As you know, I usually slow down my shop time in the summer and this year is no exception.  I did however get some shop time this past weekend.  Unfortunately, it was only to rough in some electrical outlets in a short partition wall that I am putting in one part of the shop.  I plan on putting in a couple of recycled cabinets along that wall for some needed storage.  I guess I will have to suffer through getting this wall and cabinetry installed in order to have a more functional shop this fall and winter.

With fall just around the corner, I am beginning to get the itch to do much more in the shop.  So, after I finish these minor shop upgrades I will be going full steam ahead on projects – because, we’re quickly moving in to woodworking season!

Turning wood is a great way to spend time in the workshop.  Projects can be done quickly and for very little investment in wood – especially if you turn found green wood!  Because of the nature of this work and the wood being somewhat “captive” on the lathe the dangers of turning can often be overlooked.

What follows are some points to help everyone turn more safely in their shops:

• Capture that wood dust – Just as in any other woodworking operation, turning and/or sanding at the lathe produces wood dust that is harmful to breathe.  What’s more, the dust produced is shot right back at the woodworker due to the rotation of the work.  Wood that is turned can often also be spalted and/or moldy from sitting in the elements before turning.  Turning or sanding this wood can release harmful spores into the air that if ingested can be very harmful to an even greater degree than normal wood dust.  As a result you should be extra-vigilant to wear personal respiratory protection while turning and sanding at the lathe at all times – especially when turning spalted wood.
• Speed is dangerous – Blanks that are turned on the lathe can often be heavy, large and out of balance.  Spinning a large out of balance load on the lathe at high speed can be deadly – even if you are wearing protective head gear (and it goes without saying that you should be wearing a face shield every time you spin something on the lathe).  The key things to remember when turning are: that you should always start at the lowest speed that your lathe allows and that you should stand out of the line of fire when you start up the lathe.  On my variable speed lathe, I turn the speed dial down to zero RPM before starting and gradually increase the speed until the piece is turned into balance – if you don’t have variable speed then just start at your lowest speed.  If your lathe is still unstable when spinning a blank, then you should get the piece more in balance by trimming it while off of the lathe before turning it. There are lots of rules of thumb out there for how fast you can safely spin a piece on the lathe in relation to its diameter.  However, I really never use them.  I find that for bowl/vessel turning I almost never have the need to turn higher than 600-800 RPM.  Sanding is never done above 300 RPM (often much lower) and for out of balance blanks I usually start turning below 200 RPM until true.  Of course, for spindle turning between centers lathe speeds are usually increased, but even then I rarely go above 1500-1800 RPM.
• The tailstock is your friend – Speaking of out of balance loads on the lathe, just because you have secured a piece onto a faceplate with screws or into a chuck with a tenon, that does not mean that your tailstock should be collecting dust in the corner of the shop!  When I turn, even after the piece is trued up and balanced, I will always use the tailstock for support until the last moment where I have to turn away the support point.  For turning the inside of bowls or vessels, I will follow this rule only on beginning hollowing operations of large pieces.  After that the speed rule takes care of me because I turn at very moderate speeds.
• Dull tools are dangerous – We have all probably heard the adage that a dull tool is more dangerous than a sharp one.  This is because if the tool is dull then you will naturally try to compensate for that lack of cutting effectiveness by applying more power to use the tool.  This same adage rings true for the lathe.  It’s true that we usually only sharpen our turning tools on a 100 grit grinding wheel and not on 8000 grit water stones but, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t sharp.  More importantly, a freshly ground lathe tool with cut wood effortlessly, reduce tearout and allow for better control when turning.  You should always be mindful of any extra effort that is required to cut wood at the lathe and when it becomes even a little more difficult, it’s time to sharpen.  Sharpening a lathe tool only takes seconds and then you are back to work.  Remember, as David Ellsworth is known to say: don’t grind the tool, dress the bevel – a quick, light touch at the grinder is all that it takes to get back to fantastic results at the lathe.
• Don’t bottom out – We often use holding devices when turning blanks on the lathe.  The most prevalent of these holding devices is the lathe scroll-chuck.  These chucks have 4 jaws that offer exceptional holding power for turning blanks (even without tailstock support – though we know you should always use the tailstock for support if you can!)  I almost always use my scroll-chuck to grip the outside of a round tenon that I first turn on the piece while between centers.  The biggest (and most dangerous) mistake that turners make with chucks is that they cut this tenon too deep so that the tenon bottoms out on the inside face of the chuck jaws.  This actually offers less support for the piece.  The correct way to use a chuck is the cut the tenon so that the top edges of the jaws rest flush against a flat on the piece at the base of the tenon, but with clearance between the bottom of the tenon and the inside faces of the chuck jaws.  This scenario offers tremendously better resistance against the rotational forces which try to knock to piece off of the lathe and into orbit around the shop!

