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My dad wants to get me some shop tools for my birthday, and despite (or maybe because of) reading through this thread at least twice, I'm not entirely sure what I should have him spend money on. What I've got now is.. not much, but it's let me build (just about as incorrectly as possible, what with the bad measuring and using drywall screws to hold everything together) some basic things like a couple desks, some shelving units for the basement, and a dollhouse for my wife's preschool class. Now that I've actually got a house, though, I want to start building some decent custom furniture for my weirdly sized and shaped rooms. My poor excuse for a shop looks like this right now:  Basically a hollow-core interior door (my old desk) on some 2x4s and a cheap Ikea shelf. As far as tools, I've somehow ended up with three jigsaws (I haven't gotten good results with the two newer ones, and the old one works well but scares me because of the power switch configuration), two sanders, a scroll saw and small drill press that I found while cleaning out my wife's mom's house, and two circular saws. If I don't want my dad spending more than $500 or so, what should I be asking for? Would I be better off with, say, a router and some good planes/chisels/hand saws, or an inexpensive table saw, or band saw, or compound mitre saw, or something else entirely?
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Sep 6, 2010 00:23
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dyne posted:If I had a $500 budget I'd get a sliding compound miter saw, EZ smart tracksaw guide, router, and clamps wormil posted:These are excellent suggestions but you'll also want some decent chisels. I have a set of Marples Blue Chip and I can make them sharper than a razor. The 3/8" gets the most use. Inexpensive table saws aren't very useful unless you're a carpenter hauling it from jobsite to jobsite, save up until you can drop $800 or more on a contractor or cabinet saw. Thanks for the help, guys!
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Sep 6, 2010 18:32
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Is it worth spending $30 on a 9" Delta bandsaw, or should I save my money for something bigger?
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Sep 26, 2010 18:23
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I just got a new toy.  Some assembly required, but it was free.
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May 22, 2011 19:56
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 I want to build an end table sized version of this awesome table that Room and Board used to sell. The trouble is, I've never seen one in person, and R&B doesn't sell it anymore, so I'm not sure how I'd join everything together at the middle and still have it be strong enough to actually be a table. I'm guessing the best way to do it is have one long piece (floor to tabletop), and then attach the other four shorter pieces to it. Would just a butt joint with, like, steel reinforcement rods be sturdy enough?
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Sep 24, 2011 15:36
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Blistex posted:Two of the beams would be intact with them going full length and having a notch cut out 1/2 way so they would join together. The third one would probably be two different pieces that would have a threaded rod running through them. with a washer and a nut at each end that you would tighten to create more tension. Glue the crap out of it, then coat with wood filler, sand, prime paint, and voila! wormil posted:It's possible but from a production standpoint, half-laps would be much quicker (especially with a CNC) and stronger. Sans a CNC, a radial arm saw would be ideal for this. Once the angles were computed you would just cut the half-laps and glue, then preferably pin or screw them. Done. If you rely on a central piece, you then have 7 pieces plus dowel screws. All strength from using thick wood is lost and you are depending on the dowel screws for strength. The end result with all the seams would look like rear end. At that point you might as well use something other than wood. A mock up of it in cheap 4x4s is probably going to be the first thing I do, before I go spending money on decent lumber (the original was maple). I'll try half-lapping and using a threaded rod to start, and see what happens.
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Sep 26, 2011 15:55
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Who's used bamboo lumber before? My wife wants our new bathroom vanity to be bamboo, and while I'm reasonably certain I could build one out of regular wood (especially since it's in a little alcove and all you'd ever see is the front), all these sites with bamboo lumber say things like oh man it's so hard and dense you can't even drive a nail into it! and that makes me think it'll be damned near impossible to work with. I'd be better off just building it with some run of the mill lumber and using bamboo veneer, wouldn't I?
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Mar 5, 2012 22:45
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Elston Gunn posted:I've installed a bamboo floor and didn't have any problems nailing or cutting it. How much does bamboo dimensional lumber cost though? I guess if all you see is the front you could just make a face frame out of it and the rest out of regular wood. Do you know if it was solid bamboo, or just bamboo-faced something else? I thought I read somewhere that the glue used to make the solid stuff was really hard on tools. wormil posted:Based on prices for bamboo dimensional lumber found online I would be tempted build the vanity from birch plywood, poplar and bamboo veneer. Maybe, I'd have to research it a bit as I've never worked with bamboo. Yeah, since I posted last, I've been looking at prices for bamboo dimensional lumber and veneers. It's not cheap. The front of the vanity is only, like, 34" wide and 30" high, so I don't need a $150 4x8 sheet of veneer.
