Make Your Own Router Table - 4 Part Series (2)
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There was a time when every woodworker made all their own tools, or maybe you had a blacksmith help you with some of the metal parts ... roll forward about 5,000 years and woodworkers are still making their own tools, and this video is part of that.
I have talked about routers in the past, and that most woodworkers find that move than 805 of the wood router work they do involves a router table ... yet there are still tons of people with routers and no table. So, in this article and videos we will be building a very good quality wood router table that will serve most woodworkers well for decades of use ... and it's inexpensive to build.
*** UPDATE *** .... Popular Woodworking has asked Colin to be their Coach for their latest On-Line Course "Router Fundamentals" .... for more info ... this course is has now ended.
Part one - The Stand
Yes, we need something to put our router top on so why no build our own sturdy stand. Our stand will have 4 legs (obviously) and all four legs will have a five degree - 2 angle. The reason I like this stand is it is very sturdy and stable. Unlike some square type stands, the ones with angled legs are very hard to push over making them ideal for router bases. If you want, you could make the deluxe stand like the one Norm Abrams designed, or which plans are available on the Internet, but we want to make a stand that could be weekend project in having your router table build and working in a weekend.
Part 1 Making the Stand
Part 2 Making the Top
Part 3 Adding some Accessories
Part 4 - Using our Shop Made Router Table
To start off .... Our stand is constructed of construction grade lumber (hand picked) from the local lumber store. We picked up a quantity of 2 - 2" x 3" x 8ft boards, and 3 - 4" x 3/4" x 8ft boards.
The 2x3s would be for the legs, the 1x4s for the bracing and skirting ...
Building a Bathroom Vanity
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There is a lot of wooden furniture and other wooden objects that were designed hundreds of years ago that just do no have much functionality in today's world. This doesn't mean they aren't attractive, just that the uses for them have passed. For example, candle boxes, these are smaller wooden boxes used to hold a small supply of candles. Most homes don't need a small warehouse of candles so a box to hold them is not much use.
This is partially true with many things, and even this antique designed bathroom vanity. Some people could have a problem finding a place for it in their home. 100 years ago, most homes had one. I had a large bowl on top and often some sort of a pitcher with water and was a place to go and wash your hands. Now we do that in a sink with hot and cold running water. Still, I love the designs of these old wash stands and have been wanting to make one for years. I really am not sure what you I will be able to put it to, but we will see if we can fit it into modern living in our home.
The challenge with this build was to make the entire cabinet, and doors using only my doweling jig so that we could compare the differences with the build we made entirely from a pocket hole jig a few weeks earlier.
The design of this cabinet is such that it could be used for a multitude of things including plants on to and storage inside, it could be used as a small library cabinet. I could be re-purposed as a very trendy looking bathroom vanity or it could even be uses as bedroom storage and decor.
Part 2 of this build is making the doors, and to keep to the theme of this build, we needed to make them using our dowelmax jig, just as we made our past video using only pocket hole technology.
As a rule, when making doors, I prefer to make them using the router and router table, it's quick and easy, and just something I have become accustomed to doing. I found making the doors using the doweling jig worked well and for anyone who does not have a router table and the associated door bits, using a doweling jig is a great alternative.
Tips for Buying Lumber
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Normally I would publish an article that relates to the video posted here that would include details not covered in the video. This time we are only going to publish a link to an excellent article that is posted on the West Wind Hardwood website entitled The Art of Buying Lumber by Dick Burrows.
It is far more detailed and extensive than what I can publish and is a great resource for people who want to get the best value and products from their wood purchases. Click HERE for that link, it will open in a new window, and don't forget, they do Ship Wood so if you are looking for something special to highlight a project or add some special detailed woods, send them a request for quote on some wood delivered to your door ...
As more information or links come along that relate to this topic, we will publish them also. Until then, our thanks again to West Wind Hardwood for giving us their time and expertise to help all of our viewers become more knowledgeable in their lumber purchases.
Make a Keurig Coffee Pod Holder
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Coffee, Coffee, Coffee ... I don't drink a lot of it, but I love to have a couple of cups every day that I can really savor. In recent years specialized coffee machines have brought the convenience of coffee varieties and single cup servings to home market, and I must admit, I was one of the first buyers of them.
One of the problems with coffee pods, especially if you like to have a few different varieties around, or if you purchase them in bulk ... they can take up a lot of space on the counter, especially if you store them in the little boxes they come in.
I have tried many different ways of storing these coffee pods, I have used the little boxes they come in and tried to stack them, but they always fall down when you try to use them ... I tried making little wooden boxes, and they looked great, but they still didn't stack well. Then there are a variety of self feeding holders where you pull a pod out of the bottom the the others stacked on top cascade downward. These work fine but if you want a particular flavor you still have to go digging for it.
Then one day I spotted a little rack that stands vertically, held around 35 - 40 coffee pods and displayed each one so you could choose a flavor. I could make one of those !!! and so I did.
I must admit that I worked on a few different designs and even tried making the holes at an angle so the pods would sit in them and not fall out ... but in the end I discovered that the simplest design was the most effective ... so here's how I made it ...
Wine Carrier / Wine Rack
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Getting free lumber isn't always as free as we might think, especially pallet wood. Wood from pallets is often pretty nasty stuff. It's often been kicked, dragged, smashed and driven over before we get it. It's almost always embedded with tiny rocks and gravel, hardened nails or screws and who knows what else. All of these unwanted elements go a long way to dulling, damaging or even ruining jointer and planer knives and even saw blades. Still, it's fun to get, but even more rewarding is getting lumber that already has some character to it. All this means is that you need to treat pallet wood differently than you do virgin wood from the lumber store. The fact that it does have all these embedded nasty elements is the reason we use it.
I have found the best tool to use for pallet wood is either a circular saw, or a table saw with a circular saw blade installed. Circular saw blades are much less expensive than 10” table saw blades. If you are going to use a jointer or planer, sanding the wood first, or brushing it off with a wire brush, then using one of the hand metal detectors to check for metal is a must. Of course the problem with doing this is that you are often destroying the patina of the wood, but ... we do what we need to.
The purpose of this project is to make a decorative wine carrier, that can also double as a wine rack. We decided to use some “character” pallet wood. There is no reason that wood from the lumber store or other sources cannot be used, the only real requirement for the sizes we made is that it be 3/4 inch stock material. Before we give out some dimensions, it's important to note that there is no standard in wine bottle sizes of shapes. The bottles we selected were of similar size and shape so that they would interchange with one another.
Natural Edge Wooden Serving Platter
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This was supposed <supposed !> to be a quick, easy project. I had no idea going into this project it would take as long as it did, and be as complicated as it was. After all, it's only a simple wooden serving platter.
It started off easy, I had a piece of wood with natural edges that had been sitting around in my wood storage room for several years because I didn't know what to do with it. I started off by selecting a section of it that would be perfect for the platter ... even sawed it off with a hand saw to be safe.
Next I planed the thickness of the board to around 3/4 inch, just thin enough it was easy to handle but still showed off enough of the natural edge to make it look great.
Now, unbeknown to me, the hard part started. How to you prepare the edges of this board without destroying it's natural look. It was quite craggy and rough and needed to be smoothed down but still retain the natural edge look. I decided to start off with a tiny wire brush on my rotary tool. To my delight it worked great ...
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