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Woodworking is among one of the safest and enjoyable hobbies you can do, provided you adhere to a set of rudimentary and easy to follow safety rules. These woodworking safety rules are designed to be easy to remember and are mostly common sense. That being said, failure to comply with the safety rules can cause serious injury. The work shop is not the place to careless. It is the place to learn and adopt good safety working habits which will in turn make woodworking more fun and enjoyable.
1. Always Wear Safety Equipment
This might seem like a common sense kind of rule, but it’s an important one to remember. During usage of loud power tools like routers and surface planers, wearing ear protection is a noted advantage. Similarly, wear latex gloves while applying finishes. NEVER BE WITHOUT YOUR SAFETY GLASSES. These should be the first thing you reach for when entering the shop.
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Many people consider routers "scary tools", this is probably because they can spin at such a high rate of speed, but truthfully, routers are among the safer tools in the workshop. Not that they should be taken for granted, ANY tool can do serious harm even a router. The thing that I like most about routers is they can be used to make entire projects. If the only tool you have is a router, you can make many projects with only a router.If you are new to routing, you will soon discover that the most of the things that you can do with a router involve using a router table. Routers with tables are useful too, but having a router table opens a whole new world of projects and woodworking elements.
If you are about to invest in a router, make sure you choose a good brand name like Porter Cable, Freud, Milwaukee, DeWalt or similar. If you are also investing in a router table do NOT purchase an inexpensive table based on price. You will soon find out that your money was wasted and now you still need to go out and purchase decent table. Most bench top tables are not worth bringing home, although there are exceptions, even some of the floor standing models are sketchy, so take your time and buy a decent table.
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If your saw is not equipped with a splitter or a riving knife you need to read this.
It is well known that a table saw's main role is to rip wood. Table saws were designed as tool to rip wood and that is what they are best doing, and that is what most of them are used for most of the time. The type of material you are cutting can make a big difference to your safety and the ease with which you cut wood, and to the actual wood you are cutting. For example, if you are cutting material like plywood, MDF, hardboard, chipboard or any of the other “manufactured woods and materials” splitters or riving knives are not as critical, though they are still useful.
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I don't know how many times I get asked the question, what should I purchase a jointer or a planer. The quick answer to this is both, but for those who want to know why, or what alternatives there might be, read on.
Depending on where you obtain your wood, it can be anything from rough to finely milled and ready to use. In many cases wood is purchased "rough cut" and needs to be finely milled. The reason for this is that whoever milled the wood, has no idea what you are going to make with it, so they cut the wood on the large size you you can re-size it to fit your project and as well as to cut around, or include any "features" of the wood like figure, knots etc.