Woodworking Tip of The Week - HandSaw Rack

I own a small but very useful collection of handsaws. My problem was finding a handy and safe place to store them. The answer was a simple wall storage rack that keeps the saws out of the way but still easily accessible, as you can see in the photo.

The design of the rack is shown in the drawing below. Basically, it consists of a couple of pieces of hardboard that sandwich a series of beveled blocks. The spaces between the blocks hold loose sections of ¾″-dia. dowel. And a kerf cut through the outer face allows entrance of the saw blade.

The rack works by pinching the saw blade between the loose section of dowel and the fixed block. To hang up a saw, you simply slip it into the kerf from below and then let the saw drop until the dowel grabs it. To remove a saw, you push it up and out of the kerf.

Good Woodworking,

Ted Raife

Editor, Woodsmith

New Nail Gun by Dewalt

New Nail Gun by Dewalt - It can drive a 16-D nail through a 2 X 4 at 200 yards. This makes construction a breeze. You can sit in your lawn chair and build a fence. Just get the wife and kids to hold the fence boards in place while you sit back, relax with a cold beer, and when they have the board in the right place, just fire away. With the hundred round magazine, you can build the fence with a minimum of reloading.

After a day of fence building with the new Dewalt Rapid fire nail gun, most wives will not ask you to fix or build anything else for a very long time.

This was Sent to me by a Cousin of mine in Texas. I thought it was pretty funny and thought it would be a great addition to my blog for a little Woodworking Comedy!

Enjoy

Woodworking Tip of The Week - Custom-Fit Dadoes

Routing dadoes or grooves to hold a plywood panel can be a challenge. The problem is it measures a little less than the stated thickness. Whenever I need to rout a perfectly sized dado to match a piece of plywood, I turn to a pair of guides like those shown in photo at right.
The guides consist of a hardboard base with a fence on top. I use the router and a 1/2″ straight bit to trim the base of the guide.

Once you’ve made the guides, using them is straightforward. You can use a combination square to set one of the guides square to the edge of the workpiece. Then place a plywood spacer alongside the guide and clamp the second guide against the spacer.
Now, you can rout along one edge guide then turn the router around and make a return pass to complete the dado.

Have a nice weekend,

Phil Huber

Editor, ShopNotes

Shop Time!

Hopefully here real SOON, I will be having some Shop time. The Weather hasn't been permitting me to go outside here lately, as it's been raining A LOT.

Well I suppose that's ok I guess... I've not really got any good wood nor money to purchase any just yet, and if I did I'm not sure what I would accomplish just yet in the shop.

I do however have a Project planed in the near future, I'm a real big Fan of Billiards, others call it Pool, I call it both. Anyway for anyone that is familiar with Billiards or Pool or any form of it knows that a Pool Cue is the most Important piece of equipment, without it you can't play, of course without a table nor Billiard Balls, you aren't able to play as well.

Well for anyone that is familiar, I have a Mali Pool Cue, Blueish Green Marble in color, and my cause I was using... Well I had it in my trunk, and the zipper seized up on me. So with what little Skills that I have in Woodworking and the likes, I will be applying this to build me a New Pool Cue Case, equipped with a Chalk Holder, probably a little quarter area to hold a roll of quarters like a poker table holds poker chips.

I will of course be doing a Podcast on this project to show everyone the process of me applying my woodworking Skills...

Design is still a little flaky, but once it's worked out it will look great, I'm also thinking about doing some Inlay work, which will be my first ever attempt as well. So be looking Forward to a few projects, in the mean time, Please enjoy my Woodworking Tips of the Week from Various people from "Woodworkingtips.com"

Thanks for stopping by and checking my blog out, I should also in the neat future be providing another video and audio podcast. Time and weather hasn't been on my side lately.

Handi

Woodworking Tip of The Week - Router Table Indexing Jig

Recently I had to cut a series of evenly spaced dadoes across the sides of some small display shelves I was making. I wanted to make the dadoes on my router table, and I needed a way to space them evenly. That's when I came up with the idea for an auxiliary table fitted with an index pin as shown in the photo.

To make the auxiliary table, I started by cutting a piece of ½″ MDF (medium-density fiberboard) that fit on top of my router table. Then I drilled a hole in the center of the MDF for a router bit.

Next I inset a strip of wood into the top to serve as an index pin for spacing the dadoes, see Figure 1. I made sure that the distance between the router bit and the index pin equaled the spacing I needed for my dadoes, then I clamped the top to my router table.

Now cutting evenly spaced dadoes is easy. Simply butt one of the workpieces against the index pin and push it forward with a backer block to cut the first dado. Now just shift the workpiece so the dado you just cut fits over the index pin and cut a second dado. Repeat this process until all the dadoes have been cut, as you can see in Figure 2.

Have a nice weekend,

Ted Raife
Online Editor, Woodsmith