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 Friday, September 07, 2007
Bosch Tools Visit Full
Bosch Tools will visit the Popular Woodworking shop on Wednesday, Sept. 19, from 6:30-9 p.m. for dinner and tool talk. After dinner, attendees will be able to try out some of the latest tools Bosch has to offer. Bosch representatives will be demonstrating: * Several 4100DG-09 10" benchtop table saws (with a new riving knife and split blade guard) * T4B Gravity Rise Miter Saw Stand equipped with a 10" sliding miter saw * Colt Palm Router * And a variety of 10.8-volt cordless tools Plus, each participant will receive a free 10" Pro Series table saw blade (and there may be a few other surprises as well!). The event is full, but if you're interested in being added to the waiting list, please click on my name below to shoot me an e-mail. — Megan Fitzpatrick
Friday, September 07, 2007 9:42:40 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) 
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Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Tag Teaming Google SketchUp
One of my goals for this year at Popular Woodworking magazine is to become sufficiently adept with a technical drawing program. We have to have simple, accurate line drawings of projects that are sent to artists who turn the plans into the works of art that you’ve come to rely on from the magazine.
Before joining Popular Woodworking I sometimes had plans on a scrap of wood in the shop only to transfer them to paper, or at least a file, prior to sending them to the editors. When necessary, I drew plans in Microsoft Publisher. They looked good to me, but they were “not to scale” (I had to add that phrase to my drawings).
Once inside the magazine publishing operation I discovered how nauseating my plans must have been. After the “not to scale” drawings are passed to the artists, it seems I spend a great deal of time on the phone trying to explain how the parts are assembled. Better plans – maybe even drawn to scale – would make this entire process less of a burden than it is.
A short time back Popular Woodworking Senior Editor Robert W. Lang introduced me to Google SketchUp. I’ve started to play with the free program and my drawings are coming along nicely. My current project (look for it in our December issue) should make at least one of our artists much happier – as well as shorten my phone time.
I was in the middle of working with SketchUp when Martin Sojka, the driving force behind LumberJocks, contacted me looking for Popular Woodworking to sponsor another contest like the Thorsen Project Challenge. After kicking the concept around with Editor Chris Schwarz, I approach Sojka with the idea.
That’s all you need to do with the founder of the LumberJocks. Sojka ran with the idea and just this week announced the newest contest (click here for details) – a contest in part sponsored by Popular Woodworking and the editors within. I say "in part" because Sojka also enlisted the team at Google to provide a free copy of SketchUp Pro (a $495 value) to be awarded randomly to one of the winners.
 
The Popular Woodworking magazine editors will judge the contest and along with that duty, each editor will provide a signed book or DVD as a prize for the top three entries – Bob Lang’s “The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker,” Megan Fitzpatrick’s “The Essential Pine Book,” Christopher Schwarz’s “Workbenches from Design & Theory to Construction & Use” (available late October 2007) and my “Fine Furniture for a Lifetime.” That’s four valuable resources of woodworking information awarded to each of the top three entries. In addition, LumberJocks will randomly select three entries to receive a coveted LumberJocks T-shirt.
 
There is no better time to join LumberJocks, if you haven’t already, and learn to draw with Google SketchUp. As the LumberJocks announcement states it’s “a powerful yet easy-to-learn 3D software tool that is currently being discussed in each woodworking forum or group”.
– Glen D. Huey
Read other entries by Glen D. Huey
Wednesday, September 05, 2007 9:40:29 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Stickley Poppy Table-Chisel in One Hand, On/Off Switch in the Other
When my son was in Cub Scouts, we went on field trips on Saturday mornings. One week we went to the woodshop of one of the kid’s grandfathers. It was a nice two-car-garage-sized building behind his real garage; in other words, a dedicated well-equipped shop. The boys went to work on a simple shelf, and after herding the group from the band saw to the oscillating spindle sander, Grandpa decided it was time to impart some wisdom. “If you want to get anything done, use power tools. There isn’t any reason to use hand tools any more. It will take you longer, and won’t turn out as good.” I didn’t say anything at the time, but on the way home I said to my son “you realize that man is a fool don’t you?” Hunter replied, “I was wondering when you were going to say something.”
