Michelle (10) and Emily (8) Campbell invited me into their father's wood shop where they had prepared a series of demonstrations to illustrate basic safety precautions for kids working with wood.They walked us through the differences in various types of eye protection, insisted on providing heari...
In our studio workshop someone had built a large assembly table, that was missing a lot of little things to make it a good workbench. So I set about making some essential modifications, that could help in your own workshop.First, the sides were vertical 2x6's. This made it almost impossible to ...
If your good kitchen table is the only work table that you have in the house, how can you protect it and still do craft work or even light renovation?You can purchase from stationary stores or art stores special rubber-like green mats specifically made for cutting paper. You actually cut into th...
When you are just getting started in any particular field, be it woodworking, mechanics, electrical or just general home improvements, I recommend locating an inexpensive tool kit that has just about all the little tools you think you will ever use. Of course none of them are really good quality...
One of the great power tools for kids to work with are the rotary tools, like Wizard or Dremel. You can get vices that will hold the motor fixed, allowing you to either bring the project to the tool, or attach a flexible shaft. The flexible shaft is even easier for a kid to handle than the tool...
Sandpaper is expensive and there is a lot of it to choose from, so you want to get the paper that will do whatever sanding job you want to do most efficiently. Whether you are working by hand or with some kind of a power tool, the right sandpaper is more important than the tool itself.Look o...
You often see my beautiful workbench on the show.It is a Veritas bench with some very special features, like a double drive end vice. What makes workbenches work so well is to have holes in them to receive "dogs". Some of these holes are even in the top of the vise, so that you can move those d...
There are no hard and fixed rules, although there are some generally accepted standards. Actually, a lot depends on how tall you are and what kind of work you are doing.
If you are doing small detailed work you may want a "counter" at about 40 inches off the floor.
A standard woodworking workbe...
Woodworking requires glue and a good glue joint is one that has just the right quantity of glue spread evenly over the entire surface being glued. When you run the glue bottle down the edge of a board and simply push up another board, the glue tends to spread out as in the first photo, where I am...
Miter Saw stands are generally categorized into 4 types of support systems for miter saws:
1) Rail systems that look much like saw horses;
2) fixed or portable tables with the saw bolted into place;
3) hybrids of rails and tables and finally
4) part kits that assemble around a large 2x wood c...
