Wine Rack Pt. 3

So what can you do when you spend 16 hours over two days in the shop? Well you can do several things, one is rough mill some stock to width, second you can drink more Gatorade than you thought humanly possible, and three you can make a really unimpressive MDF template. How impressive it is, probably depends on who you ask. The general public would probably say it’s just a board with some curves on it. I’d like to think that a skilled woodworker can look at it see how much work went into making it. This little template required two jigs to produce, and it’s only 90% done. In my opinion that’s an awful lot of work, for something that won’t even end up in the finish piece, but that’s the price of taking your work to the next level.

Picture framing jigs

I’ve been to busy with work lately to get much time in the shop, but now that things are starting to settle, I plan on getting some serious shop time in.  I have a lot of projects planed for this summer, and the first one is to make picture frames for some posters I bought this spring. I’ve been avoiding picture frames for a long time, because they usually involve miters. In my opinion miters are one of the most difficult joints in woodworking, because small errors are very visible. After some research, I have decided to use the following jigs to get perfect miters. Continue Reading…

Rusty squares no more

I’m one of the lucky (yea that’s it) few, that has sweat/skin oils that rust metal. I’ve read some place that roughly 10% of people have this problem. Most of the time it’s not much of a problem, but if your involved in woodworking or metalworking, it’s a real problem because a lot of tools are made from metals that rust. Rust causes the tool surface to become uneven, and while it’s mildly annoying on most tools, it’s a real problem on a precision tool like a square.

Most squares are made from tool steel, and most tool steels aren’t know for their rust resistance. Fortunately, Peachtree Woodworking sells special layout squares made from stainless steel. I’ve had them for about month now, and they are well worth the price in my opinion. They’re exceptionally square, and their unique design means you don’t need 3 hands to use them.

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.

Ready for Spring

This weekend I prepared the shop for spring, I didn’t do anything major, just blow out the dust, and rearrange some tools on the wall. It only took 2 hours to do it, but it still felt really good to open the garage door, turn up Pandora, and doe something completely mindless.In other words, another season of woodworking has begun.