When he was four or five we started making stuff together: toy guns and rubber-band powered boats for the bathtub. Our main tools were a coping saw and a spokeshave – tools he could handle safely without scaring his mother half to death. One of my proudest moments as a father came when we were at a festival watching a guy build a canoe. When the demonstrator held up a spokeshave and asked if anyone knew what it was called, Hunter shouted out the name and asked the guy if he wanted him to show him how to use it. He stepped up to the bench and, reaching up almost over his head, thrilled the crowd by quickly producing a pile of shavings and a fair curve.
 I’ve never been able to understand why people try to divide woodworkers into two opposing camps, Normites versus Neanderthals. And I can't understand why anyone would buy into that and only work with one method to the exclusion of the other – power-tool users who will spend hours building jigs and setting up machines to avoid making one simple cut with a backsaw, or hand-tools users who claim some sort of moral superiority by chopping the waste from a dozen mortises by hand. I work with wood because I enjoy making things as well as I can. I don’t have as much time in the shop available as I would like so I want to work efficiently, but I don’t want to compromise the finished product. I consider myself fortunate that the men who taught me how to work with wood had a well-developed sense of when to pick up a router and when to pick up a plane. The project I’m working on, a reproduction of a Gustav Stickley “Poppy” table is an excellent example of what our publisher, Steve Shanesy, calls “blended woodworking” – using power tools and hand tools together. This is a curious little table. It has five legs, which makes it an interesting engineering problem as legs and stretchers, a shelf and a top all need to solidly connect. At the same time it’s an artistic expression. Every edge of the finished piece is curved, and the flat surfaces of the top and shelf are interrupted by sweeping carved curves. One of the parts, a pentagon-shaped hub that connects the legs and supports the top, is very small, but getting it the exact size and shape and fitting the joints is the keystone that holds the whole table together. This little block of wood will make the table straight and solid if it is right – or wobbly and twisted if it is less than perfect.  Because of its small size, I chose to cut the shape on the bandsaw, shoot the edges with a plane, and cut the dovetail sockets by hand. It is just too small to safely cut on the table saw and I couldn’t come up with a way to clamp it down and move a router in. I removed much of the waste in the sockets with a Forstner bit on the drill press. I could safely hold it to the drill-press table, and this made a flat reference surface at the bottom to guide the chisel. There are also dovetail sockets at the top of each leg. There, I used a small router with a fence to establish a straight back and flat bottom, and a few quick chisel cuts defined the acute corners where the circular router bit wouldn’t reach. I spent a few hours over the weekend refining the curves of the top and shelf with some rasps followed by a cabinet scraper. It was a lot of fun. I worked out on the patio, enjoying some fresh air and not annoying the neighbors (at least with my woodworking). The band-saw marks disappeared rather quickly, I recognized that many of the curves matched the profile of the rounded side of the rasp, and the scraper left a very nice surface. I thought about the old man who thought power tools were the answer to everything, and wondered how he would shape this edge. Later today, I’ll be shaping the legs. They’ve been rough cut on the band saw, and I’ll use a template (shaped and refined with my rasps) and a router to make them all symmetrical and identical.  Then, I'll finish carving the top by hand, scrape the flat surfaces smooth and gently round all the edges. I'm still up in the air about that last step; I might use a router and I might use a rasp. Woodworking is like solving a puzzle. Between the raw material and a finished piece, it’s all about choices: how to do this, why do that, what will create the best result in the least amount of time. If you eliminate half the options before you start, you eliminate half the fun. – Robert W. Lang
Read other entries by Robert W. Lang
Tuesday, September 04, 2007 2:18:46 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, August 29, 2007
The Making of Tenons
 I’ve been working in the shop over the last few days to create mortise-and-tenon joints for a workbench. I usually make the mortise portion of the joint with the dedicated mortise machine. I make my tenons at the table saw using a regular blade with a miter gauge to make the shoulder cut, and a tenoning jig to complete the cheek cut. In fact, back in January 2000, Popular Woodworking ran my article on the “Table Saw Tenon Jig” and to this day I still get requests for it. In the Popular Woodworking shop we’re using Senior Editor Bob Lang’s tenon-cutting jig. Getting the larger rail (1-3/4" x 5" x 51") up on the table saw to make the shoulder cut was one thing, but to stand it vertically to make the cheek cuts? That wasn’t going to happen.
