learning woodworking,

The table saw is easily my favorite tool. For me, it is amazingly versatile in what it can do and when you start adding jigs to it, the table saw can do some amazing things. I am currently on my fourth, and possibly my last table saw. Since none of my saw, including this one, hand the same fences, many of my jigs I have had to re-make, including this bevel cutting jig. Hopefully this version will also be my last because I am going to make it with a small amount of adjustability in mind. Something I neglected on my last versions. To be honest, the last versions of the Bevel Cutting Jig that I made, were all rushed together quickly to satisfy an immediate need. This one I am making without that immediate need and with the knowledge that I will be using it in the future.
The biggest problems I had in the past with this jig was - storage. All my jigs needed to be stored in an unheated outdoor shed. This means the wood moved a lot. In the winter it is cold and damp and the wood expands to around 14% moisture content. In the summer it's often hot and dry the wood shrinks down to 8%. Now all this is not huge, but when you are working with close tolerances, like on a metal table saw fence. A jig I make in the summer, will certainly not slide back and forth on the table saw fence in the winter, in fact, some won't even fit over the fence they have expanded so much.

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This time I am going to select my wood carefully and make the part the slides over the table saw fence, slightly adjustable without having to take it apart and re-make it...

I  can't remember the first time I saw Arts and Crafts style furniture, but it was love at first sight. I'm sure I must have been 9 or 10 years old, I didn't even know it had a name, I just loved the furniture that my Grandparents had... and as it turns out, it was Arts and Crafts furniture. I wish I had it now.
There is a huge following of people like me who love the look of this bold, square furniture. In this video I am making a pair of bedside tables from the plans from a book by Robert W. Lang called "More Shop Drawings for Craftsman Furniture" - 30 Stickley Designs for Every Room in the Home. ISBN 13 - 978-1-892836-14-4 and should be quite widely available in book stores and often in better woodworking stores as well. I do not know where the drawings came from or how they got into this book. I have not been able to find a picture of these exact bedside tables so perhaps they are in a private collection somewhere, but I would love to see what the Stickley version of these look like.

Watch this and other similar videos on YouTube - https://youtu.be/FBI6U55_sy8

Although not in the traditon of A&C, the tables I made will feature some splated alder that I collected myself from the forsest... you can watch that VIDEO HERE

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Like most Stickley furniture, in an ideal world, these should be made from Red Oak but in my case I used Red Alder as that is what I had on hand and it's a wood I love to work with...

Working with cash and making change, especially for people who don't work with cast daily, it can be a stressful time... making sure you give the correct change and not keeping people waiting. One of the things that can be be done is just making your cash more accessible and easier to see and count, just the same way retail clerks give change from their cash registers... with a cash tray.
These are easy to make, but they do take a bit of time because there are a number of components, and you don't want to make they too big. The best way to start off is to determine how many slots for cash bills you want, and what the size of your money is. The size of your money and how many bays you want will determine the size of your tray and keeping in mind you may also want some change bins in case you are dealing with coinage.

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I mad mine 2-3/4 inches high and that was plenty, I think 2 inches would be a better height if I ever had to do it again. I decided on 4 bays for paper money which also meant 4 bins for coins as these were used for the spacing with of the box.

My list of woodworking projects seems never ending and from time to time and make an effort to finish some of my "priorities", like this tool holder and stand for my woodturning tools. I have had my tools sitting in a cardboard box for to long, yes it keeps them together but the problem is that some of the tools are carbide tipped and if the carbide is allowed to bump against steel from other tools, there is a high risk the carbide will chip or break because carbide is very brittle.

The other issue of course is that cardboard attracts moisture, or at least it retains moisture which means if the boxe is not stored in a warm dry place there is a risk the tools will start getting rusty. I need to avoid this risks by finally making myself a storage place and something I can use whenever I am using my lathe.

The best way to solve this issues quickly is to finally make some sort of working tool rack that can also double as a storage unit and maybe even something that I could put doors on to help keep out dust and to a degree recuse moisture exporsure.


Watch this and other similar videos on YouTube - https://youtu.be/az-W5UOKhUA

I had a quick look on the Internet so see if there was anything I like and I decided there were a couple that fit my situation and with a bit of modification I could make something unique to what I need. The first step was to lay out all my tools on my workbench to see exactly what kind of space I would need and what the dimensions of the storage/stand would be...