Innehållsförteckning för April 2021 från Woodworker's Journal

Ultimate Router Table Downloadable Plan Want to bump your routing up to production levels? Ever get tired of constantly changing bits and depth settings on a router table with just one router? This amply sized, fully appointed router table could be a dream come true. It sports twin routers, dust-collecting fences with micro-adjusters and a horizontal routing attachment. All that’s missing from this hot rod is a hood ornament. Item #WJ050 Horizontal Routing System Downloadable Plan Turn your spare router into a versatile, horizontal milling machine featuring accurate depth of cut, super easy fence adjustment and above-the-table bit changes. It’s a platform that will produce more than a dozen different joints (and counting!) safely and accurately. Item #WJ039 Ultimate Fluting Jig Downloadable Plan Make multiple parallel flute cuts spaced any…

The bowl gouge is the workhorse of faceplate turning. It will remove high volumes of material quickly but leaves a smooth surface in its wake. While most turning tools date back centuries, the bowl gouge is a relatively new one, evolving sometime in the nineteenth century. I have come to the conclusion that the bowl gouge came about not as a flash mob event but rather a series of innovations in the grinding of a unique profile on a large, deep-fluted spindle gouge. For faceplate work, a large spindle gouge was ground to between a 40-to 45-degree bevel angle but with a square face instead of a fingernail. Its success in faceplate work was as much about how it was used as how it was sharpened. Instead of being held…

NORDY ROCKLER 2/2/1922 - 12/28/2020 Some lights burn brightly for a short time and their brilliance, while brief, is soon forgotten. Other lights continue to endure year after year as a steady guiding beacon to steer by with confidence. Norton (Nordy) Rockler was that sort of steady enduring light, a man who guided many, myself included. On December 28th of last year, Nordy passed away at 98. I met Nordy more than 22 years ago when I joined the company he founded, Rockler Woodworking and Hardware. Nordy was a gentle soul, a man of integrity who had a kind word for those who crossed his path — even for me, an associate editor fresh on the job. He and I soon hit it off and could talk woodworking, politics, North…

December Hammer’s Uses Nailed Slate, Slag or Stones All Discussed. According to most of the responses we received about Jim Bowman’s Belden hammer in the December issue, his two guesses for what the tool is for match your hunches. It’s some form of mining/geological hammer … or it’s a slate roofing hammer. But which one of these is it? First, let’s review some of the other speculations you have about it. “It appears to be a countersink peen hammer used by ship builders to countersink nails and bolts,” offers Dale Watkins of Stonelick, Ohio. Charles D. Persons thinks it might be a saddler’s hammer, and Greg Starbuck guesses it’s an ice climber’s tool. “This is a tack hammer, and I used one to install carpet in the 1960s,” says Dennis…

If you’ve built a set of the tall Adirondack chairs that appeared in our April issue two years ago (see inset photo, facing page), here’s a free-standing table to complement them and make your outdoor time in these tall chairs even more enjoyable. While the table mimics the slatted styling and angled legs of those chairs, it also includes through holes in the top and shelf so you can use it with a patio umbrella on those sunny, really hot days to come. Rockler offers a 10-piece set of corrugated cardboard templates (item 61795, $24.99) for this table that will help you trace its top oval and all of the other curved parts. If you only plan to build one table, you could simply trace the templates onto your stock…

Every bit of organizing and storage provides helpful benefits to our lives. Even this simple shelf with handy hooks to organize an entryway can bring a sense of satisfaction, especially if you make the shelf yourself. With just three main parts and some basic power tools, here’s a great project for a DIYer to get introduced to woodworking in general and how to use a router specifically. Following the Basics Every woodworking project revolves around a few basic steps: you need to be able to cut and shape the wood, and you need to know how to stick those pieces of wood together to make joints. To build this little shelf, you’ll need a jigsaw and a router of some sort as well as a sander. We’ll use a standard…

Measure twice, cut once, is probably the oldest woodworking commandment there is. But before you cut, you need to transfer that measurement in some visible form to your workpiece. Unfortunately, if those twice-taken measurements — and the resulting markings on your workpieces — aren’t accurate, it just doesn’t matter how many times you cut. To that end, a variety of measuring and marking tools have evolved right along with the other tools you use in your shop. Whether for simple length and width or for intricate angles, you need an accurate way to measure your work not just twice, but every time. And then, you need to get that measurement to your tools and work in a way that’s easy to see, read and cut by. In short, no matter…

