Published on 7 Jun 2014
http://HomegrownFurniture.com Create your own woodworking shop from scratch. In part one of this video series, woodworker Jim Thompson helps you build your very first woodworking workshop. Jim includes buying tips, craigslist tactics and tool recommendations for a new woodworker on a budget.
July 13, 2017
Setting-up Your First Woodworking Shop Pt. 1
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June 27, 2017
What Can You Do With a Jigsaw? A Lot! | WOODWORKING BASICS
Published on 21 Oct 2016
A lot of people think that they need a lot of big, expensive stationary tools for woodworking. If you don’t have a lot of space or money, a jigsaw is an amazing tool that can make almost all the cuts you need. Full article► http://bit.ly/JigsawBasics
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May 11, 2017
Pocket holes vs. mortise and tenon joints
Published on 24 Feb 2015
Before commenting about glue, please see the followup: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMi6W2cvw7g
More about these tests here:
http://woodgears.ca/joint_strength/pockethole.html
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April 6, 2017
How to Turn Pulls Without a Lathe
Published on 11 Jun 2014
Learn how to create custom door and drawer pulls using your drill press.
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March 8, 2012
Woolley: We need power tools (and cars) for girls
Over at the Worthwhile Canadian Initiative blog, Frances Woolley marks International Women’s Day:
Goods are becoming ever more specialized. Everything from baby diapers to multivitamins is now dispensed in gender- and age-appropriate models. Yes, it makes sense to have his and hers jeans. But gender appropriate soft-drinks? Does the average guy’s masculinity really need to be bolstered by buying Coke Zero instead of Diet Coke?
The profitability of his and hers products is partly due to price discrimination. The local hair salon charges women more than men because women are prepared to pay $50 or $60 to get their hair cut. Men asked to pay that price would just walk across the road to the barber shop that charges $15 for a short back-and-sides.
[. . .]
Second, gender differentiated power tools. I have small hands. My palm sander doesn’t fit into my palm — it’s more like a two-handed sander. I’d love to get a new drill, but most have such a large grip that I can barely hold them. It’s not just a gender issue — men’s hands come in all sorts of different sizes, too. How can women be expected to share equally in home repair duties when every power tool is the wrong size for their hands?
Finally, I’d like to see more cars built with features that appeal to women. I’ve heard — but I don’t know if this is true — that as soon as a particular model of car is perceived as being “girly,” men won’t buy it. Since men still constitute the majority of car buyers, sales collapse. I’ve heard this offered as an explanation of the lack of cars like the Smart car — two person vehicles that use hardly any gas, and are easy to drive and park on city streets. Smart cars are just too cute, and cute=girly, and girly is the automotive kiss of death. But what is the cost of this pursuit of masculinity?
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September 10, 2010
More on that list of tools you don’t need
Jon, my former virtual landlord, wanted to respond to this post:
Your post — here — is amusing. I am guessing, though, that you and Sippican Cottage just don’t do certain things around the house. Taking SC’s easy ones . . .
Sledgehammer — I use mine to set stakes around trees and shrubs.
Center Punch — You don’t need the one shown in the Pop Crap article (which has a shank similar to that of a cold chisel, which makes me think the one they show there is for masonry work), but a centre punch is helpful for drilling. I punch the centres of all my drilled holes, even those that I’m doing on the drill press. I also use a centre punch when mounting hardware, such as hinges, to wood.
Combination wrench — I guess you guys don’t do any plumbing, or anything with bolts that go completely through an object. You can’t reach everything with a socket — a socket will not undo the nut on a toilet’s feed pipe (unless, of couse, you break away the toilet’s tank so that you can get to the nut from the top). And you sometimes need to hold the bolt head in place while you crank on the nut with a socket. I have a good set of combination wrenches and use them a lot on our bikes and playground equipment. I also have a cheap set that came with my socket set that’s convenient to have with the sockets, but I don’t think they will stand up to prolonged use. The socket set itself is an interesting item that would make Sippican Cottage laugh out loud: it’s a 300-some-odd-piece set with 1/4″, 3/8″, and 1/2″ drives and sockets. I see the need for 1/4″ and 3/8″ and use both frequently. If I ever need to install industrial-grade light standards or build a highway overpass, I guess the 1/2″ set will come in handy.
But hey — it was on sale!
Jigsaw — Depends on what you are doing. I use mine to rough out stuff that I am going to finish with a template on the router table. If I had a bandsaw, I’d use that instead. I did not have $700 to drop on a bandsaw, so I bought this $50 item instead.