When I made reproduction beds for customers I always used the same thickness and width of bed rail for which I had fashioned a plywood jig to aid in cutting the end tenons. The jig slid over the end of the rails and the router, with a 3/4" pattern bit chucked up, was guided along all four edges of the jig creating a perfect-fitting tenon. I was not planning on making a jig for the bench parts since I had two different size rails to work on.
 So, I decided to use the table saw and stack dado blade. I know this sounds odd, but this is new for me. I didn’t own a stack dado blade until a few years back when I needed one for a demonstration. I used a dado for a short time as I began woodworking, but it was a wobble dado – that’s a scary thing.
I’ve watched others make tenons with a dado blade many times. Most times, woodworkers leave the tenon oversized, then fit and trimthe stock with a plane. By now you probably know me well enough to realize I wasn’t going to use a plane to fit the tenon. I cut the tenon to fit. (I did, however, touch up a couple spots with my Shinto rasp.)
This got me wondering how many different methods there are for creating tenons. I anted up the first three –I know, I know. I took the easy ones. It’s your turn to add others. As I sit here I can think of another method, but I’ll hold this one to see if someone puts in his or her two cents (I will say there is no way I would ever try to make a tenon using my fourth technique). How do you create tenons?
Click on Comment to add your technique.
– Glen D. Huey
Read other entries by Glen D. Huey
Wednesday, August 29, 2007 1:25:50 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Woodworking Magazine: The Hardbound Edition
Get Free Shipping if You Order before Sept. 21
Every issue of Woodworking Magazine (our sister publication) is designed without an "expiration date" – we strive to make the instructions and projects that we write to be just as good in 20 years as they are today. To ensure the magazine will endure, we've just published a hardbound book containing the first seven issues, including issues that have long been sold out and unavailable.
These are the complete issues, just as they appeared in the magazine, and they are printed on paper that is even heavier and brighter than the originals. The book's 252 pages are bound in red cloth, stamped with gold foil and covered with a nice glossy dust jacket that features the Roubo workbench on the cover.
If you're not familiar with Woodworking Magazine, you're probably wondering why we're making such a fuss about it. Here's the deal: Woodworking Magazine is different than other woodworking magazines. We seek to challenge the conventional wisdom of the craft to find the most accurate, fast and straightforward way to perform an operation, whether it's cutting dados or making cherry look 100 years old. Our staff tests dozens of techniques in our shop in Cincinnati to find the ones worth using in your shop.
We publish projects that are historical classics, from the 18th-century Roubo workbench to a Gustav Stickley Magazine Stand to a Shaker Tall Cabinet from the Enfield Community. These are pieces of furniture that have earned their status as classics.
And even the way we review tools is different. We don't review table saws (there are enough table saw reviews already). We review the tools and items that we consider critical to good work: 6" rulers, hinges, marking knives, moisture meters, combination squares and the like.
Plus, we accept no outside advertising. Our interior pages are black-and-white. And we're not afraid to blend the use of hand and power tools to get good results.
This book is about to arrive in our warehouse, and we are making a special offer for readers who order the book before midnight on Friday, Sept. 21. If you order before that date, the book is $30 and we'll pay the shipping and handling. Orders placed after that will be $30 plus $4.95 shipping and handling.
This book will not be available in stores. You can order on our secure web site or call toll-free 800-258-0929 and ask for item# WWCMP7A.
— Christopher Schwarzeditor, Woodworking Magazine and Popular Woodworking
Read other entries by Christopher Schwarz
Tuesday, August 28, 2007 11:38:08 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Are Helical Cutterheads the Answer? Part 2
 In part 1 I looked back at the videos for Jet and Powermatic and the idea of including helical cutterheads in stationary woodworking machines in place of three-knife or four-knife heads. Also, the variations on noise levels were shown with changes in decibels readings.
Next, what about costs associated with each cutterhead? Let’s look at the Grizzly G0593 (with 40 carbide inserts in its head) compared to the G0586 (with a four-knife cutterhead). Both are 2hp machines with the only difference being the cutterheads. The additional cash outlay is $330 and that buys you the spiral-head machine. That might seem excessive, but I think it’s very reasonable if you look into the total costs over time.
