I’ve been using my Saw Stop for a few months now, I’m glad I moved to the safer saw, and I still believe the move was a good one. My old saw had more power, but the things I do now don’t require a lot of power, just consistent and reliable cuts. The vast majority […]
Saw Stop Update February 2024 Read More »
I’ve been saving for a new table saw for years. When the economy was booming a few years ago and craft fairs were going well, I managed to put back quite a lot of money toward my saw. This year has been more of a challenge and while I have been able to save some
Saw Stop – My upgraded shop saw Read More »
I know that there are some craft seasons that are better than others, this year has been very different. For those that rely on craft sales to make a living, I hope that you are making enough sales to make it worthwhile to continue. My sales have been very slow this year and I feel
This year has been very different, an economic rant. Read More »
I make a lot of chess boards, and sometimes a really nice piece of wood will have a very small split or crack in the grain. I try to put those pieces on the bottom so that if I make a repair it won’t look as bad, and in most cases someone that doesn’t know
I make a fair amount of backgammon games and other boxes that use mitered corners. I like to add decorative keys using a dovetail bit after the box is assembled, but to do that the corners need to be really tight and square. In a past blog post I demonstrated how I do that on
Cutting Mitered Corners on a Radial Arm Saw Read More »
I decided to try a new dice shaker for my backgammon games, instead of doing ovals, I decided to do round using the lathe. The blanks start as square stock, not necessarily square or smooth. These can be rough blanks, the only limit is the blanks has to be no less than 1 7/8″ square.
Turning Dice Shakers Read More »
Several times I’ve been asked do I make items in bulk. I answer “sure do”. Not every woodworker wants to do ‘production’ work, making one of something is challenge enough. I want to make a bunch of something that I think will sell, and make it quickly enough to actually make money on it. I’m
Do you work in bulk? Read More »
I’ve sold most of my backgammon boards that were featured in the previous ‘how to build’ posts. So I started another run, this time I have 27 board in process. As I read through my previous posts I thought I might add some info on the panel construction. I have a few more pictures to
Pressing Backgammon Laminations Read More »
When I first built my shop here in North Carolina (2005), I’d brought some things from my old shop in Tennessee to use here. Of those things was included my dust collection system, such as it was. Being it worked sufficiently in my old shop, I figured it would work ok in my new shop.
Dust collection changes – Upgrades Read More »
This blog post is ultimately about surfacing end grain wood with a power planer. The project begins with a blank being made from Ash, and the final project is a CNC engraved baseball game that uses dice to move players around the board in a “baseball game”. The blank is planed on the faces to
Using a power planer on end grain surfaces – successfully Read More »
