Making Spalted Wood in The Workshop

Read Time: 9 mins

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Making your own spalted wood is one of the things that woodworkers can do with their own wood in their own woodworking shop to make highly attractive wood, and sometimes even salvage some pieces of wood that are otherwise unusable. For those who are not sure what "spalted wood" actually is, it is the slow breakdown of wood caused by fungi, that will eventually cause the tree or wood to rot completely into the ground.

Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/WvCwX6DRyUk

Spalting is the first step and if we get the wood and dry it before the spalting makes the wood too weak, we can often end up with some beautiful wood that can consist of different colors and often outlined by a series of lines. Depending on how much work you put into the process of spalting your own wood, the success can vary widely.

Terrible Tools - Colin's Most Hated Workshop Tools! 👎

Read Time: 10 mins

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I am not going to focus on "terrible tools" in this article, instead, I want this to be positive so we can all learn how to select better tools and some of the things to look for. Not all "new advancements" in tools and tool designs are good ones. Sometimes old reliable tools are better, but how do we know that unless we are able to compare them and understand what makes a good tool or a poor tool

Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/FfpWxPBxFI8

Obviously, if a tool does not do its intended job it's poor but some do a half job. Are these poor tools or not?  That really depends on many things, sometimes it's user error and I am certainly guilty of that sometimes, there is just so much to know, and not all things are transferable from one tool to another.

Subscriber Tips #19

Read Time: 6 mins

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A few more tips from subscribers in this episode and a couple of ideas that some of may want to a small investment or create your own alternatives for and make yourselves, either way, they will save you time and money in the future and maybe even make your woodworking life even that much more enjoyable :)

Lets start of with one of Doug's suggestions, and what Doug found on Amazon is a little sanding block device that was created to accomodate the 5 inch pads we normally use in random orbital sanders. 

Multi-Use Wood Router Base Plate

Read Time: 8 mins

Hits: 5380

The router was a revolutionary invention in its day, and still does the job that most other tools cannot do even today. When we start adding an assortment of jigs and router tables to routers we make them even more versatile, and that's what this build and this jig is about, using a router to a greater potential.

Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/yZielQL1ed8

A short time ago I made an experimental box based on a design I had rolling around in my head for a long time and finally got around to testing it and I was thrilled with the results ...