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Mar 8, 2012 00:09
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Is there anywhere to get decent pine 2x2s? I'm not entirely comfortable ripping my own, because my RAS is missing the splitter and anti-kickback fingers, and all I can find locally are lovely furring strips with rounded corners, or pre-finished and planed hardwood 2x2s for like $10 each. I'm building this, and the only other thing I can think of to use instead of 2x2s is some 1x2s glued together.
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Mar 12, 2012 15:55
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I've been doing some ripping on my RAS lately and god drat it is terrifying. And switching from ripping to crosscutting is way too much of a pain in the rear end. So I just picked this up for $75:  The guy threw in the mobile stand he made for it, too. Belt driven, cast iron top - it's a heavy son of a bitch. Looks like it should be a good addition to my crappy basement workshop.
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Oct 15, 2012 01:43
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One Legged Ninja posted:Do you have a proper blade for your RAS? I ask because I have a blade with a positive hook angle, and it really makes it a pain in the rear end to cut anything. What it needs is a negative hook blade. That tends to push the teeth away from the work instead of pulling it into it, which causes the saw to grab. If I ever start using the RAS on a regular basis I'm going to get one. Yeah, it's got the right kind of blade. I love it for crosscutting and cutting mitres and everything, but ripping with that whole assembly up there in the way just isn't something I like doing. And then there's the whole set up and alignment thing every time I change the configuration. A new fence for this TS isn't in my budget quite yet, but it's definitely in my plans.
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Oct 15, 2012 20:15
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Is there any reason a table of this design wouldn't be strong enough?  It'd be made of 3/4" birch plywood, cut into strips and face-glued together, so that the edge of the plywood makes the table top, like this. The middle section, made of the 1x18 pieces, is reversible: flat on one side, and a cushion on the other. I'm fairly confident that it would be strong enough across the width, but I'm not sure if that void in the middle will result in it sagging across the length. Any comments/suggestions/"this is a stupid idea"'s?
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Nov 3, 2012 23:40
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Blistex posted:Turning plywood on its edge results in a wicked strong structure with little to no give. The fact that you will have 3" of birch ply running the full length means that it's not going to be an issue unless you're planning on letting a sumo wrestler sit on it. If you are really worried about weight, then you could add another two outside pieces to make it even stronger. Yeah, the legs are kind of a very recent addition. I was going to use hairpin legs, but I had my doubts about the holding power of the screws going into the plywood endgrain, so I switched to these ones. They'd just be cut out of the same sheet of plywood, so it wouldn't be too hard to double or even triple them up to make them a little sturdier. BTW, this cutlist program is great for figuring all this out: http://www.delphiforfun.org/programs/cutlist.htm  ChaoticSeven posted:That reminds me of something pretty handy. Oh, drat. I forgot that existed. Thanks!
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Nov 4, 2012 02:28
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I had a bunch of halfway decent pine 1x2s left over from an old project, so I decided to start working on my first attempt at making something using "proper" woodworking techniques - ie not a bunch of pieces of wood screwed together. I hope to evetually end up with something resembling an end table/cabinet for our baby's room. The good: it stands up on its own!  The bad: I am not good at cutting mortises.  I started out using my drill press to cut out most of the mortises, but my drill press is very sloppy and inaccurate, so I did the last few entirely by hand. That wasn't so fun either, because my chisels are poo poo and don't hold an edge. I bought a new Marples chisel, so hopefully the rest of the mortises will turn out a little better. Tenons I did on my router table, and they turned out nice and consistent. The thing I had the most trouble with was cutting the top and bottom of the mortises - the short part that goes across the grain. Is there any trick to getting those to turn out better?
