I have been building up my hand tool collection, starting with a upgrade of my chisels. Over a period of couple months which included a massive chisel sale at Woodcraft, I bought a complete set of Pfeil Swiss made chisels, 1 or 2 at a time. I decided that I need something to safely store all my chisels that would look good, and show my skill as a builder as well. I designed the chisel rack in sketch-up, though I did make some minimal design changes (changed a few dovetail joints to mortise and tenon joints). The drawing was a huge help in the over all build. A lot of the initial work was done with power tools. However, as the project progressed, I ended up using hand tools more and more to make sure each joint fit as best as possible. The 9 short dadoes in the bottom piece were done mostly by hand with a little help from the drill press, as were all the mortises. The glue-up was a challenge, and took the better part of a Saturday afternoon to complete. Once the glue was dry I spent several days with card scrapers, hand planes, and sanding to get each joint smoothed out.

This was the first project that I built using cherry, not counting the projects I did 20 years ago in Jr. High Shop. I decided to try to bring out its color. The finish consists of a coat of boiled linseed oil wiped on, and two coats of Bullseye’s clear shellac sprayed on. This was my first experience with either of these finishes, and the first time I have used an HVLP sprayer.

Once I clear off some wall space, the rack will be hung on the wall using a french cleat. Ultimately I will be building a tool cabinet that this will go into as well, but that is a project for later.

The only tricky part of this process, if there is one, is making sure the two guide rails are not only parallel to one another but also roughly parallel with the top. Fortunately, there is a very cool trick you can employ using string or thin cable.

Once the rails are in place, the router is dropped into the sled and the bit is plunged down. Ideally, you want to set the bit at the lowest part of the bench. One way to do this is to plunge the bit until it just touches the bench. Move the sled and router to various parts of the bench (with the power off) to see if the bit catches or slides freely. If it slides freely at any given point, you have just found a location that is lower than the original spot. Reset the router plunge depth at this new setting and continue to scan the bench. Once you have the bit set at the lowest point, bring the sled back to the end of the bench and start the routing process. Anything higher than that low point will be routed away and you’ll be left with a nice flat surface.

Here are two options for router bits. They have the same specs (1 3/4″, 2-flute straight bits) but the Freud will save you a few bucks:
Amana – 45453
Freud – 12-194

Perhaps one of the best parts about this jig is that you can re-use it for other things. Have an end grain cutting board that needs flattening, but you don’t want to send it through your planer? Have an oddly-shaped natural edge slab that is just too large for your tools? Both situations can be handled with a setup like this. And if you plan on using it a lot, you can get as elaborate as you want with the design of the jig. The version I show you here is stripped down to the absolute basics.

I should add that this technique is nothing new. I first learned about this in a forum about 10 years ago and later found out that it came from a technique publishes in one of Tage Frid’s books: Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking. A worthy read for ANY woodworker!

This video is an excerpt from the recent Split-Top Roubo Workbench Guild Build. Join the Guild today to see the entire set of videos and build your own lifetime workbench!

This box was the first real (nice) project I had ever really done. The wood I chose was Australian Jarrah-gum tree burl-mytle veneer.

The box is joined with hand cut mitered dovetails. The top is a book matched burl veneer and inside the top is a quarter matched myrtle veneer. The inside has a tray and is lined with suede. Inlaid Pau shell is used for the escutcheon.

Lloyd’s Kickback

I was working with a piece of pegboard 96″ long and about 20″ wide, and was cutting about 18″ off one end of the board. My saw is a large 10″ contractor saw mounted on its own portable frame. At the time I was not using the riving knife because the mount had slipped out of adjustment and tended to bind piece of wood between it and the rip fence. My blade was set about 1/4″ above the wood. After pushing this long, flexible piece of wood through the saw, I left the saw running with the 18″x20″ piece between the blade and rip fence. While i stepped back with the 78″ piece (at the time i was more worried about letting that piece flop onto the floor), the piece between the blade and fence shifted enough to bite into the back of the blade, and the thing shot out like a spinning pegboard of death. At this point i was walking back to the saw and about 4 feet from it when the pegboard ninja star was making its way towards me. For whatever reason I had my hands down in front and the piece caught me on the wrist of my right hand, as opposed to more important appendages front and center. I was shocked and couldn’t feel my hand for 2 hours. My wrist swelled probably an inch or so. I could move it, so it wasn’t broken, but it took several months before I regained full motion in it. You can see the pictured taken right after the accident, and a picture from today almost 6 months later. You can still see the scar at the base of my hand.

So why did it happen? Because I’m an IDIOT! Rather than take the 5 minutes to fix the alignment problem with my riving knife, I just took it out and went about my merry way. I probably should have had the blade higher as well.

