord where possible.) Don TrentPrinceton, Kentucky A Today’s lithium-ion battery…

Rockler Store Hosts Toy Build Event Almost 25 years old, the St. Louis Woodworkers Guild is expected to reach a total of 60,000 toy donations by year’s end — thanks in part to events like “Toy Build Day” held at the local Rockler Woodworking and Hardware store. The Guild began in 1994, and that’s also when members began building toys and donating them to local children’s hospitals. With 515 toys donated the first year, the volume quickly grew to average about 1,900 toys per year. As membership and enthusiasm grew, the volume increased to more than 5,000 toys donated in 2016. In June of 2017, the Guild delivered its 50,000th toy. Until recently, the Guild was supplying toys to just three hospitals in the area, but with increased donations they…

As I flipped through an old Charles Limbert catalog, a postcard desk caught my attention. The desk appears in the 1915 catalog, labeled #801-24. While this petite desk was too small for my needs, the details of craftsmanship and design were fascinating. Part of his “Ebon-Oak” line of furniture, Limbert’s #801-24 featured inlaid ebony designs and natural cane webbing adorning the backsplash. I felt that a few changes were in order, but I wanted to maintain the essence of the original piece. The entire desk was scaled up in size, and I added solid plank sides featuring rectilinear cutouts. The desk’s back is closed in with a sturdy frame and panel, and I changed the original single-drawer design to a bank of three drawers instead. Begin with Some Leg Work…

When Woodworker’s Journal editor Joanna Werch Takes came to me with her idea for this article, I knew we were going to have fun with this weekend project. It all began when she emailed me several photos of a doll cradle her grandfather made for her when she was little. (Being a gentleman, I didn’t ask how long ago that was.) In the back-and-forth correspondence that ensued, we kicked around several ideas to update the design but still mirror the overall lines and appearance of the original. Joanna’s original cradle was rather large (she recalls she often kept more than one doll in it at a time), so we scaled it down a bit. She recommended we use solid wood rather than the original plywood and, while the original had…

“Headroom,” in finish storage, is the area between the lid and the top of the finish. Oxygen is the enemy here: its presence will cause a crust to form on your oil-based finishes, eventually causing all of the contents to harden. As you use more finish from the container, you get more headroom where oxygen could do its dirty work. What’s a woodworker to do? Here are a few solutions.…