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Dec 2, 2012 01:20
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wormil posted:Sharper chisels and practice. The nice thing is no one can see what they look like except you so don't worry if they aren't pretty. That's true, but I'll still know. The last bunch of mortises were way easier with the better chisel. All that's left now is painting and putting the tiles in the top: 
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Dec 2, 2012 21:18
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Costello Jello posted:I know you guys are mostly into staining or sealing your work, but I'm hoping some of you have some experience painting furniture also. I got a pretty decent gloss with no visible brush strokes on a shelf I painted just by rubbing the paint down really good with #000 steel wool after each of the three or four coats of paint.
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Jan 28, 2013 04:47
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dur posted:Is there any reason a table of this design wouldn't be strong enough? My daughter was born a few weeks after that post, so I've had basically zero free time to do anything, but 9 months later, I've actually got something resembling a table top:  I went back and forth on it, and finally settled on hairpin legs. I'm not sure what to finish it with, though, and for what I've read, end grain is more difficult to finish? Any suggestions?
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Aug 24, 2013 23:31
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Hi thread. I haven't posted in here in a couple years, but I'm starting to get back into this woodworking thing now, so here's a picture of the project I just finished: Really pretty simple - 4x4 sheet of oak plywood cut down to 48 x 36, 7/8" holes drilled every 4 inches, attached to the wall with a french cleat. I used my radial arm saw with a drill chuck attached to it as a giant drill press. Still need to put some edge banding on the shelves at some point to hide the burn marks, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.
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Mar 29, 2016 16:50
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Just gravity. There's enough weight on the shelves that pulling the entire shelf off with one jar shouldn't be a problem, but if it ever becomes one, I could probably use some of those u-shaped pipe hangars to hold the shelves on a little better. The pegs are a pretty tight fit. It takes some effort to get them out.
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Mar 29, 2016 18:19
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I"m making a pasta drying rack for my wife for Christmas, and I'm not sure what to use for a finish on it. It's made out of red oak. Would it be safe to just put a couple coats of polyurethane over the whole thing, would such as a mineral oil be more appropriate, or something else?
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Dec 21, 2016 19:08
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Magnus Praeda posted:Don't do this. Use mineral oil or another food-safe oil as a finish, yes, but not olive or canola or other cooking oils. They'll never dry properly and eventually go rancid. Mineral oil it is, then. Thanks!
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Dec 22, 2016 05:23
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Mr. Mambold posted:I'd never use red oak for anything food related. So you should probably scrap the whole thing, or go with your first bet polyurethane and use it as a sweater drying rack (still not optimal) Hmm. Any particular reason why?
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Dec 22, 2016 23:53
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Mr. Mambold posted:Open pores. Oh. Ooooh. Welp, I'll give it to her and secretly re-make it out of something else before she has a chance to use it.
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Dec 23, 2016 00:23
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ColdPie posted:Holy crap you live in the twin cities, too. Where do you buy wood? I've mostly been doing Forest Products Supply at 36 and Cty C, though I went to Youngblood in NE Mpls once, too. I was thinking of checking out a lumber mill south of the cities for wide boards for my work bench this Spring. Oh, hey, I've gone to Forest Products Supply a couple times for just like their cut offs. $6 for a few pieces of wood to make coasters with is a p good deal.
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Feb 4, 2017 03:07
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MetaJew posted:How do you guys go about ensuring you drill a hole perfectly square to the surface of something too big to drill on a drill press? Drill chuck on back side of my radial arm saw. It's how I did this:
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Feb 13, 2017 07:32
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MetaJew posted:I don't understand, nor do I own a radial arm saw, but that looks cool. Radial arm saws usually have a reverse-threaded stub on the opposite end of the shaft that the blade goes on. So you can screw a drill chuck on and do a thing like this:  You don't get a ton of up-down range, but it can handle pretty large pieces.
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Feb 13, 2017 22:03
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Been a while since I've posted here but I just spent like the last 3 weeks catching up. Took a long break from doing anything on account of having a kid and no time, but I'm getting my workshop area cleaned up and ready, and gonna try out doing hand tool stuff on account of the less noise and dust. So I raided my grandpa's old workshop and got a few things. 