Tin Snips — you need these if you do home repairs involving metal. I’ve used mine to repair or replace exhaust vents, install anti-bird mesh in said vents, replace the clothes dryer exhaust tubing, and to do repairs to aluminum downspouts. I’ve also used them to open those freakin’ polycarbonate clamshell packages that all electronics and toys seem to come in. They are the only way I can get into those things without slicing up my hands on the packaging.
Machinist Vise — this is the only vise I have at the moment. A real woodworker may not need one of these, but I have found mine to be handy.
I wonder how many bench planes Sippican Cottage has . . .
Humph.
As Gerard Vanderleun points out in the comments to the original Sippican Cottage post, “I love this fisking more than I love the dream of an Obama recall. It gets worse since Yahoo evidently chopped this down from the original 50 by Logan. That’s a schmo at the beginning and a know-nothing Yahoo intern chopping at the end. De-licious.
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September 7, 2010
A “terrific, haphazard mess of twenty arbitrary thingamabobs”
I’m not much of a woodworker, so I don’t quite have the necessary gravitas to manage a proper takedown like SippicanCottage:
It’s a shameful pleasure of mine, I admit it. I love to read lists of tools randomly drawn from a Home Depot flyer, written by people that can’t write, aimed at people that don’t make anything but reservations. Popular Mechanics doesn’t disappoint with their: Tools Everyone Should Own. It’s a terrific, haphazard mess of twenty arbitrary thingamabobs, written in the breathless prose usually reserved for paperbacks with pictures of Fabio on their cover and the tears of countless overweight data entry clerks dappling the pages.
OK, first, let’s take care of the easy stuff:
- Sledgehammer – You don’t need that
- Center Punch – You don’t need that
- Combination wrench – Singular? Never mind. The item just before it is a socket wrench set. You don’t need both. And they put an adjustable wrench on the list, too. How many nuts you got, Willis? Are they all loose?
- Jigsaw – You don’t need that. And Jig Saw is two words.
- Tin Snips -You don’t need those
- Machinist Vise – You don’t need one of those
Down to fourteen.
Hmmm. What about a slightly more serious look at the PM list? Here’s my barely informed views on the suggestions:
- Sledgehammer. I’ve got one. I bought it for one specific job. I’ve only ever used it for that one job. Should have borrowed one from the neighbours.
- Center Punch. I’ve got one. Inherited it from my late father-in-law’s toolkit. Never used it.
- Putty Knife. I’ve got a few. Used occasionally for filling voids in plywood.
- Safety Glasses. SC is right: this isn’t a tool, but you should definitely use them whenever you’re waving powertools around.
- Adjustable Wrench. Got a few, mostly inherited. Occasionally used, but I could get by with fewer.
- Pipe Wrench. Got one, also inherited. Never used it.
- Socket Wrench Set. I have both metric and Imperial flavours. Used fairly frequently (far more than I thought when I first bought a cheap set at Canadian Tire). SC is right that if you’ve got a socket set, you should have few uses for adjustable wrenches.
- Combination Wrench. I have several, unmatched, in various states of rust/paint/corrosion. All inherited, and rarely used.
- Jigsaw. One of the first power tools I bought. Rarely used once I bought a table saw.
- Crosscut Saw. Once I used a Japanese saw, I scrapped all my “traditional” western saws. Cutting on the pull stroke allows a much thinner blade, and better control in use.
- Snips. I have some general purpose snips. They’re just oversized scissors, and not used very often in my shop. Probably more useful if you do metalwork.
- Needle-Nose Pliers. Yeah, okay, you probably need these.
- Power Drill. Yes, you need this one too. Don’t go for the biggest and best: at heart, these are simple tools and you don’t need too many “features”. Variable speed and a “pilot light” are probably all 98% ever use in the way of extras. More battery power also means more weight: unless you want the exercise, don’t go bigger than you can comfortably lift and hold without wobble or shake.
- Drill Bits. I don’t know why they listed this separately: what good is your power drill without drill bits?
- Circular Saw. I’ve got one, and use it for breaking down plywood panels pretty much exclusively (I can’t get full 4’x8′ panels down the basement stairs). If you have a table saw, you won’t use your circular saw as often.
- Measuring Tape. Yes, you need one. Get a good one. A metal case is probably better for general use, because it’s one tool that everyone seems to drop off the workbench every now and again.
- Hammer. Yes, you need one, but you won’t use it as often as you expect.
- Machinist Vise. No, you don’t need one, unless you’re doing metal work. I have one — bought on sale several years ago — it’s still in its original packaging.
- Multibit Screwdriver. Yes. Get a good one, if you can: you’ll use it a lot.
- Extension Cord. Once again, not really a tool, but do get a heavy duty cord for running your power tool away from the outlet: don’t use cheap household extension cords for this.
H/T to American Digest for the link.