Hopefully these tips are of some help to you as you turn wood on your lathe in the workshop.  I find that turning is occupying more and more of my time in the shop and I always follow these rules when I’m at work on my lathe.

With my pending trip to the Marc Adams School of Woodworking, I thought that this year to do my part for Woodworkers Safety Week 2009 I would share a couple of basic safety principles that Marc Adams espouses and that I have followed in my shop for many years.

The 12″ and 3″ Rules

These rules are extremely simple in concept but following them in practice will do a tremendous amount to keep you safe in the shop.  Simply stated these rules are as follows:

• The 12″ rule says that you should avoid machining any piece of stock that is that 12″ or less in length.
• The 3″ rule says that you should always keep your hands at least 3″ from any guard on a piece of machinery when using it.

To me any piece that is 12″ or less in length is a potential accident waiting to happen.  Whether you want to joint, plane or rip it, if it’s that small you would be well served to find a non-powered way to do so. Here’s why:

• On a jointer, a 12″ piece either on edge or on its face could easily tip into the cutting head and be kicked back.  If the piece is kicked back your hands can easily be directed into the cutters with disastrous results.
• On a planer, kickback is rare.  However, depending on your planer type, the distance between the pinch rollers on the machine is about 12″.  As a result, problems can occur if a piece that is too short is fed into a planer and is in contact with the knives but not restrained by the rollers.  Unless you back up the shorter piece with a longer one of equal thickness, it’s best to bring it to desired thickness using another method.
• On the table saw, a 12″ piece can be hard to control when ripping.  Because of its size, it may have the tendency to move away from the fence and into the rear of the spinning blade causing a significant potential for kickback.
• Similarly, when crosscutting using the miter saw or table saw, a piece this small is very difficult to control (unless you are just trimming an end) and can put your hands too close to the spinning blade to be safe.

The best way to avoid contact with the blades and cutters on our machinery is to keep our hands at a safe distance.  Following the 3″ rule is actually very simple in practice.

• On the jointer always use push blocks between your hands and the stock. Avoid placing your hands directly on the wood so that they will pass over the blades when using the machine.  When edge jointing, ride the rear (pushing) hand on top of the wood and along the top of the fence.  Move the other (clamping) hand around the blade guard to the outfeed side to maintain clamping pressure against the fence.
• On the planer keep your hands more than 3″ away from the infeed and outfeed sides of the machine.
• On the table saw always use a push stick to rip stock that would cause you to come closer than 3″ from the guard.  Similarly, when cross cutting never crosscut short stock that would cause you to violate this rule unless it is safely clamped to the miter guage or cross cut sled.
• On the router table use push sticks or blocks to operate on narrow stock.  Feather boards and or auxiliary fences and guards are also helpful to keep your hands away from the spinning cutter.

While there may be rare exceptions when a 12″ piece of stock could be cut without issue (for example on the bandsaw) I rarely find the need to.   I can almost always plan my work so that I am working with larger stock.

Obeying these simple rules in the shop has kept me fairly safe and trouble free over many years.  So, when that voice in your head tells you that something you’re about to do isn’t safe, don’t do it because it probably ins’t…if you analyze the operation you’ll most likely find that it is probably violating one of these rules!

To do my part for Woodworkers Safety Week 2008, I thought I’d share a couple of quick stories about close calls that I have had in the workshop, the reasons for them, and what I learned from the experience. In addition to these stories, in a subsequent post I will also highlight just some of the things that I use in my shop that are focused on safety.

