5 Essential Wood Router Bits

Read Time: 5 mins

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I wonder if the person who invented the first working wood router, really knew what kind of a versatile tool he was opening up the world to? There have been so many different add-ons, attachments, jigs and bits, not to mention the variety of routers, their features and how they work, the whole thing can be quite daunting for newcomers to woodworking. What's nice about wood routers is you can make things as simple or as complicated as you want to get but everything still comes back to basics which includes the most used router bits.

My first router was single speed, half horsepower with a fixed base and took only 1/4" router bits. I still have some of those bit and they were very rudimentary but even then I thought this was an amazing tool and the reason I purchased it was because I could use a round over bit in it and save myself some time while making a better job ... 

Trim Router / Palm Router Design Base Jig

Read Time: 6 mins

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Thanks to one of my subscribers Fred, who sent me a picture of what this jig looks like, I thought it was a neat idea so decided to make one for myself. Like many things in woodworking there are often many ways to accomplish the same thing and I have made designs in doors like this in the past and there are pros and cons to each method but this looked like a fun little project  ... so here goes ...

The first thing I decided to do was to make it out of clear plastic. This base needs to be very accurate in order to go around the whole inside of the frame and still end up in the same place for the cuts and that is another reason I preferred plastic. Hardboard would work fine and be easier to work with but plastic is a bit sturdier for a job like this ...

Mini Wooden Bench - Woodworking For Beginners #33

Read Time: 7 mins

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Honing existing skills or learning and practicing new skills is will get this small sitting bench build in no time. For woodworkers new and wanting to learn how to build things and end up with a nice function piece of furniture, this is a perfect project. For the more skilled woodworkers, this is also a great project because they add their own features to it and make it even better and also end up with a great new piece of furniture that will appeal to all members of the family.

The version I made is from pine, and although pine is a soft wood to work with, the fact that it is glued in many places means it will last for generations without losing it rigidity that you would get with nails of screws. The nice thing with pine is that it's a beautiful wood to look at, to work with and can be finished in many different ways for clear coats to paint ...

Testing Wood Glues - Titebond Vs. Bondrite Adhesives

Read Time: 4 mins

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There are new products coming on the market at a rapid pace and trying to keep up with them can be a chore. Recently I found a new kind of glue that one of my suppliers spoke quite highly of. I haven't tried any new glues for a long time so I decided this might be a good idea to see if maybe it's time for me to switch glues. I thought the best way of seeing if the glue lived up to the recommendation or not would be to compare it with what I am using now,  What really caught my attention was the label on the bottle that said "Accepts Stain" and "Fast Setting".  

I wasn't looking to see which glue was better than the other, but more than I already have been using Titebond Original glue for many, many years so I know what it does and it would be a good glue to use as a comparison to this new glue. I found pricing to be very similar so that was a good start ...