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    Myths about wood

    Interesting article on wood myths. While carpentry applications is the largest share, there are some interesting observations on mahogany scammers. Wood Myths: Facts and Fictions About Wood - Building and Construction Technology - UMass Amherst
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    Pre-school toys

    My granddaughter is preschool age and learning the alphabet. Some of her letters indicated she didn’t understand letter construction. I made up the below set of ‘blocks’ for her to use to make letters. She loved it and played with these blocks until she lost one of the half size ones and thus it...
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    Stanley 118 block plane

    A stamped sheet metal body Stanley 118 block plane has been part of my shop for at least 25 years. I’ll use it for all kinds of block plane tasks that don’t require a lot of precision. The nice holes in the side make it perfect for hanging on a handy nail. If it hits the concrete floor, no...
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    planing short stock

    I'm working on a fussy little project to use up some scraps. A lot of these pieces were too short to be safely planed down to 1/2" thickness. I glued up some short pieces and ran them through the planer and it worked perfectly. The side rails were really the key. What I started with...
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    Sanding inside corners

    A friend needed to sand some inside corners of 10 small star-shaped plaques he was making. I also have some letters to cut out in the future. Put on the thinking cap and came up with a modification to my shop-made narrow belt sander. Problem: The platen of a narrow belt sander lets one only...
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    Corian table saw inserts

    I remember someone here saying that they used Corian as a material for their table saw inserts rather than wood. I came across some nominal 1/2" thick Corian and thought I'd give it a try. Are there any problems I need to watch out for? I've made one for my Powermatic 66 but haven't used it...
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    Keepsake boxes

    I recently did some keepsake boxes and thought I'd share the process I used for everyone's entertainment.
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    Chinquapin Slicing Jig

    Its that time of year around here. Maybe further south the season is gone. So my wife gets a batch of chinquapins from a friend because she likes them much better than chestnuts. What a pain to shell! When I was in grade school, that was the snack almost every kid had in their pocket. I...
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    New scroll saw user

    I showed my 4-year old granddaughter how to crosscut little sticks on the scroll saw. She loved it. Later we'll glue the sticks together. What amazed me was her attention to safety and keeping her hand away from the blade guard. I'd shown her how to turn the machine on and off earlier. When...
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    Gitter Stick

    Years back there was a wallet fumble at the ATM. Things fell down between the car seat and the console. Retrieval was a real annoyance. Back in the shop I picked up a floor scrap, cut a short nub off the end and glued it on. The original was rounded with a hand plane and a little sand paper. The...
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    Corn Cutter

    For those that like good creamed corn in the winter months, here’s how we’ve been processing corn for a good while. It’s usually a corn processing party with several people involved and a few bushels of sweet corn. The basis is a Lee Adjustable Wooden Corn Cutter. Actually we have two of the...
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    Sanding disc hack

    I bought a Festool 125 sander. I like it, but I wasn’t impressed with the sandpaper. I really like the Norton Pro Sand 5” discs because they last so long and cut so well. They have a hole pattern that supposedly works on any sander. Yeah, right. So I made a marking template out of ¼” plywood. I...
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    Disposable glue holder

    My wife cleans and saves pudding cup containers for my shop use. They make great disposable glue holders but are a little tippy on the bench. Faced with 10 router-dovetailed drawers to glue up, I decided to make a holder for both glue and a water container to dip the brush in while clamping the...
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    Interesting Woodworking History timeline

    I just came across this timeline history from a 1976 magazine. The 1924 date lists an event that I found amusing. Amazing things can result from a foul-up.
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    The Joke's on me.

    I thought you all would appreciate this. As I was sanding the parts to a chest of drawers I’m working on, my favorite little random orbit sander starts slowing down. Uh-oh. Probably bearings or maybe brushes. I continued working and the sander got really slow. I had to stop to see if the sander...
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    Clamp in a vise

    A clamp in a vise for holding small stuff is old news, but for me, holding drawer assemblies for detailing was a new convenience. The bar of the Bessy box makers clamps is rested on a piece of 1/4" plywood to get the desired clamp jaw height. The soft jaw faces don’t mar the sanded surfaces like...
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    Honeycomb walnut

    This drying defect is rare in walnut, common in oak and other heavily ring porous hardwoods. Its the first time I've ever run across it. It was on the end of a board. I cut off another six inches and no more collapse. Go figure. On oaks, this defect is usually throughout the board...
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    glue applicator

    I needed to run small beads of glue. The Titebond bottle's tip is perfect for so many things but not what I needed. Short version: I went to a nearby Sally Beauty place and they had the perfect bottle with the perfect fine tip. Actually I had to cut off about 3/8" to get the right bead size...
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    Strange end grain pattern in red oak

    I needed a couple of strips of red oak so I pulled out a rather narrow board. For some reason the end grain caught my eye. The closer I looked, the weirder it got. I can only speculate on the events in the tree's history that would cause this. Thought I'd post it for everyone's amusement.
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    Growth Rings

    I was working with some redwood and was appreciating the old growth, tight grained stuff and thought I'd share a photo for general amusement and interest. The thickness sample was .917. Naturally, the penny is 3/4" diameter. I'd estimate this piece had roughly fifty rings per inch. That's a...

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