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WOODWORKING TIPS
Even when I can find someone willing to help me lift 400-500 pound machines it's a real struggle. For 130.00 you can
get one of these shop cranes that will enable you to lift just about any home shop machine and you can do it by yourself.
| 2 Ton Shop Crane |
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| Lifts anything in my shop |
It's really annoying when I'm trying to sand small pieces of wood on top of my workbench. They spin around and slide
all over the place. Stabilizing them between benchdogs will hold them but when you have many pieces to sand that way takes
up too much time locking down each individual piece. I picked up some of that safety tape used on outdoor stair treads to
prevent slipping and applied strips to a 3/4 thick piece of plywood.
| Stairtread safety tape |
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| Adhered to 3/4 plywood |
This tape has a sandpaper type grit to prevent slipping and can be purchased at homecenters. A 4" wide roll costs about
20.00 and a 2" wide roll is 10.00. Just remove the paper backing and adhere to the plywood. Small pieces remain in place
while sanding.
EDGE BANDING PLYWOOD
There's many different ways to edge band plywood. They all require trimming the banding afterwards, whether it's iron-on
or solid wood edging. You can plane it, sand it, scrape it or rout it. My favorite method of edge banding and subsequent
trimming is solid wood and router trimmed. This can be a problem with safety if not done properly. My method is to clamp
the plywood to my workbench in such a way that the routers' base rests squarely on the top of the bench. A flush trim bit
does the rest.
| The router rests flat on the benchtop |
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| The flush trim bit does the rest |
SPLINE CUTTING
The use of splines on mitered corners, both internal and external, add strength via additional glue surface to end grain,
plus a decorative accent to otherwise plain looking corners. As usual, there are different methods of cutting splines in
a woodworking project. I prefer to cut mine on the table saw with a spline cutting jig. You can make a simple jig from plywood
and drape it over the table saw fence, or you can use one of the many tenon jigs available on the market today.
| Spline Cutting |
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| With A Home Made Jig |
| Spline Cutting |
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| With the PM Tenon Jig |
LARGE CROSSCUTTING SLED
This is from a plan that I got from David Marks at the DIY Network. I used oak plywood and solid oak with UHMW runners.
Mine doesn't look quite as nice as his. Why is that?
| Large Table Saw Sled |
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| 36 X 40 |
STRAIGHTLINE RIPPING JIG
jgrout from the Woodnet Forum provided this straightline ripping jig for those people who don't have a jointer at their
disposal. A simple, yet effective, solution to the problem.
| Straight Edge Ripping Jig |
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DIGITAL READOUTS
Having a digital readout on a planer can be a great benefit. However, some of the ones on the market aren't made for
anything other than a benchtop planer. The Wixey is one of these. With a couple of brackets made from aluminum angle, you
can adapt this DRO for your floor model planer.
| Wixey Digital Readout |
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| 15" Bridgewood Planer |
To be updated
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