Each insert has four sharpened edges, so in a sense, you would need three sets of knives (plus the set that comes with the tool) to gain equality with the inserts. The additional sets of knives are $50 per set or another $150.
If you would prefer to look at the process of sharpening the blades when they dull versus purchasing new sets, my local cost to have jointer knives sharpened is $5.75 per knife up to 18". That’s $23 per set of four and the three additional trips to the sharpening service would be $69.
So, you think you’re way ahead? How about the fact that the knives are high-speed steel (HSS) whereas the inserts for a helical head are carbide? The HSS knives will dull much more quickly than the carbide inserts. I’m not sure how many more times you’ll need to sharpen the HSS knives. That’s going to depend on the amount of lumber you run over the tool. At Popular Woodworking we feel confident saying carbide last four times longer than HSS, so you’ll incur an additional $276 ($92 x 3) in sharpening fees. That puts the total invested in sharpening only at $345. And we’ve yet to discuss the value of your time in replacing the knives or trips to and from the sharpening service.
Next, let’s take a look at another difference. When a nick shows up in the knives, you loosen the locking screws, slide the nicked knife to one side then tighten those screws. All the while you're hoping that you don’t change the height of the blade in relation to the other knives. With a nick in a carbide insert – outside of the trouble of simply finding that nicked cutter – you’ll loosen one screw, turn the insert 90º and tighten the screw. Time is a consideration here too.
In my opinion, the average woodworker who works in a home shop might never have to replace the carbide inserts. With the inserts staying sharp longer and rotating the inserts for three additional uses, this becomes a possibility – barring a catastrophe. If you do need to replace the inserts completely, the Grizzly G0593 that we’re using in this discussion has 40 carbide inserts. Total replacement costs for the 40 inserts is $80 (that’s less of an expense than having the HSS blades sharpened four more times).
Given the fact that a helical cutterhead is quiet, stays sharper for a longer period of time, allows for a quick fix of damaged inserts and is only higher in initial costs not long-term costs, if I were purchasing a new machine there would have to be a great deal for me to buy the old cutterhead design. I’ll choose the helical cutterhead with the carbide inserts. How about you? Is the supposed extra cost stopping you?
– Glen D. Huey
Read other entries by Glen D. Huey
Tuesday, August 21, 2007 8:18:47 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, August 20, 2007
Are Helical Cutterheads the Answer? Part 1
 For the first time in months, I got a chance to get back into my shop over the weekend. Boy was it nice. I had a piece to build for a customer, a piece that was promised some time back. (Thank you very much for patient, understanding customers.)
I selected the rough lumber for my project, chopped the piece into workable sizes and rolled the cart to the jointer. As I pushed my first piece over the three-knife cutterhead, I was amazed at how loud the operation sounded. I was caught off guard and wondered if the machine was not properly tuned to work.
Then I realized that the sound was loud because over the past few months, all my woodworking has been in the shop at Popular Woodworking. The magazine's jointer has a helical head. It seems noticeably quieter.
Is that why both Jet and Powermatic added helical cutterheads to a few new machines? I went back to watch the videos from our AWFS Coverage page. Powermatic installed this type of cutterhead on many of its new jointers and planers (click to watch the video), while Jet added a helical cutterhead on the jointer/planer combination machine (click to watch the video). Now my curiosity was piqued and I decided to see if helical cutterheads were best.
The loud sound is what garnered my attention. I decided to start there. The next day I grabbed the sound-level meter and took two readings at the 12" Bridgewood jointer in the PW shop. While running idle, the reading reached 86dBAs on the meter. The next reading was while cutting a piece of 4/4 mahogany. That number was 94dBAs. The difference between running idle and at full work with a helical cutterhead equipped machine was only 8dBA.
After work I loaded the meter and the mahogany board into the truck and headed straight to my shop. There I have a 12" Delta jointer. I repeated the same tests. This time the three-knife head moved the sound level meter to 89dBAs. That’s only a difference of three decibels over the helical head, big deal. But when I jointed that piece of mahogany, that’s when the difference appeared – big time. While cutting the 4/4 material, the decibels jumped to 112dBAs. That’s a significant increase. A helical cutterhead is quieter.
