I have come across an interesting corner bar clamp.  On the head end it has two clamp points angled 45 degrees from the main bar.  The clamp can be used as a regular bar clamp.  It can also be used to clamp both corner pieces together at one time.  When you need to clamp both pieces of a 45 degree miter joint together, this clamp, because of its head design will grip both pieces at the same time!

I don’t know where my father-in-law found these clamps.  I will post the manufacture’s name and a link to the manufacture’s product page in a future post.

Merry Christmas!  Here is a great gift for your weekend wood worker, free plans for all kinds of projects around the house and yard. 

I just came across a really good resource for woodworking plans.  They have a wide selection of project plans from bed room, furniture, to yard art.  And the price is just right, free!  Most of the plans are from woodworking journals such as fine woodworking, weekend woodcrafts, and others.  The site as several hundred plans!

Most all of the plans contain materials list, tools required, and cut lists.  Some of the plans include pictures of various assembly steps to help understand what they are attempting to describe in the plan’s text.  Most all of the plans are Adobe PDF files.  Some of the plans are embedded in the html of the page.  Kind of a pain, but you can easily save the web page to disk.  Another option for dealing with these html embedded plans, is to copy and paste it into your favorite word processor.  From within there you can edit out the images and stuff that does not apply to the plan.

What are some of the plans that you are interested in building?  Feel free to leave a comment!

I just came across an interesting article interviewing a soldier from the 101st airborn. In the forward operating base, he fashions various wooden objects from the scrap / discarded wood he finds on the base.  His specialities are small boxes, jewelry boxes, coin boxes, cabinets and gun racks.
He also over sees the base’s wood working shop. He helps and guides the soldiers in how to use the tools and gives them adivse on how to complete their projects.

Check out the soldier’s woodworking in Iraq.

This is the fourth post in a series of table saw alignment articles.

Here we will talk about aligning the sliding miter table.  The sliding miter table is an interesting twist on the standard miter gauge.  It offers a larger working area to hold the material being run through the saw.

Because of its design it there are two things that need to be checked for alignment the height of the sliding miter table relative to the main table saw and run parallel to the saw blade, within 0.004”.

What are we trying to accomplish?

1. The sliding miter table will be parallel to the table saw blade.
2. The sliding miter table will be even or slightly higher than the top of the main table.

What is the effect when the sliding miter table is out of alignment?
If it is not parallel, the cross cuts will not be square.  If the sliding miter table is below the main table the stock may catch on the main table and result in a dangerous situation.  If the sliding miter table is too high, it can lead to chipping and tear out on the bottom of the stock, or worse, the stock jambs the saw blade and becomes a dangerous situation.

Alignment process
 

Safety First
Unplug the table saw.

Adjust the side free play
The sliding miter table uses a set of plastic guides to control the free play and the friction of the table.  Loosen the lock nut on the top of the table.  Adjust the cam until there is as little free play as possible.  If the guides are too tight the table will not slide.  Once the free play has been adjusted, tighten the lock nut.

Over time these guides will wear down and will need to be replaced.

Adjusting the height of the sliding miter table
The sliding miter table’s height is controlled by the four clamps.  On each clamp are two set screws that control the height of the table and the table angle relative to the main table.  The height can be check with a straight edge and a feeler gauge. Adjust the set screws on he clamps as needed.

Adjusting direction of travel
A simple jig will be used to measure the alignment.  The jig consists of a scrap piece of wood and a screw threaded into the end of it.  Slide the jig and screw head over to the table saw blade until it barely touches the marked saw blade tooth.  Clamp the jig to the sliding miter table or to the cross cut bar. This is the ‘zero’ or reference point.

Turn the table saw marked tooth towards the back of the table saw and slide the miter table until the screw touches the marked tooth. 

If the screw head barely touches the marked saw tooth, the sliding miter table is parallel to the table saw blade!