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Jul 7, 2019 19:25
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Sandpaper's the easiest way to get started, but not real cost-effective over the long run. Harbor Freight sells packs of wet/dry with 220/550/1000/1200 grit sheets for like $4, pick up one of those and, like, a granite tile from Menards or whatever. I made a little jig out of some scrap oak and a couple of bolts to hold a plane iron:  The exact angle's not super important, somewhere around 30 degrees is good. Just go at it on the 220 until you feel a burr on the back side, then increase grit and repeat.
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Sep 12, 2019 04:41
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Jaded Burnout posted:Do y'all have recommendations for angle guides for sharpening chisels and plane blades etc? There's a generic import one that I see around a lot that always gets trash reviews, but I can't find anything else. Elder Postsman posted:I made a little jig out of some scrap oak and a couple of bolts to hold a plane iron:
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Sep 13, 2019 19:33
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Working on one of those roman style workbenches, spent about and hour getting this top relatively flat tonight, made lots of nice little shavings.
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Sep 17, 2019 04:43
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:
A friend got me a few 4x6s from a barn his family tore down.  It's pretty nice.
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Sep 28, 2019 00:39
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I made a uhh primitive bench so I don't have to sit on an upside down bucket in my workshop anymore My first real handtools-only project, and it turned out alright.
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Oct 6, 2019 17:52
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Picked up a beech cut-off from a local shop for $2 today. I'm gonna try to make a grooving plane out of it so I can build some drawers.
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Nov 15, 2019 01:13
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Granite Octopus posted:Sounds like fun. I love using grooving planes. What are you going to use for the iron? I don’t think I’d have a chisel thin enough Just a spare 1/4" chisel. I've got at least one from an old harbor freight chisel set.
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Nov 15, 2019 02:31
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Elder Postsman posted:Picked up a beech cut-off from a local shop for $2 today. I'm gonna try to make a grooving plane out of it so I can build some drawers. Got the beech all flat and square  But before I go cutting this all up, I thought it smart to make a quick mock-up to make sure what I had in mind would actually, you know, work.  And I was rewarded with... a groove! 
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Nov 17, 2019 20:19
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:This is super cool. Is the practice version just built up out of plywood? I've made one little block plane by gluing stuff together in the Krenov method but planemaking for real has always seemed really neat to me. Scratchstocks work and they are easy but making my own wooden planes seems like it would be super cool (and hard). The wedge is 1/4" plywood, the rest is just cut from a scrap of 1x4 pine. Gonna do one or two more practice ones to figure out how to make the shavings actually exit the plane instead of getting all bunched up. I was super impressed that it actually worked though!
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Nov 18, 2019 02:06
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Huxley posted:Router tables scare the heck out of me for some reason. But yeah, you aren't going to be routing an edge on a table with a router table, that's 100% a handheld job. Same. I had my worst woodworking-related injury on my router table - chewed up the side of my finger a little bit with a 1/4" straight bit. Wasn't long after that I decided to get rid of the router, table, and table saw and go all unpowered.
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Dec 4, 2019 04:55
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I’m using up some of my garbage red oak (it’s a bad wood, folks) to make a printer stand and look I did some dovetails!  Also this morning my dovetail guide from Katz-Moses finally showed up. Gonna try that out tonight.
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Dec 9, 2019 23:58
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:I will concede that it does occasionally smell like hot garbage, but otherwise I don't mind red oak. You've got to temper your expectations and remember that it's not the most stable stuff in the world, but with white oak at insane prices, I've come to appreciate red oak more. The OP looks like they've got some nice tight grained stuff that is probably reasonably stable? We get fast growing poo poo out of the swamps down here with 1/2"+ between growth rings and it can be the warpiest stuff if it isn't dried well (and it never is). It's just the stuff menards sells, some is ok, some is less-ok. The stuff I'm using for the top of the printer stand was just awful. As I was planing it, there were, like, voids opening up in the wood. You could feel them just under the surface. But whatever, I'm just glad to finally be using it. Most of my projects are smaller, so I've been going to this place and raiding their cutoffs bins. I think I paid $8 for enough white oak to make a bunk bed for my daughter's dolls.
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Dec 10, 2019 04:55
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Elder Postsman posted:I’m using up some of my garbage red oak (it’s a bad wood, folks) to make a printer stand and look I did some dovetails! I finished it. Now I can put paper under my printer. 
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Dec 14, 2019 05:53
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