Cutting small parts on a miter saw doesn’t have to be scary or dangerous. I’ve adopted a method that keeps your fingers well away from the blade and prevents the piece you’re cutting from zinging across the shop. First, make a zero-clearance table. It’s composed of just two parts: a base and a fence. Make…

Tool: Ergo-Foam Anti-Fatigue Floor Mat Manufacturer: GelPro MSRP: $80+ If your shop has a concrete floor, you know how uncomfortable it is to stand on a hard surface all day. Your feet are sore and tired. Your back and knees ache. Well, here’s an answer: the New-Life anti-fatigue mat from GelPro.  I’ve been using one of these…

Tool: SG-31 Lightweight Hearing Protection Band Manufacturer: SensGard MSRP: $24.99 Before reading why these SensGard hearing protectors are so good, consider if you share some of the problems I have had with other protectors. I do not like stuffing things into my ear canals, such as foam plugs that must be compressed with often dirty fingers, then…

Tool: Eye Muffs Manufacturer: Eye Muffs MSRP: $49.95 I know safety isn’t a topic that evokes that “must read” feeling in most of us, but when something new and innovative comes along, you might just want to stop and take a look. That’s exactly what Eye Muffs are – new and innovative. When I work in…

I had this blog entry on the back burner for quite some time now. But, as our current unprecedented set of events has unfolded so rapidly, it became imperative for me to finish and publish it as soon as I could.  For the last few months I was trying out a few models of half-face…

Changing saw blades or router bits without unplugging your machine is an often overlooked “no-no”. The risk of bumping the switch and inadvertently turning the machine on is probably low, but certainly not worth taking chances. As a reminder, I fasten my machine’s wrenches to the business end of the power cord using a piece…

Clamp-Ka-Bob This morning I glued up a 4′ x 6′ tabletop made of maple 2x2s on my assembly table. I positioned 6′ pipe clamps alternately on the top and bottom faces of the glue-up (spaced 8″ apart) and tightened them. Then I removed all the squeezed-out glue. To free up the assembly table, I decided…

While visiting the local Habitat for Humanity store I noticed a woodturning lathe. The store manager told me it had come from an estate and was almost new, so I bought it and took it home in the back of my wife’s minivan. I backed up to my garage shop and opened the minivan’s hatch….

Self Portrait Seeing that it was a very fine day, I began to carve a gnome. This little guy would be my masterpiece. Hours, then days passed as I worked on my gnome. From his ridiculously long beard and massive head to his tiny legs, feet and hands, he was, I felt, a perfectly executed…

Inside Job While building kitchen cabinets, I purposefully chose straight-grained lumber for the doors’ stiles and rails and bought expensive, highly-figured boards to make the panels. In classic style, the doors would be inset, so they’d be flush with the cabinets’ face frames. I measured each opening carefully, using a tape measure, which, of course,…

Dust Bomb My neighbor has had a woodworking shop in his garage since I was a kid. Recently, when he discovered that mice and other furry critters were living in its cinder block foundation, he decided to drop firecrackers down the holes in the blocks to encourage them to leave. Unfortunately, the results were more…

One Coat Coverage I had finished building new frame and panel doors for my kitchen cabinets and knew the stain would really make the grain pop. I laid the first door on my workbench, with the newly opened can of stain can next to it. I could see the results were going to be terrific…