As I discussed in Episode 52, I’m currently building a doll wardrobe as a Christmas present for my daughter.  I’m using 3/4” birch plywood for the main carcass, and 1/2” birch plywood for the interior dividers.  The interior dividers will be housed in stopped dados.

My original plan was to use a plywood-sized router bit and an edge guide to cut the stopped dados.  Unfortunately, my test cuts showed that even my plywood bits provided a very loose fit for my 1/2” plywood.  My fallback in situations like this is usually a dado stack on the table saw, but that doesn’t work in this case because the dados are stopped.  I had to find another alternative.

A quick Google search and a few hours in the shop provided me with the perfect solution:  an adjustable dado jig.

This jig allows me to cut perfect-fitting dados for any work-piece using only a handheld router and a 3/8” straight bit.  The jig has three basic components:  A fence to register the jig against the work-piece, a fixed router support, and an adjustable router support.

Using the jig is really easy.  First, take the work-piece that you need to fit into a dado and place it between the two router supports.  Move the adjustable half until the work-piece is held snugly in the jig and tighten down the wing-nuts.  Now place the jig on the board that you plan to cut the dado in and clamp it down.  The fence holds the jig square to the board.  On my jig, I drew a square on the fence that is calibrated to be precisely perpendicular.  Now you’re ready to cut the dado.  Notice the runners on both sides of the jig.  Run the router along one runner and then back along the other runner.  This gives you a dado that will fit your work-piece exactly.

There are two important facts to note.  First, notice the arrows that I have drawn on the fixed router support.  I have a corresponding arrow drawn on my router base.  When using this jig, the arrow on my router must always point at the runner with the arrows drawn on it.  This ensures that the router is used in the same orientation every time, which eliminates any slop that might be introduced by a router bit that is not exactly centered in the router base.  Second, this jig is calibrated to work with one specific router bit.  In my case, that’s a 3/8” straight bit.  That bit must always be used.

This jig is by no means original.  You can find plans for similar jigs all over the internet.  It’s a handy tool to have in your arsenal, though, and it’s an elegant solution to a tricky problem.

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In this episode, I give an overview of the holiday projects I currently have going in my shop, I explain my plan to control the avalanche of woodworking magazine back issues that are filling my house, and I introduce a new mailbag segment where I answer listeners questions.

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A new project, fake workbenches, and the perils of building your dream woodworking project. You can check out the Markham Console Bar that I mention in this episode here.

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Drop off the grid for a little while and you’re bound to miss out on some exciting happenings in the woodworking world. In this week’s episode, I do a quick survey of some of the interesting goings-on that I didn’t get to talk about over the past few weeks.

You can find the auction for the The Schwarz’s Woobie on Ebay here.

I just wanted to drop a quick note here to let everyone know that the new season of the Modern Woodshop Podcast will be launching soon. Stay tuned… and watch for a new episode in the next week or so!

I rough cut my tenons with power tools, but I fit them to their mortises exclusively with hand tools.  I like the control that hand tools give me during this operation.

I started out with a rough cut tenon.  I cut this tenon on my table saw using the same technique demonstrated in my previous nightstand project post.  When I cut these tenons on the table saw, I ensure that the inside surface of this stretcher will be flush with the surface of the leg.  This is my reference face.  It’s required because I precut all the dados for the side and bottom panels for the nightstands, so using a reference face guarantees that those dados will all line up when I assemble the piece.  I’ll fit the tenon by trimming it’s opposite cheek.

As you can see, a tenon off the table saw is rectangular, while my mortises are all rounded.  Since fitting a square peg in a round hole isn’t feasible in our universe, my first step is to round over the corners of the tenon using a rasp.  When I do this, I’m very careful not to touch the shoulders of the tenon with the rasp.  The teeth on the rasp could cut into the shoulder and result in a joint with some unsightly gaps when all is said and done.  I only need to make a few strokes on each corner since the rasp cuts very quickly.  During the fitting process, if I find that the tenon is a bit too wide, I again use the rasp to take a smidge off each edge.

Keeping the rasp away from the shoulder of the tenon has a drawback:  the corners of the tenon up near the shoulder are still square.  I take care of those with a sharp chisel.  I use the chisel to shave away the excess material, and also to ensure that the tenon is rounded over all the way to the shoulder.

At this point in the process, I can start test fitting the joint.  I know it will be too tight because I purposely cut the tenon overly thick to give myself the opportunity to sneak up on a good fit.  I use my rabbet block plane to shave away material from the cheek of the tenon until the joint fits together perfectly.  You can also use a shoulder plan for this operation, but a standard block plane won’t work because it’s iron does not extend all the way through the side of the plane.  This feature on rabbet block planes and shoulder planes allows you to trim the cheek of the tenon all the way up to the shoulder.

This process is actually fast, easy, and results in a perfect joint.

In the picture above, you can see the tenon extending into the leg through an adjacent mortise.  The two tenons will be mitered together inside the leg.

Well, that’s one done… only 31 more to go!

To view the entire Nightstand Project series, please visit my project page.

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This week I give a rundown of the most prevalent forms of woodworking media available today and rank each on the Modern Woodshop Relevance Scale (TM).

As a footnote, I killed a really scary looking spider during the recording of this episode (only slightly smaller than Shelob from LOTR); see if you can pick out when that happens. I bet you can’t… that’s professionalism, baby!

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This week I have a discussion on whether granite is a technological breakthrough for stationary power tools or just a hopeless gimmick. Also, I throw in a fun little story about my own personal computer gremlins.

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Buying a new stationary power tool can be a confusing if you don’t have a lot of experience using that particular tool. The products in your price range probably only have minor differences, so how do you know which one will work best for you? This week, I give you a rundown of my major power tools and the features which I think are good, the features that I think are bad, and those about which I’m indifferent.

Also, be on the lookout for the words “always” and “crazy” this week. I used those two words a lot for some reason. Ten MW points go to the first person to give an accurate count for each word.

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A sale at Woodcraft, fun with the Urban Dictionary, and a survey course on the history of woodworking fanboys.