Category Archive: Posts by Tool

Apr 18 2012

Tops, Three Different Ones

Categories:

April 18, 2012

I was watching a video by George Vondriska about using CA for turning and saw him turning a top on the lathe. I thought this would be a cool project to try. So the other day when I cut some blanks out of 8/4 ash for some handles, I …

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Apr 17 2012

Fixing The Bow In My Table Saw Fence

Categories:

MDF, Router Table, T-Slot Bit, Table Saw Tuneup

by benjamen

April 17, 2012

For a while I’ve noticed that when I rip a clean edge on my table saw and put it up against my fence, there’s a gap between the board and the fence. I’ll take a square to the edge and find out it’s perfectly square, shrug my shoulders, and continue what I …

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Apr 16 2012

What To Do With Circle Scraps

Categories:

Baltic Birch Plywood, Miter Saw, Scroll Saw

by benjamen

April 16, 2012

I’ve been cutting some circles on the scroll saw for a few other projects and have a bunch of scraps left over. Now I have a hard time throwing away any wood thats larger than a toothpick, but I really couldn’t see that I could do much with these scraps — that …

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Apr 10 2012

Homemade Dowel Cutter

Categories:

Cordless Drill, Dremel, Drill Press, Maple, Miter Sled, Purple Heartwood, Steel, Yellow Heartwood

by benjamen

April 10, 2012

A few weeks ago, over on G+ Matt Ricketts posted a dowel cutter he made. This was a timely post for me because I was looking to make a few purple heartwood dowels for a toy car I’m in the process of finishing. His dowel cutter was a series of holes drilled …

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Apr 04 2012

Finishing Turntable

Categories:

Drill Press, MDF, Oscillating Sander, Scroll Saw

by benjamen

April 4, 2012

In a recent issue of the Highland Woodturner, Curtis Turner (what are the odds?) showed how to make a simple spray painting turntable out of MDF and some dowels. I thought, “hmm, that would beat the heck out of some nails pounded into a board that I usually end …

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Apr 02 2012

Toothbrush Holder

Categories:

Lathe, Maple, Purple Heartwood, Scroll Saw, Thin Rip Jig, Urethane, Walnut

by benjamen

April 2, 2012

We needed a new toothbrush holder. Our old one, a clear plastic tube with duckies floating in a mysterious blue liquid, was leaking. Also with it’s tiny holes, it just couldn’t hold the thicker handle toothbrushes that my children use sometimes use. I thought, “I could actually make a something useful on …

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Mar 28 2012

My First Bowl

Categories:

Bowls, Lathe, Miter Sled, Table Saw, Urethane, Walnut

by benjamen

March 28, 2012

A few weeks ago, I turned my first bowl. I wanted to make something on my new mini-lathe, so I found a slab of walnut in my wood stash and decided to make a bowl. I did some things right, some things wrong, and learned a lot about turning in the process. …

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Mar 24 2012

My Daughter and I Built Another Birdhouse

Categories:

Bird house, Cordless Drill, Daughter, Miter Saw, Plywood, PS20

by benjamen

March 24, 2012

I had some shop time alone with my daughter yesterday and she wanted to build something. I told her she could use any materials I had in my shop, not just the scrap pieces I usually let her use, if she drew up plans for what she wanted to build. She decided …

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Mar 22 2012

Fixing a Burgled Birdhouse

Categories:

Bird house, Block Plane, Cedar, Pin Nailer, Table Saw

by benjamen

March 22, 2012

This last week, I finally got around to fixing the hole some critter (most likely a squirrel) ate into the birdhouse my daughter and I built a few years ago. I just got sick of looking at it sitting empty. Since I nailed and glued the front of the house in place, …

Permanent link to this article: http://workshop.electronsmith.com/content/fixing-burgled-birdhouse/

Mar 20 2012

First Lathe Project: Toy Tree

Categories:

Lathe, Pull Saw, Red Oak

by benjamen

March 20, 2012

My son’s wooden train set came with some lame 2-dimensional trees cut out of flat stock. I thought now that I have a lathe, I could make a much more aesthetic tree. I came up with the idea for the simple project after experimenting with the different tools on some scrap wood. …

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