How to Make a Pizza Peel
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Making kitchen accessories in your workshop is both fun and rewarding because you can frequently make these items for a fraction of what they cost to purchase and they often last much longer, not to mention they can be made to be far more attractive than the run-of-the-mill commercial versions. For many woodworkers making these kitchen and dining accessories can turn into at least a part time and sometimes even a full time job in making these and selling them at craft fairs, swap meets and farmers markets.
Everyone loves pizza, which is why the Pizza Peel is such a popular item. It's especially valuable if you have younger children or for people who have limited mobility as the peel is a much safer and easier way of removing a pizza from a hot oven. The one I made had a little bit wider handle especially suited for this cause.
How to Make a Pizza Peel
In my case I wanted to make mine look a bit more appealing than just using plain wood. I also wanted to laminate my to help make it a little bit stronger. The woods I selected ..
The Lost Art of Fuming Wood for Color
- Read Time: 6 mins
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We are in an age when changing or enhancing the color of wood simply means using one of the fine stains or dyes are readily available. It wasn't all that long ago that the to change or enhance the color of wood was something called Fuming. It's the same thing that mother nature uses, oxidization.
Mother nature does it naturally with oxygen, but we don't have decades to wait, so we can speed up the process with ammonia. The benefits of fuming wood is that you always get a consistent color, no need to worry about dye lots or color names on the can, and the coloring can penetrate the wood up to an eighth of an inch deep for a rich permanent coloration (not longer fuming is required for deeper wood penetration). The disadvantage is that different hues and tones are difficult to control because of differing wood types and length of fuming time and even colors withing the same woods, but we can see these with stains and dyes too.
The Lost Art of Fuming Wood for Color
To fume wood you only need four things, ammonia (more on this later), a plastic or glass (NOT metal) container (with a lid) for the ammonia to aerate from, and some sort of a sealed plastic tent or container in which to fume the wood.
Brushless Drill (Milwaukee) Overview
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For the purposes of this article, there are basically 2 kinds of electric motors, "brushed" and "brushless". Brushed motors have been around for about 150 years, but vast improvements in the early 1900 have left them almost unchanged since then, and for what they are, they are an excellent, efficient motors.
With the invention of the transistors in the 1960s, motor development took another step forward with the invention of the brushless motors. It is only because of higher technologies that these motors can work in a high enough efficiency to make the commercially viable because instant internal switching needs to occur.
Milwaukee of course have taken some of the early steps in this field by producing a series of brushless drills, Impact Wrenches and Hammer Drills.
Brushless Drill (Milwaukee) Overview
In Brushed motors, there are something called brushes that make contact with a specific part of the armature of the motor, the part that spins. In a brushless motor there are no brushes, the spinning is done by using permanent magnets and and switching poles internally in the motor in order to make it spin. Here is a great video from Learn Engineering that explains in detail how this works and compares it with brushed motor ....
How-To Align a Table Saw Blade to Miter Slot
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Before starting any project, it’s important to take a few minutes to make sure all of your equipment has been properly adjusted. Your table saw will give the best results if the miter slot and the rip fence are adjusted parallel to the blade. If either of these are not parallel, your cuts and your finished work will be lower in quality, and the risk of kickback will be increased. Here’s how to make sure your table saw blade is aligned to the miter slot.
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Disconnect the saw from the power source: A common sense step that is so easily forgotten when we’re excited to start a new project
How-To Align a Table Saw Blade to Miter Slot
Continued ....
How to Make a Barbecue Stand
- Read Time: 5 mins
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Portable barbecues are handy because they can be easily transported to a variety of events, like birthday parties, family gathering, picnics, camping trips and much more. The disadvantage is that they need some sort of a stand to sit on to make them comfortable to use, but often there is a picnic table or something similar handy to use. Unless ... you want a dedicated stand for them, then you either need to purchase the accessory or make your own, which is what I did.
Initially I was a bit concerned about having a portable barbecue sitting on a wooden surface, but after using my own, on a wooden surface for 2 years not seeing any sign of even paint discoloring, I am pretty confident that wood works fine for my barbecue, others may not, so before you build your own, that will be something you will want to check. Regardless whether or not you use the table for a barbecue or not, it is still a great, solid little table that would be fine as a serving table to hold any number of food and drink items, or what-have-yous.
How to Make a Barbecue Stand
I started off with the legs, I wanted them to be at least 1" thick, just because a table looks more substantial with stronger legs. All the cross members are 3/4" material.
Building a Small Parts Storage Cabinet
- Read Time: 4 mins
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I seem to go through phases where I have this need to re-organize my stuff and it's often triggered by an event. Recently I lost the little mounting foot that goes in the head of my small Gorilla Tripod. Oh sure you can buy new ones, and have them shipped to you but most of the ones I saw, with shipping, are about the same price a buying a whole new tripod! Eventually (2 months later) I have found the missing foot and all is well again, but it made me realize I have camera and video gear in at least 3 different places and it's time to get it all in one place ... the workshop where it is being used.
The real problem with all these bits and pieces is that they are currently being stored in little plastic rectangular trays, which work ok, but they take up a lot of shelf space because you can't store something above them like you can with a little cabinet with drawers. And that was my motivation.
Building a Small Parts Storage Cabinet
I had some other ideas along the way, like having something with a Dutch Door or half door so that if you had something lying in front of the little cabinet, you could still open the door without knocking something on to the floor. I also liked ....
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