What you see in the picture is the sign that I have hanging in my shop. I got if from an old manufacturing operation that was closing down and I thought it would be perfect in my shop. It’s location in the shop causes me to see it every time that I enter. It may seem silly, but seeing it every day in the shop reminds me that the first thing I can do to be safe is to think clearly about what I am doing. If something that I am about to do does not feel safe, I don’t do it – plain and simple. This practice has never failed me. I will always spend extra time thinking about or setting up for an operation to make it completely safe. To me, the extra time is well worth the piece of mind I get as a result.

Having said this, I too have been through the “woodworking school of hard knocks”. When I first started out in the craft, I of course did not have much experience doing woodworking. On two separate occasions this lack of experience (and the lack of patience to try to research the write way to do something) resulted in a close call for me in the shop. One was at the table saw and the other at the router table.

The Table Saw Incident

The table saw incident occurred when I was first starting woodworking. I was using my father’s old Craftsman 7 1/4″ table saw. It had a very poor fence on it. I was attempting to rip a board but I had two things working against me: I was not using a splitter and I did not have the fence tuned to align itself parallel to the blade when it was locked down.

I started the ripping operation and the board started to become harder and harder to push. I could hear the saw straining but, I kept pushing thinking that there was only a little more to the cut and I thought that I could force it through. You can probably guess what happened – because the fence had locked down with the far end closer to the blade than the near end, and because there was no splitter to keep the board from contacting the rear of the blade, the board eventually rode up onto the rear teeth of the blade and kicked back with violent force. Luckily, I was standing in a position where it did not hit me but, the board ended up going through a paneled wall on the other side of my shop! Needless to say, I quickly shut down the saw and after I collected myself I finally did one thing right – I retraced what I had done and realized that the issue with the fence was the cause and that my forcing the cut and the lack of the splitter enabled an almost tragic result. The important lessons that I learned from this are:

• On the table saw a well tuned fence is paramount. Until I got my own saw I was diligent to check and recheck that the fence was equidistant at both the front and back of the blade before any cuts were made.
• Having a splitter on the saw could have helped this situation. Because this saw was old and the guard/splitter was long gone, I made a new insert with a wooden splitter attached until the saw was replaced.
• Forcing a cut on any power tool is the last thing you should do. From then on, if ever in a situation where a cut is binding I always shut down the tool to investigate what is causing the issue before continuing.

The Router Table Incident

The incident that I once had with the router table was not because of an issue with the equipment but, rather because of an issue with my knowledge of an operation. I was using a straight bit in the router at the router table to plow a groove.

I had already plowed a groove in my workpiece using the fence on the router table to position the groove properly. I moved the piece from right to left over the bit to do this. However, the bit I was using was 1/2″ in diameter and I needed to plow a 3/4″ grove into the piece. I was not quite sure, but this seemed simple enough…I could just move the fence in toward the bit by 1/4″ and widen the groove with another pass against the fence, I thought. I went ahead with this operation and as soon as the piece was engaged by the bit, it shot out the left side of the router table and into the wall across the shop! This happened in an instant and I hardly knew what had happened. I shut down the router and tried to understand what had gone wrong. After a bit of thought, I finally understood the problem. Because I moved the fence toward the bit and still fed the piece from right to left, as the bit rotated counter-clockwise it was widened the groove nearer the edge of the piece that was against the fence. This caused the piece to be trapped in between the bit and the fence effectively creating a climb-cut situation. The important lessons that I learned from this are:

• You need to always be aware of the rotation of the bit on the router table. All operations must feed the workpiece to be cut into the rotation of the bit – it is always worth a few extra minutes to walk through the scenario (and even draw a quick picture) to be sure that you completely understand what you are doing.
• Never ever trap a workpiece between the bit and the fence on the router table. Always consider the rotation of the bit and if the orientation requires the cut to be between the bit and the fence, then the feed direction must be reversed. In the scenario that I denoted above, I needed to actually feed the workpiece from left to right to safely make the cut.