The surface that’s jointed is the telltale sign of a good set of knives. I studied each jointed surface under a magnifying-glass light only to discover no significant difference between the two resulting cuts. Yes the three-knife head left small almost indiscernible ridges in the surface that are easily sanded smooth. But the helical knives left ridges as well. They also were very small and easily smoothed with a sander.
So far, the only difference I've found is the sound level. And with hearing protection, is that an issue? On Wednesday, I’ll look into the costs differences – we know going in that out-of-pocket expenses are higher for the helical – and reveal if I found that one cutterhead is better than the other. (Care to make a guess?)
If you're interested in reading more about the Jet Jointer/Planer Combination or the Powermatic Thickness Planer shown in the picture above, click on the PDFs listed below. –Glen D. HueyJET 12 in Jointer-Planer.pdf (27.63 KB)PM 22-in Planer.pdf (27.63 KB)
Read other entries by Glen D. Huey
Monday, August 20, 2007 8:11:12 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Friday, August 17, 2007
Respirator Protection an Important Safety Issue
As the letter below notes, many woodwokring publications have recently at least mentioned respirators. In the current issue of Popular Woodworking (August 2007, #163), Chris Schwarz writes in his editor's note ("The Curse of the Creepy Kleenex") that despite meticulous dust-collection efforts in the shop, a respirator is still sometimes a necessity. And in Chapter 7 of Woodworking Essentials in the same issue, Scott Gibson addresses dust collection in great detail. But, there's always room for more good information, as reader Joe Corriveau reminds us:Many of the publications I subscribe to have been talking about respirators and air filtration. However, I have yet to see anything comprehensive on the subject. My father was an industrial safety salesman and I worked for him for 10 years as the customer service manager, and I also worked for several years for an asbestos demolition company, where respirator protection was the largest safety issue. Here are some respirator issues that I’ve not yet seen discussed: 1) Facial hair will not allow any mask to create the seal that is necessary for the mask to do what it is supposed to do. 2) Most dust masks sold at home-improvement centers are designed for very low-risk applications, and most likely will not work too well for you. You should, at least, look for masks with a metal nasal strip. This allows you to fit the mask better in this area by bending the strip so it follows the contours of you face better creating a better seal. Also, if it has but one elastic strip, don’t bother with it. 3) If you are serious about using a mask, get a silicone half mask with changeable filters. a) For most of us, dust filters are all that is needed. b) If you do a lot of spraying, get the right filter. A dust filter will not protect you. You will most likely need an “organic vapor/acid gas” cartridge. c) If you are using any form of cartridge that has a charcoal filter in it, you need to store it in a airtight container. These cartridges have a life of about 24 hours once the manufacturer’s seals have been removed. Proper storage will extend the life of the filter. d) You are better off not buying masks from a home-improvement center. Find a safety distributor in your area. Some will take walk-in private sales. Some will even be willing the test-fit you for a mask. Silicone half masks come in different sizes. Get the one that is right for you. Most salespeople will take the time to talk to you about your activities and get you the right filters for your type of work. 4) Just because you’re done making dust, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t any in the air. Leave your mask on until you either leave the area/your shop, or wait for the dust to settle and the air filters to do their job. 5) Masks, vacuums and air filters all do what they are supposed to do. But, each one does a different thing. None of them, alone or together, can provide full protection. However, all three can provide maximum protection when used together. 6) Your lungs are your life. Take care of them and they will take care of you. — Joe Corriveau, Milwaukee, Wisconsin Do you have dust collection tips? We invite you to share them with other readers by leaving a comment.— Megan Fitzpatrick
Friday, August 17, 2007 9:56:09 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, August 15, 2007
SketchUp — A New Toy and Good News for Readers
Here at Popular Woodworking, we design and build our own projects. We follow the same process most woodworkers do; we make some sketches, we talk about the project and we make working drawings to use in the shop. The drawings you see in the pages of the magazine start life as the drawings we use to build. I usually have my fingers somewhere in the illustration pie as we go from CAD drawings to the published page. I've used different CAD systems over the years, and this summer I've been learning Google SketchUp.
If you haven't heard of SketchUp, you should check it out. It's a free download and it's the most user-friendly design software I have seen. If you've been considering using your computer for making shop drawings, it will be worth your time to give this a try. The price is right, there are good tutorials within the program and online, and there is even a "SketchUp for Dummies" book available. Over on the Woodworking Magazine blog, there is a SketchUp model one of our readers made for a workbench. If you download the software, you can then download the file and play around with it.
