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I remember joking with other woodworkers at guild meeting about "wouldn't it be nice to have some sort of a machine or jig that can give you perfect joints without a lot of fuss, that are super strong and precisely located" then I discovered the Dowelmax and it became my only joint-making tool for all the reasons I just listed.
I made this article and video to use as a reference for those new woodworkers who to know more about this tool can do, and for those experienced woodworkers as a reminder for new things they may not have thought about.
I often talk about this jig as the tool that changed my life in woodworking, and it's the truth. Before discovering this jig, like everyone else I made mostly mortise and tenon joints ... and hated it, I could never seem to get them to fit perfectly, the reveals were frequently not different thicknesses and they are tedious to make ... especially for something nobody ever sees except the woodworker because the mortise and tenon joints are buried and glued deep into the wood.
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This inexpensive and jig (that can often be made with off-cuts of wood) is the handiest jig you might have in your shop for aligning all sorts of woodworking projects and keeping them square, which of course makes them that much easier to work with.
Wood projects that are out of square and hard to work with, and for the woodworker, often disappointing to continue to work with or sell and there are only 2 things that contribute to out-of-square projects ....
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It's always easier to carry on doing things the way we always do, and only when things go wrong or when we get fed-up with things that aren't working right, are awkward or dysfunctional ... do we make changes, such is so with my Table Saw Sled.
I loved to hate my table saw sled, it was well built, and accommodated a variety of attachments (which I seldom used) and the main thing I needed it for was cross cutting wide boards that my sliding mitre saw could not cut. The problem with this, is just the weight of the sled would make me cringe at even the thought of dragging it out... 26 pounds of raw wood and plastic ...
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Not every suggestion I receive ends up in a video, often because I just don't have the capacity, but sometimes because what was sent, for some reason it may look like I would need to make a prototype of it before I video that tip, jig, or project. Such was the case with the wood router clamp.
Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/lJjsj4ZVoPo
I can't take credit for this idea, it was sent to me compliments of the nice folks at the Sunflower Woodworking Guild in the Wichita, Kansas region, who have so kindly kept me on their member's list and send me newsletters and other club notices. What I received were some pictures and some plans from which to get started ...
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I love holiday time, it gives me a period of uninterrupted time in the workshop to work on some new ideas and changes I have been putting off over the past several months. Sometimes they are experiments, often from suggestions to others that will hopefully lead to permanent solutions or processes.
Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/q6I2wNa0BHs/a>
Many of these seem to lead to the table saw, and this episode is no different, but there are a few variables thrown in for variety ...
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Of these 2 jigs, I use one a LOT the other, not as often, but both get used in my shop. The Assembly Jig is one of my top used jigs. I am always using it to hold my work square as I assemble then glue it together. The only real problem with the last ones I made, they seem to be too small as the projects and picture frames I make seem to get larger and larger ...
Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/Bj0PK-MqroA
Time to upgrade the Assembly Jig with some new ideas to make this one last a bit longer and make it easier to use ...