If there is a gap between the screw head and the marked saw blade tooth, the sliding miter table is angled away from the saw blade.  Measure the distance with a feeler gauge.  Any gap greater than 0.004” needs to be adjusted to bring the sliding miter table into alignment.

If the screw head protrudes the saw blade, the sliding miter table is angled into the saw blade.

To adjust the sliding miter table’s alignment:

1. Unlock the sliding miter table’s clamp levers.
2. Loosen the infeed side clamp plate screws.
3. Adjust one of the screws.
4. Retighten the clamp plate screws.
5. Lock the sliding miter table’s clamp levers.
6. Recheck the alignment to the saw blade.

If you can’t get the sliding miter table to be in exact alignment, then it is better to have the table be slightly angled away from the saw blade to prevent kick back.

Once the sliding miter table has been aligned it should keep its alignment until the rip fence rails are moved.

This is the third post in a series of table saw alignment articles.

Verify and align the rip fence.

What are we trying to accomplish?
Straight rip fence

1. The rip fence to be parallel to the rip fence.
2. The face of the rip fence to be perpendicular to the main table.

What is the effect when the rip fence is out of alignment?
If the fence is slightly out of alignment one side of the cut wood will have slightly more saw marks than the other.  One side of the wood will have a slight cove cut to it.  On a piece of 3/4” thick stock it will be difficult to see the effects.

When the fence is more out of alignment, the saw blade cuts will be more pronounced on one side of the cut and the cove will become more obvious.  If the riving knife is installed it may begin to effect the cut and either pull the board away from the back of the rip fence or push it into the back of the rip fence.  Boards will not be cut straight; this will be especially obvious on longer boards.

If the fence is really out of alignment, there is a significant risk of kick back.  The riving fence will help prevent it.  Also there is a greater risk of jamming the saw blade and damaging the drive belt.

Alignment process
 

Safety First
Unplug the table saw.

Rip fence straightness
Check the rip fence for straightness.  Using a straight edge check the straightness of the fence.  There should be no gap greater than 0.002”.  If it is not, replace it.  Even after aligning the fence to the saw blade the cuts will be messed up because of the bow in the fence.  Potential sources for a replacement fence are: local classified ads, craigs list, Ryobi, and eBay.

Aligning the rip fence
Unfortunately the rip fence’s alignment mechanism is quite crude.  To adjust the alignment, unlock the rip fence, and then loosen the two screws on the top of the rip fence.

A simple home made jig is required to set the alignment.  The jig consists of a scrap block of wood with a screw threaded into it.

Raise the saw blade up almost to the top.  Mark one of the teeth of the saw blade with chalk.  This saw tooth will be the reference tooth.  Position the jig and rip fence so that the screw is almost touching the saw blade.  Adjust the screw so that it barely touches the saw blade.  This is the reference point or ‘zero point’.

Rotate the reference saw tooth to the back side of the table.  Position the jig against the rip fence and slide it toward you until the screw is next to the marked saw tooth.  If the screw head barely touches the saw blade the rip fence is in alignment.  If the screw head protrudes past the saw blade then the rip fence is angled toward the saw blade.  If there is space between the screw head and the saw tooth, then the fence is angled away from the saw blade.

In either case, adjust the rip fence adjustment screws until the fence is parallel on the front and back sides of the saw blade.  For the angled away case, use a feeler guage to measure the distance of the gap.  If the distance is less than 0.004”, leave the alignment alone.

Once the rip fence has been aligned it should stay aligned during normal usage.  Whenever the rip fence rails are repositioned, check the alignment of the rip fence rails and the rip fence.

This is the second post in a series of table saw alignment articles.

The Ryobi table saw rip fence rails are rather unique in that they are designed to be moved quite easily.  The problem is that most likely when they are moved any fine tuning alignment that was done is lost.  Most likely they will be out of alignment once they have been repositioned.  My recommendation is set the rails where you want them, align them, and then never move them again.

