Building a Project Assembly Jig

Read Time: 1 min

Hits: 8177

For most of us who work alone in our workshops, having another set of hands to help hold things would be a pleasant addition. A short time ago I saw a picture of something called an assebly jig, then I looked for more and found all sorts of different versions and most of them looked like a great thing to have in the workshop to help hold projects when you need to work on them and you already have both hands busy.
I alwasy like to try and make jigs that can be worked in more than just one configuration and this version is no exception. I decided that a jig that could work standing up and on it's side would be ideal for almost any occassion, so rather than put a side on the jig, I left it open, knowing that if I needed to make the base more stable, I could easily add a piece to do that at any time, and remove it quickly and easily if needed.

The first thing to find was the lumber and I have lots of scraps around that are perfect for this. I used 1/2" baltic birch for the base and for the uprights. It's very stable and nice to work with. There really isn't too much to say about the cutting and the assebly that it's pretty straight forward in the video and the project is a simple one to make. I think I took me about 4 hours and much of that time was setting up machines and routers to make sure I had perfect corners, edges and that the slot I was cutting for the center would fit the T-Bolts snugly. I'm looking forward to using this little jig in the future ... it should make woodworking much easier going forward.

Working with Laminated Colored Woods

Read Time: 7 mins

Hits: 8782

Colored, and laminated woods have been on the market in one form or another for quite a number of years. They are often used by wood turners for making high quality colorful pens, wine stoppers, pool ques and other smaller items. If you think of colored plywood, that is what would describe colored laminated woods. The difference is what is used to laminate them together and there are a few products, some of these lamination or glues allow much of the natural characteristics of the wood to remain unchanged. This means these laminated pices are water resistant, but not really water proof. If you submerge them in water, the wood laminates will absorb water, expand and essentially come apart. Other version use more water-proof methods that means the woods are more water proof, but there is always the element that we are dealing with wood and even the best coatings are still covering wood that can absorb water ... eventually. I was excited to get stated on this project, something I have wanted to do for a long time and when my order arrived from webbwood.com I was all ready to go.

Because these laminate woods are similar to plywoods they are not ideal for those of us who prefer to use flat wood, as in cabinet, box, chair, shelf, table and similar kinds of flat, square projects. These laminate woods look best when they can be integrated into curved, rounded or coved kinds of cuts. It is only in this way that the true colors and laminations can be seen an appreciate, not unlike what wood turners do when they make round things on their lathes. For some time I have wanted to see what kinds of projects can be made that we can use to as features or other elements in our flat wood projects. Things like door handles, door knobes, hinges, design elements in chairs and tables, curved edge in fronts and other similar ideas.

Having never worked with this kind of wood today, naturally I jumped into something I have never done before - make a knife handle ...

Fixing an Air Nailer - 23 Gauge Pinner

Read Time: 6 mins

Hits: 6391

Part of being a woodworker is being able to fix, adjust, sharpen and re-utilize. All of these take a certain amount of talent, a little of common sense and a whole lot of self confidence. When ever I find my self embarking on some new repair or method, I always tell myself that whatever I do wrong, it can all get fixed.
And so it was when my inexpensive 23 gauge air pinner died on the first nail on a recent project. The pin jambed in the pinner as it entered the wood and hand to be pulled free. As luck would have it, I have an 18 gauge pinner that finished the job, but that still left me with a broken 23 gauge pinner and the one I seem to use the most because is uses very small, headless pins that once driven into many woods, the nail and hole virtually disappear so it's perfect for temporarily holding pieces together while glue dries and you often don't even need to worry about filling the tiny holes.

Upon putting the pinner back in it's plastic case I noticed there was a spare piston that I had long since forgotten about. There was even 2 Allen Wrenches just the size that fits the pinner, so it looked to me like someone expected this pinner would need to have it's pin-driving-plunger replaced at some point in time. Nice of them to add this component as part of the purchase.

Making A Kitchen Knife Block using Bamboo Skewers

Read Time: 5 mins

Hits: 7407

I love innovative ideas, especially when they can enhance our lives, and what better place to do this than in the kitchen. I wish I could take credit for this neat idea, but I suspect it has been around for many, many years it countries where bamboo grows quite prolifically, and has been in use for a variety of building needs for centuries. Building this knife block has been on my list of things to do for about 2 years. So much so that I even went out and purchased (what I thought) would be more than the correct number of packages of bamboo skewers to build this unit. That shows you how wrong I can be sometimes - I had to go out 2 more times to purchase more. The block that I made has take about 20 packages of bamboo skewers. Next time I will be a bit more careful on the size.

To start off, I search through my somewhat extensive collection of cut-off pieces of wood and came up with a few likely suspects. One piece that I like was both figures and somewhat spalted, and it was even a live edge piece. I decided to plane it down enough to see the grain and then to determine if I would have enough wood left if I were to split it into 2 halves, which in fact worked out fine.