Have you ever wondered what the end product difference is when you use one or another of the blades for making dado cuts?The perfectly square cut comes from using a straight router bit, or a specific single size square tooth dado saw blade. Don?t try that dado blade in a cross cut as the top s...
So your client goes to the home show and sees this new decking material that is either cheaper, or more durable, or more ecological, or fancier or simply exotic and they want you to install it. So you check out the literature on it and they all say that you can work with their material just ...
The power miter box is the tool that drove the Radial Arm saw almost out of existence. Don?t get me wrong, I love miter boxes. But then again, I was the guy that wrote the book on how to use a Radial Arm Saw for precision furniture building. Most contractors only used their radial arm saws...
One way to minimize chipping when cutting melamine with a circular saw is to turn it over so that the good side is down, as that side will chip the least. On the top side, where the saw blade comes up through the panel, score your cut line deeply with a knife first and then cut just barely away ...
Lorraine Morgan loves gingerbread trim, but can't afford it -- so she makes her own. Once she found the pattern book, she perfected a technique of blowing up the pattern in a photocopy machine, tracing it onto both sides of the board, and then cutting and sanding the trim. One nice thing ab...
I love working with Japanese saws, especially the double headed Ryoba or Kenzo saws. Japanese saws take less energy to use because they're sharper and are designed for shorter strokes. You do have to get used to the fact that the teeth on a Japanese saw cut on the pull, not the push stroke but th...
David from St. Catharines, Ontario suggests using a product called TopCote to keep your table saw free from rust. You got it right David -- this is the truly professional answer to the problem.Right up there for good performance is hard car wax -- because it won't come off on your wood and bothe...
Crown molding is traditionally cut at a straight 45 degree miter with the molding sitting upright in the miter box. The only trick here is to realize that the saw bed is the ceiling, and the saw fence is the wall, so your molding is sitting upside down in the box. That was fine when we used...
Rob Cosman, out of New Brunswick and representing American Craftsman Publications, came in to share with us some of the tricks to making the strongest corner joint in woodworking, the dovetail -- and making them by hand.He had some nifty layout tips for making wide tails and narrow pins, but ...
When you cut Plexiglass with a jig saw, the plastic that?s been cut away often melts and closes the cut line behind the saw. Richard from Guelph, Ontario saw me struggling with this and suggested adding motor oil to the surface to lubricate and cool the scrap -- it does work.Probably most importa...
