Popular Woodworking Editors' Blog

The year 2000 was a turning point for Popular Woodworking magazine. In 1999 the new owners of our magazine gave us a green light to redesign the entire publication and start down the path we are on today.

That was when we started adding a significant number of stories about hand tools into our pages, blending them carefully with our power-tool coverage. We started adding top-shelf contributing writers, such as Nick Engler, Roy Underhill and Scott Phillips. And we brought on staff a new photographer and art director.

So if you like Popular Woodworking now but you didn't subscribe in 2000, we think you'll like this new CD. On it, we've put all eight issues we published in 2000 (that was when we published an annual Tool Buying Guide) in pdf format. All of the advertisements have been removed. It's just 425 pages of pure woodworking content – and completely text-searchable – for $19.96.

As a bonus, we've included on the CD a complete index of all the stories in both a spreadsheet and word processing format. Plus, we've included a bonus issue on this CD, the September 1999 issue of Popular Woodworking – that's the first issue that features our new design (and 66 more pages of content).

The 2000 issues feature a lot of great stories, here are just a few we think you'll be interested in. Or you can download a complete list of stories here:

2000IndexbyCategory.doc (234 KB)

Restoring a Handplane
Flea markets are infested with dirt-cheap old handplanes. Rick Peters shows you how to
transform a $5 piece of junk into a workhorse for your woodshop.

Borrowing a Design
If you’ve ever sat at your kitchen table with a blank sheet of paper and an equally blank
mind, let Roger Holmes show you how some pros design original pieces of furniture.

Pennsylvania Stepback
This Colonial cupboard has it all: traditional joinery, proportions and the techniques to put your woodworking skills to the test.
By Glen Huey

Should You Buy Professional Tools?
What’s the difference between $50 router and a $150 router? We take you inside to show how the things you can’t see sometimes affect the price.
By Randy Caillier

Handmade Hardware
Step inside a darkened blacksmith’s shop, where custom cabinet hardware is made almost exactly as it was 200 years ago.

Traditional Secretary
Troy Sexton’s gorgeous dropfront secretary is the culmination of a lifetime of professional woodworking experience and a brief stroke of luck at an auction.

What You Must Know About Shelving
Building great bookcases requires more planning than real skill. Learn the essential rules to constructing shelving that is stout, attractive and adaptable.

The Way Wood Works
To properly design and build a project, you need to know wood’s strengths, weaknesses and how much it’s going to move. Nick Engler shows you how to avert disaster by following three simple rules.

Shop of the Crafters Morris Chair
Without a doubt the oversized seat, reclining back and wide arms will make this chair the
most comfortable place to relax in your home.

Compound Miters for Dummies
Cutting accurate miters and compound miters is one of the most vexing problems woodworkers face. Learn to set up your table saw to cut virtually any slope.
By Nick Engler

Lathe From a Loft
The always-inventive Roy Underhill stumbled onto some discarded timbers and got the bright idea to turn them into a foot-powered lathe and scrollsaw. You can, too.
By Roy Underhill

The CD is in stock now and ready for immediate shipping. The CD works with both PCs and Macintosh computers running Adobe Reader 6.0 or later (Reader is a free program). The price is $19.96 with free shipping in the United States.

Order the Popular Woodworking 2000 CD from our store now.

— Christopher Schwarz

Bosch's new riving knife system on its 4100 series of table saws.

Riving Knives – Not Just for
The Europeans Anymore

Of all the new things appearing at this year’s AWSF show, the most exciting is the sudden appearance of true riving knives and sensible guard systems on a number of new table saws. The rules are changing, both literally and figuratively. Kelley Mehler, who wrote an article on European-style table saws for our August 2007 issue, lobbied and worked with Underwriter’s Laboratories in the development of new rules for table saw guards manufactured and sold in the United States. These regulations will require that guards on table saws be easily removable and replaceable, and most importantly to us, that saws be equipped with riving knives.

When we reviewed the SawStop cabinet saw in 2005, we noted that in our opinion, the riving knife was a more important safety feature than the braking system. When we took our first look at the Powermatic 2000, we were happy to see a riving knife included. This year, several more manufacturers are getting on board, in advance of the new UL regulations.

The SawStop, like airbags in your car, will provide some protection after an accident has happened. And, like airbags, braking systems that stop the saw on contact with the blade add significantly to the cost. What if there were a simple device that could be easily attached to your car that would prevent most accidents from happening in the first place? Would you want one? That doesn’t exist yet for your car, but there is a simple device that attaches to a table saw that will prevent many accidents.

About Riving Knives
So just what is a riving knife, and what does it do? There are two ways to cut yourself on a table saw. The first is to not pay attention to where your hands are and stick them into the spinning blade. The second is when part of the board comes in contact with the back part of the blade – the part that is spinning up from the saw’s table, after the cut is made. This causes the board to rise and kick back toward the operator. If your hand is on the board at that point, it can be thrown into contact with the blade before you know it. A careful worker can avoid both these situations, but it takes more skill, experience and diligence to avoid the second one.

A proper riving knife travels with the blade as it is raised, lowered of tilted, covering the area behind the back of the blade. It is close to the same thickness as the blade, so that a piece of wood can’t move into the rising saw teeth, and your hand can’t come in contact with this part of the blade. It keeps the wood tight against the fence for a few inches after the cut has been made. This is an inexpensive, effective and proactive approach to preventing accidents before they happen. Bosch, Delta, DeWalt, Grizzly, General, Jet, Powermatic, Shop Fox and Steel City are all displaying saws at AWFS equipped with riving knives that will are either now available, or will be available in the next few months.


An inside look at Jet's riving knife system.

