Chisel racks part deux

Last time, I posted about the chisel racks I made for safety Week. Since then I’ve built the accessory racks that mount on the front sliding dovetails. I could babel on about them, but they are pretty simple, so I’ll let the photos do the talking.

It costs less than $20, and I won’t be complaining

John Economaki over at Bridge City Tool Works recently published a blog post titled $5 for a 1/8? Twist Drill? Only in America… (it’s a great read). I won’t spoil it for you, but during his tour of a Chinese factory a worker tells John “In America, if it cost less than $20, nobody complains about quality—everybody in China knows this”.

Today I Purchased a new smoother from eBay. It’s a Stanley #4 type 14 that I picked up for $19.99. It only has two things wrong with it that I can see; The lever cap is not original, and the tote is broken (easily fixable). Even if it shows up with a defect that makes in unusable, I can still sell the parts on eBay and make more than I paid for it. Thus, I can promise this is one purchase I won’t be complaining about.

Crosscut Sled

The last shop project I needed to make, before I started my next “Real” project, was a small crosscut sled. I’ve found a small cross cut sled like with 2 runners, to be more precise, than high end miter gauges. Construction of a sled is pretty simple, so I didn’t go into a lot of detail in the video, but hopefully you will find it informative and entertaining.

Tapering Jig

The new jig

I’ve made one off tapers for years, using nothing more than a piece of MDF and double stick tape. All I had to do was set the table saw fence, rip the MDF to width, and then tape the work piece to the MDF with the proper chunk overhanging the end. The setup was quick and easy, but not very repeatable.  Since my next project will require 16 identical tapers, and I’m still waiting on a router bit to arrive, I though now would be a good time to make a proper tapering jig.

Like most of my projects, this one started with me surfing the net, to see what others have done. I found a wide range of designs, everything from a piece of scrap & a drywall screws, to a jig that looked like it would take a week to make. What I settled on was this design by Alan Turner with a few tweaks.

The tweaks I made are as follows. First I used 1/2″ MDF for the sled instead of 3/4″, because my table saw has a limited depth of cut and that extra 1/4″ makes a difference. Secondly, I Made a lot more holes for hold down bolts. I did this because I didn’t like the idea of screwing the stop blocks (Alan calls them keepers) down the jig all the time. Finally I made Infinitely adjustable hold downs. Instead of me jabbering on, I’ll let the pictures do the talking. Continue Reading…

Clamp storage racks

Since I’m waiting on a router bit I ordered to come in (need it for my next project), I decided to make some shop improvements over the long holiday weekend. One of the things I’ve been putting off for a while now, is upgrading my clamp storage. My old racks where made from angle iron that I welded together, painted, and slapped up on the wall. They worked fine for several years, but recently I’ve started acquiring parallel clamps, and they don’t play well with the old racks, as they where designed to store pipe clamps. Since I want to acquire more parallel clamps (you can never have enough clamps), and I’ve run out of space on my current racks, I decided it was time to address the issue.

With that in mind I set down Thursday evening, and started researching how other people stored their clamps. After  an hour or so of searching and playing in Sketchup, I settled on Marc Spagnuolo’s design, with one minor tweak. I round over the front of the slots to make getting the clamps in a little easier.