Rip fence rail alignment is crucial to the overall alignment of the table saw.  The rip fence and the sliding miter table depend on the rip fence rails to be properly aligned.

What are we trying to accomplish?

1. The rails are a uniform depth below the table saw top.
2. The rails are parallel to each other.
3. The rails are level with each other.

When they are out of alignment, what effect does it have?
The sliding miter table should be 90 degrees to the table saw blade.  When the rails are out of alignment, the sliding miter table’s angle to the table saw blade will be either greater then 90 degrees, or less than 90 degrees.  Either way, when using the sliding miter table the cuts will not be square.

The rip fence will also not be at a 90 degree angle to the table saw base.  The result will be stock that is ripped to an angle other than 90 degrees.

Alignment process 

Parallel rails
The rails are attached to the table via milled bosses.  The rails should be parallel to each other, if normal care was taken when the unit was assembled.  Use a ruler or tape measure to measure the distance between the rails at several points, far left, middle, and far right.  If the rails are not parallel, it will require shimming the rail to get them parallel.  It is better to shim the rear rail.

Uniform depth below the table top
The challenge here is that the main table top is very narrow.  It does not provide a very large surface to measure against when checking the depth of the rails.  To increase ‘size of the table top, clamp a straight edge to the main table.  This will provide a longer span to measure the depth of the rails.

If you have the extension rail kit, bolt it onto the main rails.  Then perform the depth alignment.  If one of the rails it too low or high, loosen the mounting bolts on the table saw and the extension leg.  Adjust the rail’s height from the extension leg adjustment screw.

This is the first in a series of posts that will cover several areas of the table saw that need to be aligned.  They are: Rip fence rails, rip fence, sliding miter table, crosscut fence.

Both table saws share many components and the BT3100 is an incremental version of the BT3000.  These alignment procedures will work on both versions of the Ryobi table saw. These are not the only ways to align your table saw; however, they are accepted as ‘best practices’ for aligning the table saw.

Some background terminology is needed.  There are to general types of tests static, and dynamic.  Static tests are performed when the table saw is powered down.  Dynamic tests are performed when the saw is running in ‘normal usage mode’.  When the saw is being used various forces are being applied to the saw blade, rip fence, sliding miter table and the crosscut fence.  These forces will change the results slightly from the static results.  For safety’s sake, dynamic tests will only be performed when needed while keeping the operator safe!

The final thing is, knowing when to stop.  Eventually you will reach a point where the table saw is in as good of an alignment that it can be.  Bear in mind that most of the measurements will be in thousands of an inch.  When working with measurements this small slight force changes, such as the pressure of the stock against the rip fence at the front verses the back, will change the results slightly.

ryobi table saw
table saw alignment
woodworking tools

Clamps are one of the few unpowered tools that you need lots of.  You can really never have enough of them.  In one of The New Yankee Workshop Norm Abram build a clamp cart.  It looks like it holds most of his clamps.

Clamps give you the ability to have ‘extra hands’ without the challenges of finding or prying them away from their friends.  Clamps have some advantages over human helpers, first they don’t complain or fuss, second they typically provide more compressive force than what humans can and they don’t jiggle the piece.

The list below is my recommendation of the type of clamps that a beginning woodworker should consider acquiring.  Granted, you don’t have to go out and purchase all of them at once.  Although, if your tool budget can handle it…

Shop around for your clamps, there are some good deals available on line as well as locally.