These are the two close calls that I have had that stand out the most in my mind. They illustrate that disastrous things can happen in an instant in the workshop. I hope that reading about them will point out something for you to work more safely in your woodworking. I would also urge you to visit the other blogs in The Woodwhisperer Network to see what others are talking about during Woodworkers Safety Week 2008.

The Queen Anne Side Table has had the finish curing for a bit before the final rub out and hardware. So, it should be making its final appearance in a post on the blog soon. Things are moving along on the Dreadnought Guitar as well. I’ll be posting soon about the process of fitting and gluing the top to the sides. That should be an interesting operation!

Anyway, I just wanted to get an update out to keep you informed. I’ll be checking in remotely while traveling, so, please continue to send and commments or questions that you have. I’ll be back in the shop soon!

I had been giving some serious consideration to two of the Veritas planes: the Low Angle Smoother and the Bevel Up Smoothing Plane. I have the Veritas Low Angle Block Plane and also the Veritas Medium Shoulder Plane and they are both beautifully made and well performing tools. However, I was not sure whether to get the dedicated smoother or the low angle smoother which could also be used with a shooting board. My immediate need was for a basic smoothing plane but, I did not want to look past the other possible uses of a multi-purpose tool like the low angle plane. The other thought I had was to try for a vintage smoothing plane in need of a little work, while saving a bit of money for the multi-purpose tool at a later date.

I decided to check Ebay for some possible smoothing planes that might be easily rehabbed into service. I ended up finding one that looked like it was in reasonable shape. I bid on it and ended up winning the auction! I paid for it and it was in my hands within a few days. Never having purchased a vintage tool on Ebay before, I opened the package not knowing exactly what I would find. What I received was a Stanley Bailey #4 Smoother that was most likely manufactured in the early 1930′s. It’s condition was just as described.

There was a bit of rust on the plane and what looked to be minor pitting, but all of the parts seemed to be in good shape and looked to be very serviceable. The knob and tote were both intact with no cracks. After a quick examination with a straight edge, the sole looked to be fairly flat and true. The sides were not 90 degrees to the sole but, since I was not planning to use this plane with a shooting board this was not a real issue. In the pictures, you can see the plane as I received it (click for a larger view).

I ‘ve tuned a couple of planes in the past, but those were new Record planes that needed some work out of the box because of inferior manufacturing. Rehabbing this vintage #4 smoother was uncharted territory for me. I disassembled the plane completely and examined the parts closely. Luckily, there were no surprises. However, I quickly realized that the first step in the rehab process was going to be to take care of the rust. The pictures show all of the parts after disassembly.

On the Internet I’ve seen several folks effectively eliminate the rust on their planes using an Electrolysis technique. I was contemplating this technique but decided to look for some alternatives. In doing so, I stumbled onto the information for a few rust elimination products. One product, called Evapo-Rust, was sold at Auto-Zone and had a money back guarantee. This stuff was supposed to be environmentally friendly and reusable as well. I decided to get some and give it a try thinking that if it did not work I could always go the electrolysis route. To use this product all I needed to do was to soak the parts for 30 minutes or more depending on how much rust there was. The hardest part was finding a container that could hold the plane body for soaking! As you can see in the pictures, I ended up cutting up an old soda bottle. I soaked the screws, blade and chip-breaker first to see how well the process would work.

After about an hour, I removed the parts, rinsed them with water and gave them a light scrubbing with Scotch-Brite. All I can say is: I’m amazed at how well this stuff worked and how easy it was to use. I gave the de-rusted parts a light coating of 3-in-1 Oil to keep any surface rust from forming. Next to soak were the plane body and frog assembly – I left these in the bath over night because of the amount of rust on both. The next morning after a rinse and a quick scrub, they both looked great! The frog received some oil and the plane body got a coat of paste wax on the sides and bottom.

