Part 5 – Panel Doors. Right now the humidity outside my air-conditioned workshop is around 85% and climbing and all of the wood in my workshop is swelling. It’s a fact: wood expands and contracts and when making furniture you have to account for these fluctuations.
Cabinet carcasses are generally constructed so expansion happens front to back, thus minimizing the effect. Read more…
I knew I had a problem when cherry and maple started go through the table saw and get scotched. There are several reasons this can happen:
Dull Blade, Dirty Blade, Feed rate too slow, Warped blade, Misaligned fence, Riving Knife misaligned or Warped Wood.
Bridle joints can be use anywhere you might use half-lap or mortise and tenon joints. They are very strong and a good choice for jointing thin stock, especially where a lap joint would not offer strength and a mortise and tenon would be too small. I have even seen double bridle joints used in the construction of chairs, joining arm and leg in one flowing piece. As a general rule, a bridle joint can be used in place of a lap joint, but a lap joint should not be used in place of a bridle joint.
The re-purposed door for the potting shed (an article yet to be finished) had a really neat door bell – a manual rotary – the sort that by spinning the knob rotates a set of gears inside that in turn forces the ‘clackers’ out to hit the bell itself – basically works like a bicycle bell.
As a boy, attending secondary school in England in 70’s, I was required to take woodworking classes as part of my education. For most of us this was our first encounter with using traditional hand tools. We learned how to manipulate wood by planing, sawing and chiseling and created all sorts of things including garden dibbers, boxes, chessboards and coffee tables read more…