In addition to requiring riving knives the new regulations also will require that guards can be removed and replaced in less than 20 seconds, without the use of tools. This eliminates the excuse that many of us use, that it is too much trouble to remove and replace the guard. The tool companies are taking some different approaches to this. The Powermatic and Steel City Saws have a lever that releases the guard and pawl assembly. When that is removed, the riving knife snaps in where the guard was. Grizzly’s approach is similar but instead of a lever, a nut is turned.

By far, the best systems we saw were on the Jet Exacta saw, and on inexpensive job-site saws from Bosch and DeWalt. With these systems, each part of the assembly is a separate component, held in place with a spring-loaded pin or a lever. If you want to use the guard and splitter, but remove the pawls, you can do so in just a few seconds.

I liked the Bosch and DeWalt systems the best, because of the over-blade guard, which has a clear plastic cover for each side of the blade. When lifted up, there is a detent at the top that holds the guard above the blade. If you want to make a measurement from fence to blade, or rip a narrow piece, you can do so without fighting the guard.

Here is a rundown of what we saw:

Bosch’s riving knife is available on the 4100 series of job-site saw.

Grizzly introduced its system on a 12” saw last year at the IWF show in Atlanta. This year it has put the same system on a new 10” cabinet saw (the G0651 and G0652). In addition, Grizzly has a nice 10” European-style saw (the G0623X) with riving knife and European guard with dust collection, a sliding table and a scoring blade for a bit less than a SawStop 10” cabinet saw.

Jet has a riving knife and easily removable guard on its 10” Xacta saw. Jet’s hybrid and contractor saws have an easily removable guard, but riving knives won’t be available for these in the near future.

Powermatic includes the riving knife on its PM2000 model, which has been available in this configuration since early 2006.

Steel City will introduce its riving knife and guard system on its hybrid saws, beginning around the first of 2008. This is the same saw that surprised the show with a granite top Wednesday morning. This saw will be available with either a cast iron or granite top. The company’s larger cabinet saws will incorporate these features next spring.

We are looking forward to taking all of these saws for a test-drive in our shop this fall and winter, and we salute these forward-thinking manufacturers for going ahead and including these features ahead of schedule.

— Robert W. Lang

read more reports from the 2007 AWFS show

In a completely inspired move, newcomers Steel City Tool Works is unveiling a line of machinery later this year that will use granite – let me repeat that – granite as a key component.

Steel City’s new hybrid 10” table saw will sport a 150-pound black granite top that is flat across its width (measured diagonally) by .001” to .002” at most. This top will never warp and never rust. It will add extra weight to reduce vibration. And it looks incredible.

We’re not talking about a piece of granite like you would find in a kitchen countertop that’s about 3/4” thick. This top is 50 mm thick (about 2”). In addition to this granite top, this new hybrid saw will feature a European-style riving knife and guard (hurrah!), a trunnion system that adds many extra pounds of cast iron mass and an improved fence system that glides over the tabletop.

Once you get over the shock of a granite-topped table saw, you’re probably thinking it’s going to be expensive. Nope. The base-model table saw with a granite top will come with 30”-long rails and a 1-3/4hp motor for $1,049 after a rebate is applied. (You also can get the saw with a cast-iron top for $999 after rebate, but for $50 the granite is the hot ticket.)

Steel City plans to release the granite-topped table saw in November or December, according to company officials.

The underside of the granite-topped 14" band saw.

In addition to adding the granite to the top of the hybrid table saw, Steel City is also putting the granite top on its new 14” band saw (other band saws from Steel City will follow suit), and a 6” jointer and 8” jointer.

But the granite on the jointers won’t be on the tops of the machines. It’s going to be the fence. I personally don’t think I’ve ever used or owned a jointer that had fence that was free from twist or bow. We put a straightedge all over the fence on the 8” granite-fenced jointer and that thing is flatter than any fence I’ve encountered. That granite fence is a huge upgrade for accuracy with jointers. The granite on the band saw and jointer should be available in the late fall, possibly as early as October.

Scott Box places a straightedge on a granite jointer fence.

The Idea for Granite

When senior editors Glen Huey and Robert Lang and I first saw the granite machines we were skeptical of the idea. It seemed like it might be fragile. But then we actually saw it. Now we want one.

So how did the company officials come up with the idea for granite? Scott Box, one of the founders of Steel City Tools, says it all started over a couple beers while the American and Chinese officials of the company were in the city of Quindao, where Steel City has a factory.

The surrounding Shandong province is known for its granite quarries, so the raw materials and skilled labor were right there.

“We’ve always been fighting cast iron,” says Box, who has worked his entire life in the woodworking machinery business. “It warps on its own. When you cut it, it’s like wood. You never know which way it’s going to go.”

When the idea of a granite-topped machine came up, it seemed like a lark. But the more they talked about it, the more it seemed like a good idea. So they picked out some black granite from a nearby mountain (about an hour away from the company’s factory) and started investigating.

The granite can be machined like cast iron on CNC machines, but it doesn’t move when you mill it.

“Cast iron we stress-relieve for six months,” Box says. “These tops have been stress relieved for 150 million years.”   

There are some minor differences in a granite top. You cannot tap it. So there are special stainless steel insets epoxied into the rock. The wing of the table saw weighs about 50 pounds so there is additional bracing below (and a micro-adjust system). And the T-slot for the miter gauge is more like a dovetailed way – with a slightly different design for the bar that keeps the gauge from tipping (though the bar is still a true 3/4” x 3/8”).

We’re impressed. We think you will be, too. Steel City Tools impressed us last year with its new offerings of tools, and this innovation proves that the company is moving fast.

— Christopher Schwarz