The high tech laser lights first came into common use as pointers. School teachers use them to shine a dot or an arrow on a distant wall.Electronic tape measurers use them to indicate what surface you are measuring to.Infra Red thermometers use them to indicate what surface is being measured.Hun...
No matter what you want to do with a router, you need some way to control and guide it. This is true even with free hand lettering. Notice in the first picture how I anchor my hands down to the wood so that either one of them is almost stationary while the other moves, or both are dragging alon...
So you have taken out a wall where there were hardwood floors on either side. You know you have to fill the gap with something, but what?The first realisation is that even if both sides are floored with the same wood installed at the same time, the boards on one side will never line up with the ...
What a mess whenever you have to drill either small or large holes in the ceiling.A nifty trick is to take a fairly flexible and transparent food container, put you bit right through the bottom and into the drill.Hold the container low to sight your entry point, then slide it up tight to the ceil...
Twist drill bits are actually fairly complicated cutting devices. First there is the cutting angle. Although most bits you buy at the hardware store all have the same cutting angle, specialized bits will have a steeper cutting angle for soft material like wood than for hard material like metal....
You know how I like to show you new and innovative tools. Here is a really new one, a hoseless pneumatic finishing nailer! No I am not talking about the fuel cell driven nailers, this one really runs on air.Now how can you have an air driven pneumatic nailer without a hose and compressor? Well...
Broken your last small drill bit and you need a pilot or clearance hole in wood?John from Bancroft, Ontario suggests simply taking a nail of the right size and poping it into your drill chuck. You will find that most chucks will permit the head of the nail to settle behind the jaws, allowing a g...
Although sliding mitre saws have largely replaced the Radial Arm Saw in many wood working shops, and few people ever even use the radial arm saw for precision work even if they have one, the Radial Arm Saw can do everything that a table saw can do, with even more precision.The primary advantage o...
OK. Porter Cable blew me away again with a new reciprocating saw that will be available in the Spring of 2002.The first photo shows a regular reciprocating saw cutting right through four nails, which is why we call it the demolition saw.The second photo shows a cordless recrip saw, which I am no...
Mitre Bevel saws are designed to make the compound mitre/bevel cuts necessary for crown molding. But they are really not simple to use. For details for the cuts and the angles see "Cutting crown moldings with a mitre saw".One of the complications in making the cuts is that the bevel on standard...