• A variety of ‘C’ clamps, skip on buying the small ones.  The smallest I have is 4” and up.
• One pair QuickGrip style clamps similar to the Irwin Quick Grip clamp.  These are so much better than the old style screw bar clamp.
• At least one pair of pipe clamps.  The pipe can be any length you want it to be.  I recommend starting out with 4’ pipes.  After a while you can determine what other lengths you need.
• Vice Grip© “C” Clamps
• A pair of web or band clamps.  They are constructed of a nylon mess straps with a ratcheting tightening device.  They are great for clamping together odd sized and faced projects.  Try using a pipe or bar clamp to hold together an octagonal picture frame!
• Corner clamps.  They are great for holding together all sorts of 90 degree joints.  I have used to hold picture frames together to cabinet carcasses.
• A collection of large spring clamps

woodworking clamps
woodworking shop clamps clamps

Does your table saw blade leave ‘chatter’ or vibration marks on the stock you are cutting?  Most of the economical table saw blades vibrate while they are spinning.  When ripping stock, this vibration leaves a slightly uneven cut.

An edge joiner is the way to square up and clean up the edges of the wood.  However, not every home wood worker has an edge joiner.

The typical solution to remove the unevenness is to use a sander.  Be it either a quarter inch vibrating sander, random orbital sander, or a belt sander.  Sanders work well, although there is a good chance that the sanded surface will be slightly uneven, due to uneven pressure.

Consider using the bench top planner.  The potential problem here is that the board is being run through the planner on edge so that it could tip over and the planner would destroy the edge.  So, group a set of boards of the same width together and plane them at the same time.  This will prevent the stock from tipping over while being run through the planner.

Note: I have only tried this technique on a group of boards that were two inches wide.  The wider the stock the more boards you will need to run through the planner at the same time.

I am working on a Christmas project where I needed four 2” x 3/4” x 48” legs.  Cut the stock and eight wider at 2 1/8 inches.  Set up the bench top planner to 2 1/16.  Take all four pieces and hold them together as a bundle.  With the table saw cut side facing up towards the planner’s cutter head run the four pieces through, at the same time.  Lower the planner cutter head to 2 inches and run the other side through.

Edge joining
woodworking joining tip

There are several lighting options to light the wood shop, fluorescent, incandescent, or compact fluorescent. Which is the right one for my wood shop? Each light option has its strengths and limitations.

Incandescent light bulbs have been the main stay for lighting just about any space in the home. They are cheap and easy to use. However, they give off a huge amount of heat. A typical 60 watt incandescent light bulb will give off 10% light and 90% heat! So, out of the 60 watts of electricity 54 watts are turned into heat. Hmmm. Do you recall what the heat source for an Easy Bake oven is?

Strip fluorescent lamps are the most common lamps. They come in a variety of lengths from ten inches to eight feet long. The smaller units have an electrical plug where as the longer units are designed to be hard wired. Fluorescent light bulbs’ light is, depending on your visual taste, a harsh white light. My wife’s parents do not light tube fluorescent lighting for this reason. However, I have come across replacement fluorescent light bulbs that give off a more natural colored light.

Another draw back of the fluorescent lighting is cold temperatures. When the air temperature drops to the 40’s or lower, the lights need time to warm up. When they are first turned on they flicker and give off an annoyingly loud hum. After several minutes the flickering stops and the hum subsides.

Compact fluorescent light bulbs are becoming more affordable and accepted by the home owner. The early models took a while to ‘warm up’ before they reached their full illumination. It is a pain when you turn on the light switch and the light comes on at a very dim level and it slowly over a minute or two comes up to the full brightness. It looks like the compact fluorescent manufactures have been listening to the consumers, now a days, most all of the compact fluorescent light bulbs in my house turn on at nearly full illumination with the flip of the switch.

The nice thing about compact fluorescents is that they are compact enough to replace an incandescent light bulb in a light fixture that was designed to use incandescent light bulbs. Compact fluorescent light bulbs give off very little heat so most all of the electricity is used to produce light instead of heat.