With all of the parts now relieved of rust, I set out to rework the edges on the blade and the chip breaker. The blade had a small amount of pitting on the back and a few significant nicks in its edge. I started the process by flattening the back on my water stones. After getting the back in reasonable condition I went to my Jet Wet Sharpener to remove the nicks and to put a fresh bevel on the blade. I recently got this tool during a super sale at Amazon.com. I could not justify the price of the Tormek Wet Sharpener (even though it looks to be a very well-made tool). However, during the sale this Jet Sharpener was available for the equivalent of a couple of good Water Stones so, I decided to give it a try. I’ve been reasonably pleased and it does speed the sharpening process. This situation was no exception. Within fifteen minutes I had ground a new primary bevel of 25 degrees and a micro bevel of 28 degrees. The last sharpening task was to grind the chip breaker so that it had a crisp edge where it contacts the back of the plane blade.

With the de-rusting and sharpening completed, I decided to see how the lpane might perform without doing anything more to it. so, I assembled the plane. I fiddled with the placement of the frog until it was in a position where it was just ahead of the back of the plane mouth – this assured that the blade was totally supported by the frog and did not contact the back of the mouth. I adjusted the chip breaker to sit back from the blade edge by about 1/32″ and installed the blade. After advancing the blade slowly while taking swipes of a Cherry board I was making nice shavings and leaving a polished surface on the face of the board!

I think eventually I may want to invest in a thicker iron for this plane and maybe a new chip breaker, but all in all I would say that this effort was a success. I received a good specimen to begin with and I did minimal work to rehab it into working order. Best of all, I have a new tool to use now and saved some money toward another tool in the future. If it always goes this well, this could get addicting…

As always, if you have any comments or questions, please leave them here using the comments link at the end of the post, or email me at thecraftsmanspath@gmail.com.

My hopes in making this trip were that there might be some unusually good deals to be had on tools or hardwood lumber. I usually hear about these kinds of things after they have already passed or when I am not available to visit them. So, I was excited to be able to go and see what great deals there might be. Driving there, I was not sure of the circumstances of this sale – I thought that it could be a liquidation of a woodworking business that had closed it’s doors.

When I arrived at the address along a rural country road, I saw a house surrounded by thick woods with several outbuildings on the property. I thought to myself that maybe someone had a woodworking business that they ran out of their house, but were retiring or something. I walked down the driveway and followed the signs around the side of the house and down through a Bilco door into the basement. When I entered, I saw what looked like a typical home woodworkers basement shop.

In the first room that I entered, there were tools laid out on tables and several racks of various types of hardwood lumber neatly stacked all along one side. As I continued, I saw a shop made router table, some hand saws and also some hand-held power tools. I decided that I would pass through the entire shop first to get a feel for what was there and then go back to look closer at things of interest. Moving on into the second room of the shop, I saw an assortment of stationary power tools, shop made jigs, clamps, and hanging cabinets. Above a desk in the room there were clippings of furniture pictures from magazines that presumably were inspirations for future projects. Looking around, I could see the evidence of many years of woodworking in just about every corner of the shop.

As I continued to wander through the shop looking at the tools, wood and jigs, I overheard some conversations regarding the circumstances of the sale. It turns out that this was the home workshop of a lifelong woodworker that had recently passed away. His daughters were utilizing the services of a friend to help liquidate his shop. This woodworking gentleman had milled his own lumber and even had a dehumidification kiln in one of the outbuildings on the property where he had dried his own wood. I was told that he had a long history of making beautiful things out of wood for their home. Looking at the shop made jigs and cabinets, it was evident that this man had a passion for working with wood and took great pride in his work.

As I continued my tour of the shop, my thoughts drifted away from the specific things for sale and onto the legacy of this woodworker that I had never known. I couldn’t help but think of the countless hours that must have been spent enjoying the craft in that basement shop, the jigs that were precisely made and the wood that was skillfully dried for projects to come. At the same time, it was both sad to see the dismantling of this shop but uplifting to hear about the legacy that this man had left behind in the things he had made for his family and friends.

I would imagine that a love of the craft and the legacy of our creations is a common bond that connects all woodworkers, whether professional or amateur. What’s interesting is that I went on this trip expecting to see and obtain certain material things but, in the end I saw and acquired something else. Something on a completely different level.