How did I fix it? I DID NOT go ballistic and buy a saw stop. It wasn’t the saws fault, it was mine for being in a hurry. First I didn’t go back in the shop for a month. Once I got the nerves to go back in, I fixed the riving knife alignment and its now standard policy to never run the saw without it for through cuts, as well as use the anti kickback pawls and saw guard when possible. I’ve also purchased a pair of GRR-IPPERS from Microjig and use them on all of my power tools.

It could have been a lot worse, but this was as close a call as I hope to ever have for the rest of my woodworking career.

Russell’s Kickback and Chisel Slip

Well I think I can definitely contribute to the goal of keeping safety at the forethought of every fellow woodworker out there. I am unfortunate enough to have had not one, but two separate incidents in the shops. My first was in my senior year of high school working on a solid oak firewood storage bin for my parents home. My dad has a nice production shop setup building butcher blocks that I could work in. I had built some 5inch square “feet” for the box that would raise it off the ground by about 2-3 inches. This provided us the ability to move it around easier. Upon final construction, of course, one foot was a little too thick making the box rock back and forth… just annoying is you ask me. So, in the heat of the moment (combined with jamming to some tunes in my headset) I fired up the jointer and made a pass using just my hand pressing the short piece to the table. In hindsight, I cannot believe I was even able to accomplish this one with no real excitement. I tested the foot and of course found that it needed one more pass. Well (you can see where this was going) on this pass the front end of the foot tilted forward right as touched the blades. This shot the piece right out from under my hand and my right index finger dropped into the blades. This incident ended up shattering my finger and I lost about 1/4 – 1/2 inch of bone and all. Luckily they were able to reconstruct the nail bed and after a year or go I regained all motion in it. Obviously most woodworkers should know the two mistakes I made (too small of a piece on that machine and not using some paddles). To those not extreamly familiar with a jointer just know that they recommend a certain length piece for a reason. Just take your time and really think about what you are doing. Oh and the foot was catapulted across the room a good 12-15 feet and put a really good dent in some wood cabinets my father and I had set up.

Now, a few year later, I have finished college and started my career. This has given me the distinct pleasure to setup my own shop in my townhome’s one-car garage. To start with, I did everything by hand (now I have a table saw and miter saw that make things sooo much easier) but still managed to make a crucial second mistake without these big tools. I was making a set of drawers for a cabinet I was constructing for all my tools and was working on paring out some dovetails with a simple handsaw and a set of good, sharp chisels. I made the simplest of split second mistakes by putting my other hand down the workpiece in front of the cutting edge to support the material when I saw it moving a little under my clamps. In hindsight, I should have just tightened the clamps… duh. But no. Once I put more pressure on the paring stroke, the chisel slipped and landed right into the thumb of my left hand. Needless to say it took the entire side of my thumb off in a split second. This one has not healed so nice and I have lost some of my movement in this finger. The main reason I bring this up is that people forget how dangerous even the simplest of hand tools can be when you forget the basic safety rules you are taught as a child. Just be careful, slow down, and take the time to enjoy this wonderful hobby.
I have attached a few pics of the healed injuries just as further enforcement to keeping safety as the number one item on your mind when woodworking.
Thanks for letting me share this. Hope it at least helps someone out.

John’s Saw Blade Kiss

Hey Marc! I hope you and your family are well bro! Since its safety week, I thought I’d share what happened to me on Sunday 4/29. Feel free to post to your site… Just don’t make TOO much fun- lol… Love what you do bro…

I did something foolish, and I knew better, but I had done it several times before, so hey, what’s one more time….. riiiiiiiight… My “luck” finally caught up with me. I was guiding a piece of stock with my left hand and using a push stick between the blade and fence with my right hand. Big deal- that’s how it’s done (SOMEtimes). But, That isn’t the issue here (big eyes- lol)… I was cutting a small piece of 1 1/2″ stock (8-10″ long) on my table saw as a “test piece” for my project, ripping it in half. When the piece went through the blade, at the end of the cut, the blade grabbed the stock, on the FRONT of the blade and pulled my finger in TO the blade!

At first, it didn’t hurt. Kind of felt like a paper cut. I looked at my finger and said, “why is it bleeding so much”? I walked in the house and ran my finger under cold water and said, “oh my! That is NOT a paper cut! That is cut off!!”

Scared my wife a little, and, I was a little in shock too…

I said all of that to say this- don’t be stupid; I was. I knew better. I don’t care how “good you are”, that table saw will win E V E R Y time… makes me wish I had a SawStop, but SawStop can’t fix foolish…

Skip Evans
Never reach into the Soffet.