Compact fluorescent light bulbs are more expensive than their incandescent counter parts. The only other negative I have is that depending on how well the compact fluorescent light bulb was manufactured it could literally burn out and burn up. About two months ago my kids where in the living room with a table lamp on that has a 27 watt (equivalent to 100 watt incandescent) compact fluorescent light bulb in it. The table lamp was on and I was outside working in the wood shop. My kids came running out to get me to come inside. When I came inside I saw smoke coming out of the table lamp’s light bulb. After the compact fluorescent light bulb cooled down I inspected it and noticed that the joint between the tube and the base was blackened and some kind of black gooey stuff had oozed out. Fortunately no damage was done, other than the bulb had died.

How do you determine when a compact fluorescent light bulb is at the end of its life? I don’t know. The only other compact fluorescent bulb that burned out just stopped working, without trying to catch fire. If you have any suggestions, leave a comment.

I have read about wood worker’s who use clip on reflector lights with either incandescent or compact fluorescent light bulbs. It works great for low ceilings, such as a basement, where hanging a hardwired fixture are going to get in the way. Another advantage is that the light is right where you need it.

In my wood shop I went with four foot strip fluorescent lamps. I installed two of them. They model I used came with a four foot power cord. When I was wiring up the shed, I installed an electric outlet half way in between the lights. The lights are controlled by a light switch at the door.

When wiring the shed, I added a separate circuit just for the lights. Yeah, it may seem like over kill to put in a 15 amp circuit just for two four foot fluorescent light fixtures, but do you really want to be standing in the dark when you trip the circuit breaker? The cost of installing the additional circuit was… like $10.  My father thought I was foolish for doing so, until I was ripping a long board, the binded the table saw blade and tripped the circuit. If that same circuit also powered the lights I would have been standing in the dark trying to find get back to the circuit panel to reset the breaker. The separate circuit was worth it in my opinion.

My home was built in 1980 and the floor plan called for the air conditioning air return next to the bathroom on the base of the wall.  It makes it easy to change the filter.

 The air conditioner unit is up in the attic over the bathroom and thus inside the wall a box of 30” by 16” running from floor to ceiling.

The bathroom is next to the kid’s bedrooms and it does not contain a linen closet!  I don’t know about you, but I like to keep clean towels in bathroom.  The more I looked at the air return I realized that if I moved the air return into the ceiling I could convert the air return shaft into a small but functional linen closet for the bathroom.

In the attic the challenge is that moving the air return into the ceiling, would put the air return duct work directly in the path that I use in the attic to get to the bulk of my storage space. So part of the challenge in moving the air return is to build a duct work that is strong enough to support my weight.  After some quick calculations it turns out that the air return duct needed to be 7” above the top of the joist.  I framed out a wooden box whose top was finished with two 1/2” sheets of plywood on it.

When my air conditioning guy was servicing my A/C he asked about the air return.  He was surprised that it did not whistle when A/C was running.  I kindly told him that I can do basic calculations to determine the cross section needed.

I removed the sheet rock on the common wall between the bathroom and the future closet.  Then sheet rocked the closet, floated and painted.

I decided to build fixed shelves within the closet.  You could easily have adjustable, but for me fixed shelving met my needs.  The door and face to the closet is a 3/4 sheet of plywood.  The plywood front over laps the opening by 2”.   I cut out of the plywood face two doors, keeping the door frame intact. 

To cut the doors, I set up the table saw’s rip fence for the desire door frame width.  On the plywood door I marked all four corners of the door with light pencil lines.  On the rip fence I drew reference lines perpendicular to the saw table.  Start up the table saw and position the plywood so that the table saw blade will cut through the wood and come up just next to the beginning of the door cut.  What this requires is that you hold the plywood at an angle with one side resting against the table and the fence.  Then slowly lower the plywood down to the table and allow the table saw blade cut through. 

Be careful!  You are working without your blade guard and it is fairly easy for the saw blade to kick the stock out and cause injury.

Nail the plywood door frame against the wall.  I trimmed out the plywood door frame with 3/4” quarter round molding.  The plywood doors I finished out with lap molding.