I did end up buying a couple of things from this sale but, I went home with something both material and something intangible. I saw both the tools and the legacy of a woodworker who obviously loved what he did and did what he loved. Hopefully, I’ll be able to carry that legacy forward in projects of my own while using a few tools from this woodworker that I had never known.

To do this, I had a few choices: grab a sander and go at the edges to remove the milling marks with successive grits of sandpaper and find the chamfering bit for the router and set it up to relieve the edges of the top – or – enlist the help of my trusty block plane and accomplish both tasks more quickly, quietly, and possibly with less dust and mess than with the other methods. If you haven’t guessed after reading the title of this post, I chose the latter.

It never ceases to amaze me how efficient well tuned hand tools can be for various woodworking tasks. Once you learn how to tune and sharpen planes and chisels and learn the basics of using them, so many woodworking tasks can be accomplished with extreme precision and efficiency. I don’t believe in doing major milling operations with hand tools – the amount of time I have available to me to do woodworking causes me to want to get those tasks done more efficiently with power tools. However, for me fine tuning joinery and some certain surface preparations are better suited to hand tools.

This weekend I made quick work of smoothing all of the edges and chamfering the top of the table in just a few minutes. The resulting surfaces were pristine and I enjoyed some peace and quiet working in the shop – the only noise to be heard was the crisp swish of the plane as it removed fine shavings from the wood, a really great sound if you’ve never heard it. The experience of doing this was a lot nicer than revving up the router and sanding myself into a cloud of dust. I was able to engage my hands a little bit more directly in the work and I think that the end result has just a bit more of a hand-made quality to it.

I don’t have too many hand tools and planes in my arsenal – just some basics: chisels, a card scraper, a dovetail saw, block plane, jack plane, and a shoulder plane. However, the more I use them the more I think that a smoothing plane is in my future! I like the idea of quickly removing milling marks on the surfaces of work pieces and minimizing how much sanding (if any) I have to do. I’m all for less sanding!

As always, please contact me at thecraftsmanspath@gmail.com with questions and also please leave comments here using the comments link at the end of the posts.

For years, I have been working with the standard table on my drill press. As you can see in the picture, I simply clamp a straight board to the table and use it to align the work piece that I needed to drill. However, the table is fairly small, and there is no zero-clearance support below the point where the bit exits the work piece – so, I always either have to put a piece of scrap below the work piece or I risk having tear-out on the exit side of any through-hole being drilled. On top of that, the board that I typically use for a fence is a piece of scrap 3/4″ stock so, it is low to the table and does not offer good support for pieces that are being drilled on edge. This setup is functional, but certainly not very efficient or convenient.

During my recent efforts to clean up the workshop, I came across some scrap stock from an old TV stand. It was melamine coated particle board. Rather than dispose of it to get it out of the way, I decided that I would finally make a simple drill press table and fence and I thought that this melamine piece would make a good table base. So, I grabbed a couple of other pieces from scrap bucket and set off to building.

Because the melamine had exposed particle board edges, I used some scrap Oak to trim the edges of the table base so that they could take some abuse from stock being loaded on and off the table during drilling operations. Nothing fancy here, I just attached the trim pieces with glue and some finish nails.

Next, I needed to determine how to attach the new table to the existing metal drill press table. I did not have any t-bolts or anything similar on hand so, I decided to dome something simple with wood. I created a simple bracket in an “L” shape that would allow me to attach the table to the drill press by attaching the lower part of the “L” with screws. To do this, I marked the size of the actual drill press table to the bottom of the base piece. Then, I cut some runners (the vertical part of the “L”) equal in size to the thickness of the metal drill press table. I attached them to the underside of the table base with CA glue to hold them in place temporarily and then shot some finish nails from the top. I probably should have used screws here because the melamine chipped out a bit from the nailer – but, it was no big deal I just filled the holes and moved on.

So, how is this thing going to stay on the drill press, you ask? Well, a couple of swipes from a block plane on the runners took off less than 1/32″. This is enough so that when the botoms of the “L” are screwed to the runners, the table base will tighten up and be very secure. The last step in preparing the table base was to create a mortise for the a zero-clearance insert that would be flush to the table and replaceable. With the router I created a mortise to allow for replaceable 1/4″ hardboard inserts. Next, it was time to move on to building the fence.