What you see at left is a 3-D model of a project I'll be building for our December issue. This isn't what the finished piece will look like, but it's an accurate representation of the parts and how they fit together. With the way the program works, you can make parts, make joints on the parts, then put the whole thing together. You can keep things simple or you can let your obsessive/compulsive side run wild with intricate details and renderings.
The good news for us is that it makes our design process more like building. We can look at a piece from all angles and make sure everything works. The good news for you, the reader, is that we will be able to offer better drawings in the magazine, and a boatload of extra visual material online. For the November issue, there will be an online slide show that details how each part of our "I Can Do That" project goes together. We'll be doing similar things for future issues, and we're getting a little dizzy thinking about all the possibilities.
 How about a three-dimensional cutting list that shows each part of a project, or a model of a project that you can take apart and put back together? If drawings leave you wondering what a piece looks like from below or behind, you'll be able to move around and take a look.
At right is a closer-to-finished version of the first image. I had a lot of fun putting this together, and the time I spent in SketchUp will save me time when I get out to the shop. This is the first piece I've made that's based on a pentagon, and there is some tricky joinery below the tabletop and where the shelf meets the legs. My first ideas on how to accomplish this looked good on paper, but wouldn't work in 3-D. Using SketchUp allowed me to change my strategy before I cut any wood. (Although I did need to give some lapped dovetails a tap or two with a virtual mallet.)
So keep your eye on the magazine, our web site and the blog for more detailed, easier-to-understand and more useful project drawings. Let us know what you'd like to see by leaving a comment or sending an e-mail. Just for fun, the first reader to leave a comment correctly identifying this project by name and original maker will win a copy of all of our issues from 2006 on CD, and a copy of my latest book "Shop Drawings for Greene and Greene Furniture"
— Bob Lang
Wednesday, August 15, 2007 12:25:56 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, August 09, 2007
In Praise of Cheap, Small Clamps
One of the best-kept secrets in woodworking is the fact that often the most useful devices are not the biggest and most expensive. In the upcoming October issue of Popular Woodworking (mailed to subscribers the last week of August and on sale at newsstands the first week of September) I have an article about a rolling stand for clamps. In addition to that article in the magazine, I’ll be writing an online article about selecting and using clamps. I started on it this morning, but got carried away with writing about my two favorite clamps – the Bessey 2" x 8" "Mighty Mini" Bar Clamp and the Jorgensen size "0" wood handscrew.  If you look closely at the photos of my work in progress, in my books and magazine articles, one or both of these appear in nearly every photo – either in action or in the background. For the last 20 years, I have used a pair of each of these clamps every day I’ve been in the shop and I consider them indispensable. When I go out to a job site or somewhere to give a class, they are the first things I pack for the trip. Here in the shop I don’t exactly hide them, but they do have a special place I keep them, and my name or initials are on them in case they wander off. So what’s the big deal? Each on it’s own has many uses. Because they are small and light, they don’t get in the way. I use the bar clamps for holding stacks of parts together for layout work, and I also use them to hold fixtures and featherboards to the table saw or router table fence. If I put them in the right spot on the router table fence, I can slip the hose for the dust collector over the clamps directly behind the cutter.  The handscrews also see a lot of use. These are the right size for a stop on the miter saw or miter gauge on the table saw. Because they are wood, they won’t cause any damage if they get nicked by a table-saw blade or a router bit while holding something small. When working on small parts, I clamp the work in the handscrew, and the handscrew in the bench vise. The jaws will swivel out of parallel to hold an odd shape or to exert pressure on a specific point.  They also work together as a team – one clamp can hold the work while the second clamp holds the first one down to any nearby surface. It’s not as good as a real vise, but if you find yourself somewhere with no vise (or no bench) you can still hold your work securely. Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of new ideas for clamping work. Some are silly enough to dismiss out of hand, but others have looked promising enough to try. I keep going back to these old favorites. Maybe the best part is you get to go like this:  – Robert Lang
Read other entries by Robert W. Lang
Thursday, August 09, 2007 4:42:21 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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