On most consumer drill presses, a cluster of pulleys on the motor and quill assembly, connected by a pair of drive belts, are responsible for spinning the chuck. Provided the belts are properly adjusted for tension, that system works pretty well, but torque is lost if the belts are loose and begin to slip. And switching between speeds involves manually moving the belts from one set of pulley sheaves to another. It can be a grimy hassle that stands in the way of adjusting the drilling speed appropriately for the task at hand. Powermatic’s engineers are intending to eliminate these annoyances with the all-new PM2820EVS Drill Press. They’ve replaced the pulley-and-belt drive system with a geared transmission instead. It won’t slip during use, enabling the machine to transfer torque more…

QI made a shop benchtop out of medium-density fiberboard (MDF). What is the best product for sealing or finishing it? A Short answer: Formica R. Longer answer: Plastic laminate. Really. This is a great place for a melamine, mylar or phenolic-type laminate surface. That said, most sealers will work. MDF is like a sponge, so it will soak up quite a bit of finish at first. Let it drink, and be prepared to apply more than one coat. Scuff sand, then recoat to get a smooth “gliding” work surface. Here’s another tip you might consider if you’re wanting a surface that will let the work slip and slide. Floor sealers made especially for bowling alley maintenance usually include some “slipping” agents to keep things moving along. They are very tough…

Dovetail Parts: Which Board Goes Where? Many new woodworkers get confused about which board is the pinboard and which one is the tailboard. A rule of thumb that might help you keep (dovetail) pins and tails straight is to think of them in the context of a drawer and simply memorize the fact that tailboards are always drawer sides. If a tailboard was used for a drawer front, the joint could theoretically come apart from pulling on the drawer. The dovetail joint should be assembled in an orientation that resists the forces applied to it. So for a drawer, that means the pinboards go in the front and back and the tailboards go on the sides. Marc Spagnuolo Hybrid Woodworking Popular Woodworking Books; ISBN: 1440329609…

Unlike those massive, multi-drawered desks from days gone by, I’ve designed this project to meet the “streamlined” appeal of today. My desk offers enough space to place your laptop or monitor, some extra room for a coffee cup and the day’s work and even concealed provisions to charge your phone and computer. Stylish metal hairpin legs take the place of big banks of drawers, and adhesive-backed walnut veneer adds a custom woodworking touch — the grain pattern flows over and down from the top to the desk’s short wings on either end. Building the Desk’s Top Substrate This desktop is a built-up lamination of two sheets of 3/4" (11/16" actual) Baltic birch plywood. Rip and crosscut a pair of 24" x 52" panels, then pause to consider whether you’d like…

Wooden bow ties are a classic way to bridge cracks in slabs and boards or hide knots while adding a bit of decorative flair. The basic concept of creating and installing them with a router and templates isn’t new, but Rockler is making the process easier with its Starter Kit (item 65846; $49.99) and expanding the range of bow tie shapes and sizes with three new template sets (see bottom photo, next page). Special Guide Bushing Bow ties are a simple form of inlay in which the bow tie-shaped workpiece fits into a shallow mortise that exactly matches the inlay’s shape. The same template can be used to cut both the bow tie and its mortise, thanks to a specialized brass guide bushing (see bottom photo) included in the Starter…

It’s tough to do much woodworking without wood. Keeping the following five sources in mind can save you money and expand your options while sometimes also uncovering some truly extraordinary material. 1. Home centers are obvious destinations for wood, but inventory is limited to mostly construction lumber and plywood. A small selection of hardwoods will have top-dollar pricing. You can do much better elsewhere. 2. Specialty lumberyards, advertised in woodworking publications and online, typically stock a wide variety of both domestic and exotic species options and board sizes. Many carry one-of-a-kind figured and slab lumber. Their staff are often woodworkers who tend to gladly share their expertise. A yard that specializes in furniture-grade lumber for the general public can become your best friend. Some of these specialty yards also sell…

Rockler’s Dust Right® Cord and Hose Holder (item 69085; $34.99) provides a docking point for connecting a portable power tool’s dust hose to a larger dust collector hose or shop vac, which offers better freedom of movement for the power tool at the bench. Its steel clamp and rod can elevate the tool’s hose and power cord up to 24" above a work surface, and a carabiner-style latch holds the power cord securely. The clamp will mount to surfaces up to 35⁄8" thick. On the power tool side of the blue ABS coupling there’s a 21⁄4" I.D./21⁄2" O.D. port for attaching a tool hose or Rockler’s FlexiPort Power Tool Hose Kit (item 48212, sold separately). On the dust collector side of the coupling, you can attach a 4" I.D. dust collector…