Again, I was off to the scrap bucket to find a couple of pieces to use to create a fence for the new table. I wanted a taller fence than before (again in the shape of an “L”). I found a piece of maple for the fence face and I had an off-cut of melamine that would suffice for the base of the fence. Last, I needed some pieces to support the vertical section of the fence and keep it square to base of the table. The fence supports came in the form of some scrap Oak cut to size to fit the fence. The fence face received a half circle cut-out to allow for the drill press chuck to have access to work pieces that need to be drilled close to the fence. Also, as you can see in the picture, I chamfered the inside corner of the fence supports so that they would not interfere with getting the fence face square with the table base when they were attached.

I used the new table base with the old fence clamped on to drill and countersink a series of holes in the fence face and fence base. I attached the fence face to the fence base with screws and then I chamfered the bottom of the fence face so that there would be some clearance for chips when it is used. Next, I attached each of four fence supports being sure that the fence face remained square to the base of the table all he way across its width. As you can see in the picture, I used some strips of paper to shim each support piece for a perfectly square result.

The last thing to do was a little sanding and to wipe on a little shellac to protect the fence and table trim pieces from moisture. You can see in the picture that the table insert is off center from the drill bit – this is to allow it to be rotated counter-clockwise as it gets perforated by the bit to expose a fresh zero-clearance surface as needed. Of course, it is also able to be replaced as needed.

So, this was by no means anything fancy. However, this simple upgrade provides a great deal more utility to me when using the drill press. I’m not sure why it took so long to get started, but completing the project only took a few hours once I got rolling. I may take a few additional steps to enhance this table even further but, for now this simple upgrade is a huge improvement. Of course, there are more opportunities out there in other corners of the workshop just waiting for action!

Please feel free to e-mail me at thecraftsmanspath@gmail.com with questions or leave comments here using the comments link at the end of the posts. I’d like to hear your thoughts!

Lumber can be purchased in several different states of readiness. For example, S2S lumber has been surfaced on two sides (actually, on both faces) but the edges are still rough. The hardwood lumber that you find in the big box stores is actually S4S, meaning that both the faces and edges have been prepared before it leaves the distributor. Sometimes S2S lumber has had an additional step of straightening one edge so that it can then be readily ripped to width when the buyer so chooses.

Looking past the obvious benefits of purchasing prepared lumber (i.e. less work to do to the rough stock before it can be used on a project), there are several advantages to buying rough stock. Some of these advantages are:

• Rough lumber is always available at a significant discount to surfaced/prepared lumber
• Rough lumber of lower grades that includes some defects and/or sapwood can be obtained at even greater savings – all that is necessary is to work around the defects and sapwood and/or to highlight them as design elements
• Rough lumber is purchased at full thickness or greater (4/4 = 1″, 6/4 = 1.5″, 8/4 = 2″ thick, etc.) so you can get the most out of every board. Surfaced lumber is usually 3/4″ – 13/16″ or less in thickness so, design options are often limited
• Once prepared, rough lumber will be straight and true with square edges. This will make any downstream woodworking operations and assembly much more predictable and accurate, resulting in better finished products

One of the false economies of S4S lumber is that its benefits outweigh its costs. However, I have rarely seen a piece of S4S stock from a big box store that can be worked without some additional preparation. There is always something that must be done to either flatten or square the wood before it can be used (I speculate that this is because of one of two reasons: the wood was prepped incorrectly to begin with or, the wood was improperly stored/transported) . Either way, because the stock is already thicknessed to what would usually be a finished dimension (3/4″), there is not any room for further preparation. Ultimately, this already expensive stock becomes even more expensive because more must be purchased to accomplish the same task!

