Read Time: 6 mins

Hits: 1163

One of the many benefits of YouTube is that sharing ideas with others often helps all of us improve what we do. Such is the case with this Thin Strip Ripping Jig I made a few years ago. My buddy Bill, from the Sunflower Woodworkers Guild near Wichita, came up with cool safety adaptation for this and today I am going to make re-make this very popular jig ... 

One of my concerns with this style of jig, especially when ripping very small pieces of wood, the blade "could" flip a small piece of wood upward toward the operator ...

Read Time: 3 mins

Hits: 2949

I really hate it when I make woodworking mistakes because I waste time fixing something that is my own fault. Sometimes it's from rushing though a task other times I can just plain mixed up with what I am doing so even making a mistake once or twice prompts me to try and come up with a solution so maybe I can prevent it in the future ...

Making tables, regardless of the joiner is one of those times where you have similar looking items but that all fit in different areas and sometimes need to fit in a special way to sometimes take a away from defects in the wood, and always try to show it's best side.

Read Time: 1 min

Hits: 4672

This quick video is primarily for the thousands of new subscribers to my YouTube channel who have not had a chance to see or understand what something called the "Magswitch" can do in their workshop. Basically it is a little adapter that can be used to turn a magnet on and off and thereby use it to attache jigs and safety equipment to anything with a steel base, like table saws, bandsaws and drill presses.

This is NOT a long article, instead, learning by seeing will be easiest so what I am trying out with this video is to provide "clips" of magswith uses in jigs and adapters so others can see visually what can be done  ...  And don't forget that these switches are currently ON SALE November 21 to 26 or 2023 only ... you can check out the discounts of 15% and up to 30% at this link - https://mag-tools.com/discount/COLIN_KNECHT

Read Time: 7 mins

Hits: 5793

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.

Read Time: 5 mins

Hits: 2723

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 ....