One Saturday morning I was working on a building I am constructing. The chore for the day was to install the soffits. I was working on a ladder installing one of the panels for the soffit. Being on a ladder I reached inside the soffit to steady myself while nailing the soffit panel. Well, guess what. Not realizing (not thinking) I pressed the trigger on the nail gun and instantly knew I had done something wrong. I must have projected this error with my look because my wife, standing below me asked, Did you just get your finger? There I was, nailed to the building with nowhere to go. I tried to pull my finger off the nail, but the ridged nail shank was not cooperating. Luckily, a neighbor was home. I did not know he could run so fast. My wife had barely hung up the phone and he was there. I was able to pull back the Hardy Plank panel in order to expose the head of the nail. Using lineman pliers we were able to cut the head off the nail and then pry the nail through the OSB. Now that I was free from the building, to the emergency room we went. Luckily the nail missed the bone. after a few needles full of anesthetic, the doc pulled the nail and sent my on my way. I was back to work the next day.

So once I began woodworking, I found myself with a bit of a conflict of interest. But there was one thing that completely changed my perspective on wood: exotic hardwoods. It was really all thanks to David Marks from Woodworks. He would routinely use exotic hardwoods on the show and I was fascinated by the stunning array of colors and grain patterns provided by Mother Nature. I began to use these woods in various projects and just like that, my furniture began to find a permanent home in my own house. Since then, I have since grown to appreciate even the mundane “country-style” species my parents were so fond of. Ironically, my mom now has a taste for Greene & Greene, something I can completely get behind. So with questions of environmental responsibility and stewardship aside, there will always be a soft place in my heart for exotic hardwoods. What say you?

This poll was created by Tom Iovino of TomsWorkbench.com.

A good friend of mine, who happens to be a fly fisherman, had commented on some of the beautiful fly tying cabinets, boxes and stations he had seen on the Internet. So I decided that I would build one for him. The cabinet stores the fly tying vise, all of the tools and includes a wall of thread storage. I also added plenty of drawers to store feathers, hackels, fur and fish hooks.

I think if I were to make another however, I would make it using 2/4 material instead of 4/4.

I am currently in the process of moving my shop to a larger commercial location across town. This is where it all started for my business though…a 470 sq ft. shop in the detached 2 car garage of my house. When we moved to this house 4 years ago, it was nothing more than a run down garage with a rotten wooden door and exposed framing. I re-roofed the garage before I got started on the inside. The entire space was insulated and dry walled. After that I ran 60 amps from the house to a sub panel and a 1 inch gas line for a heater.

The shop has evolved over the last 4 years like most shops do. Shortly after moving in, I replaced my Delta contractor’s saw with a Uni-saw and my 6 inch Craftsman jointer with an 8 inch Delta. The shop is fairly well equipped and for the most part, met all of my needs. While working in this shop, I out sourced my finishing and many completed projects ended up living in the dining room for a few days awaiting delivery, due to the lack of space. My new shop has a spray booth, large air compressor to power the shop, a drum sander, and lots more space for finishing, assembly, and storage.

I plan on keeping the same idea of layout and efficiency that I currently have in the new shop. The cabinets along the back wall are all from sam’s club and are great for hiding away all my hand and power tools. I will post a new shop tour when I get all set up in the new space. Hope you all enjoy!

I am just now working out the details but you can expect this project to be released early this summer. It should be a fun little project with a few unexpected challenges here and there including curves, angles, and angled tenons.

The class is almost full and there are only a few spots left so if you’re in the Southern California area and you’d like to take the class,

By the way, if you’ve never been to a class like this, it’s an absolute blast. Nothing like taking an entire week and devoting it to a single project in a fun and positive learning environment. I hope to see you there!!

My grandson wanted a locking toy box to keep his little sister out of his treasures. After viewing several photos of potential designs he settled on a mission style blanket chest he found on the internet but wanted drawers. I decided to do raised panels rather than the flat panel design so there would be some detail to carry over to the drawer faces. The joinery was done with a Festool Domino on all the panel glue ups. Battens were added to the lid to insure it stays flat and the hinges are Rockler’s new torsion hinges which are a dream to install and work great. The face, ends, and back are classic panel construction. The legs are 6 quarter so provide a nice masculine feel the to overall chest. The drawer joinery is through dovetails and the drawer boxes have quarter inch Baltic birch bottoms. The two drawers on the back of the chest have gravity toggles that latch into mortises when the drawer is pushed into the cabinet. The latches are released with a special key that is inserted into a release hole inside the main compartment of the chest and the drawer pops open with the assistance of springs behind it.