Of course, all of this talk of purchasing rough lumber assumes that you have the tools to properly prep the stock as necessary (a table saw, jointer and planer at a minimum) . While this work is certainly easier to do with power tools, it (or parts of it) can be accomplished with other tools as well. I can assure you that I won’t be giving up my jointer or planer anytime soon however, I can tell you that before I had both of these tools I edge-jointed on a router table with a split fence using S2S stock and used a hand plane to tweak the faces of boards that were not flat. To do this, I cut work pieces as close to final dimensions possible before doing any additional preparation. The smaller pieces minimized any deviations from flat and straight and what remained could be taken care of with a hand plane while maintaining maximum thickness.

If you have not tried designing and building projects starting with rough lumber, I would urge you to give it a try. I think that it offers the most in flexibility, economy and variety of choices. Most distributors of rough stock will have a much larger selection than what you’ll find at the big box stores. Additionally, you’ll be able to obtain different cuts of lumber (like quarter-sawn) to provide a more unique or authentic look for a project. The full thicknesses of stock that you’ll get will also afford you the ability to break out of the “everything is 3/4″ thick” mold that seems to accompany store bought furniture and limit design possibilities. Finally, as I mentioned earlier, stock purchased with a “defect” or variations in color and grain can be used as design statements to break away from the more mundane while adding unique elements to your designs.

Please feel free to e-mail me at thecraftsmanspath@gmail.com with questions or leave comments here using the comments link at the end of the posts. I’d like to hear your thoughts!

I don’t want to give you the impression that the shop was a total mess or anything. It had the usual areas of clutter and things that did not find their rightful homes after they were last used. Some dust and chips were still on the shop floor that needed to get swept up and some wood scraps left here and there from the times that I used the shop for quick projects over the summer. Oh, and there is that Table project that I alluded to in this post that is waiting for a final sanding and some finish. Really, nothing out of the ordinary though.

I spent some of the day Saturday and a bit of Sunday tidying up and getting some things put away and there is still a bit more of that to do. However, as I worked, it seemed that every step I took I saw another opportunity for improvement. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, there are some improvements to the shop that I’d like to make this year – maybe even some layout changes. Many of these involve making better use of space and organizing some of the miscellaneous hand and bench top tools that I have (i.e. hand drills, oscillating spindle sander, small scroll saw etc.)

My workshop is in the basement of my home and though not tiny, it is not expansive either. I need to make every square foot count so that I can maneuver with lumber and projects while they are being built. So, there are some simple things I think I can do in the next couple of weeks to make the space more efficient and functional. I say simple because I don’t want to get too caught up in this because there are furniture projects that I want to get on too soon.

While I was working on the cleanup I was joined by my son for a short time because we had a small task to cut and sand some new handrails for the stairway that leads down to the basement. While we were at this, we naturally went over to the workbench and used it to clamp and hold these pieces as we worked on them. Not that we were doing anything substantial with these pieces but, as I stood there watching my son sand the ends of the hand rails to break the sharp edges I thought about just how important a tool my workbench really is. I think back to the previous plywood bench I had with no vice or dog holes and time and effort that it took to build what I have today. Thinking back on how much I work at that bench each and every day I’m in the shop and what a pleasure it is to use, I can definitely say that it was worth all the time and effort. The picture is one of the bench just after I had completed building it.

I spent a lot of time considering what style bench I wanted to build and eventually bit the bullet on the hybrid design you see in the picture (it’s based on a plan from Veritas found here) and it has served me well. I think that the advice you often hear about building workbenches is true – do some basic research but don’t get too caught up in analyzing how/or what to build, just build one and use it. The reason is that no matter what you build, it’s likely to be better than a makeshift setup (like what I started with) and you won’t know what you want to change until you’ve used it for a while.

There are many potential designs for workbenches. One older resource that I found very valuable when building mine was The Workbench Book by Scott Landis but, there are others. Lately, Chris Schwartz at Popular Woodworking & Wodworking Magazine has been researching and building many workbench designs. In the latest issue of Woodworking Magazine he has an article about this process and he also is about to release a new book on the subject.

In summary I am just offering some praise to the workbench. I feel that it is the heart of the shop (no, not the table saw, the workbench!). If you are new to woodworking or do not have a solid workbench with a good vice or other holding capabilities you may want to consider building one. I can’t think of a better first project with a higher payoff to you in the end.