Popular Woodworking Editors' Blog

It's a good thing that I keep a change of clothes at work. And that I don't wear leopard-print underwear.

OK, let's back up a minute.

This morning I'm finishing up work on the next I Can Do That project, and it requires about 1,000 bamboo skewers that are cut to 8-1/4" long. That 1,000 is not a typo.

We try to obey "the rules" of the I Can Do That column when we build these projects – the tools and materials must come from a home center. And so I wanted to find a way to cut these skewers using the tools in the I Can Do That tool kit. There is no band saw. Only a chop saw and a handsaw.

So I bound together 100 of the skewers tightly with blue tape and marked on the tape where I needed to cut the bunch. I set a stop on the miter saw and began the cut slowly. About three skewers later the entire bunch exploded, and I was glad that I'd visited the Little Editor's Room before beginning the operation.

So I took a bundle out to Senior Editor Glen D. Huey and asked him how he'd cut them.

"With a handsaw – hand tool boy," he said, cackling.

Then he said he'd do it with a band saw, which was my first choice as well. So I bound up another 100 skewers in tape and made the cut on the band saw with no problem.

Looks like we'll be recommending the readers use snips or a handsaw to trim these skewers – perhaps while watching Ingmar Bergman's "Scenes from a Marriage."

Oh, and about that leopard-print underwear comment above: My grandmother always said you should wear undergarments that would look fine in the emergency room when they cut your clothes off – a rule that my mother scandalously violated in her youth with hilarious consequence.

— Christopher Schwarz

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