Hand planes hearken back to the old days before electrically powered tools.  Back in the day of craftsmen who would cut full dove tail joints with a hand saw and chisel.  I recalled reading about apprentice wood workers would be required to build their tool box.  The master woodworkers would judge the apprentice by the quality of the joinery.

So, for the modern weekend woodworker, is it necessary to own let alone learn how to use a hand plane?  Yes, it is a worth while skill.  Hand planes serve a useful purpose in wood working.  How about cutting a 45 degree miter and when you fit the pieces together there is a slight gap on the inside of the joint.  What to do?  With the right hand plan you can carefully plan off the excess material on the miter to make a nice tight fit.

No, I am not talking about new power tools for the shop.  Instead, I am talking about making Christmas gifts for your kids, friends, or family.  In my case, I am working on a design for an art easel for my six year old godson.  His mom is thrilled about the gift!  It will be an interesting race against time to get it done.  In a future post I will post the project design and cut list.

My wife has wrangled me into this project!  She was talking to our godson’s mom and she said that her son is into painting and drawing.  My wife then turns to me and asks how hard it would be to build an easel for him.  My response was that it is not that hard, it is a question of time.  Do I have the enough time to design and build it before Christmas?  I for warned my godson’s mom that it might turn into a new year’s gift.

I just started a shop furniture project.  I am replacing a couple of tables with a fixed wall to wall work bench and a set of shelves that will be mounted either side of the window.  So, now I need to complete this project before I begin the easel!

I am an owner of a ryobi BT-3000 table saw with the factory base. I like the table saw, but I don’t like the base. The base consists of a set of stamped steel that are bolted together. The frame makes the table saw light weight and more portable. However, because of its design the saw is more susceptible to vibration when cutting stock.

Generally what I want to accomplish is to ‘bolt down’ the table saw and frame to the shop floor. The heavy duty commercial cabinet saws are constructed with a lot of mass. The top is typically constructed from cast iron and the base is made from heavy gauge steel. This effectively anchors the saw to the floor and any vibration from the motor, arbor assembly or saw blade does not allow the table saw to vibrate very much. Granted the more expensive contractor and cabinet saws’ trunions and arbor assemblies are better balanced.

Vibration is caused by the motor, arbor assembly, and saw blade being out of balance. Even if one of them is ever so slightly out of balance will produce some amount of vibration. In my opinion the biggest contributor to blade vibration is the saw blade. For my main table saw blade, I have switched from a no name brand carbide blade to a Freud 10” 50 tooth blade.

Ok, back to table saw base vibration. There are a couple of solutions to minimize the saw vibration. A quick solution is to weight down the frame with some sort of ballast. For the Ryobi BT-3000 reinforce the base with two 3/4” pieces of plywood. Then stack on top of the plywood ballast, such as paver stones, concrete blocks, or bags of sand. Paver stones are nice because they allow you to control how much weight you want to stack on the base. The draw back is it can be a lot of pavers to load and unload. Especially if your shop is in the garage and portability is a must. You know, the wife wants to park her car in the garage every night.

Note: Depending on how the table saw frame is designed, you might have to strengthen the base.

Another option is to cast your own concrete slabs. Depending on how much weight you need three or four slabs should be enough. This translates into fewer number of ballast to load and unload when the saw needs to be moved.

A third option is to build your own portable table saw base. When I purchased my Ryobi BT-3000 table saw it came with the extension rails and table. Unfortunately when the extension rails are bolted onto the table saw makes the saw much less portable. The base I am planning to build will have retractable wheels, and will be wide enough to hold the table saw and the extension rails permanently mounted to the base. The under the saw and under the extension rail will be built out with storage cabinets. If I needed I may put additional ballast into the base.

Quick tip: Make sure that all of the fasteners on the frame are tight. If any of them are loose the more vibration you will get. Use lock washers, or lock nuts. I like the nylon lock nuts. If you are not planning on taking the frame apart, consider using locktite or some other thread locking adhesive.