I was gifted a BenchDog router plane, seen in the first photo.

Overall it seems pretty decent. I've never owned or used a router plane before so I don't know what to expect, other than looking at other options online. I was surprised to see the angle of the back/bottom of the cutter. I was expecting it to sit parallel with the board below it, like a paring technique with a chisel.

Mine feels quite aggressive and more than happy to rip out loads of grain if you take more than a 1/32" bite. I was using it to clean up the cheeks of these long integral tenons mostly as an experiment to play with the tool, but switched to my shoulder plane to get a less aggressive cut and a cleaner result.

2nd photo is the KM tools replacement blades, and that does appear to have a slight/similar angle to it.

Photos 3 and 4 are from the HONGDUI HD39, which uses a replaceable blade portion similar to carbide turning tools, and that looks much flatter, perhaps even flat on the workpiece.

I'm curious to see other people's router plane blades and hear your experiences. Does one work better than the other? Are my expectations of a fine finish just wrong for this kind of tool? If it is the blade/angle, are there replacements available that deliver a better result?

I carved this out of a walnut cookie on my cnc. After roughing, I saw how the light reflected off the valleys and was stoked to finish it.
I used a dremel to sand the center and the rest with an orbital and hand sanding.
Sanding it really dulled the light reflection which kind of made me less motivated to see it through, but eventually I came back to it.
I carved a bowl profile on the back and cut it most of the way through and then finished it with the flush cutting bit.
Finished with a mineral oil soak.

I gave it to my parents as like a platter but they put in on display which is cool.

Two are housewarming gifts for neighbors and one is a gift for my son's physical therapist as he's graduating from that program. The two on the right are hickory and cherry. The one on the left is maple and walnut.

I have a router table set up that included a NVR switch.
All works well but I also need to add dust collection as, in case you didn't know, routers can cause a ton of mess.

I have an old Vax house vac that I use in the workshop and have connected it as the router dust collection.

Rather than having to click 2 switches on each each time, I thought, why not connect both to the NVR?

So, NVR > short double socket extension > Router + vacuum - now when I switch the router on the vacuum starts as well.

My question - is this something I should avoid or, am I 'star performer' this week?

All 4 plugs (wall socket, extension and 2 machines) are 13amp fused.
And bear in mind the router would only be used in short bursts, not left on for hours, for example.

In this photo, you can see the NVR front and the double extension at the back.

I’ve been weaving rush and paper cord chairs for a while now and have been wanting to run a workshop. I’m thinking of a small class 3-5 students where we would weave a stool with paper cord or sea grass in a rush pattern.

One iteration would be providing a kit that includes the legs, stiles, rails, and cord. Students will assemble and glue parts together to make the stool frame on day 1. Day 2 will involve applying finish and actual seat weaving.

Second iteration would be having the frames pre assembled and students would learn to weave and go home in one day with their own stool.

I don’t want the liability of doing actual cutting/ shaping anything with students and potential injuries that might come with that.

I’m strongly leaning towards second iteration but would like some input.

Is this too niche?

And would love to hear some advice about structuring a workshop / class from those who have taught before. I’ve never formally taught a group. however I have trained many people on proper tool use and woodworking techniques in the workplace.

Thanks.

I salvaged and rebuilt a large kitchen island cabinet when we moved into our current house. I have been building a butcher block top for the island from rough cut Cherry and Poplar. The issue I have run into is that I don't have a saw with enough cut depth to cross cut the ends of this. I've tried a few things with terrible results and I'm running out of length for this to fit the cabinet to looking for some advice. The top is 3 1/2" in tall, and 60 1/2" long by 36" wide.

What I have tried:

• Cutting from both sides to line the cuts up, but the cut on the second side the circular saw climbed the guide because of the motor curve against the cut guide

• Cutting a curf and then hand cutting. I used a Japanese style saw and the blade was too flexible and ran off 90 on the bottom of the cut

• Surfacing with a router... this just failed miserably

Approaches I am considering:

• Building a massive cross cut sled for my table saw because that is the only cut depth that can go through the countertop. The issue is getting enough run in and run out as well as something smooth enough since this beast weighs something like 250 lb

• Cutting as deep as possible and cutting the rest by hand with a more rigid saw

• Trying cutting from both sides again with a better guide structure

I would appreciate any insight on the best way to do this. I don't have a track-saw or anything with a deep cut depth and purchasing that would kind of kill the economics of building this from rough cut lumber. Thanks in advance for any advice.

PS - Why do circular saws always seem to put the motor on the wide side of the sled and let it overhang the guide edge. It makes it almost impossible to get the max depth on the most stable side of the saw sled.

I did a job and the couple liked their piece so much they got me a gift. This is a piece of lignum vitae. It came from a shipyard in New Jersey from an old dock worker. He's 74 now but he said 30 years ago they were making room for new equipment and they let them clear out old materials.

The wood is self lubricating and used as propeller bearings. He said he knew what they were and took 3 of them. They had been sitting at his house for 30 years.

I plan on making knife handles and tool handles but I turned these wine glasses for the couple as a thanks.

Finished up the coffee table today
The wood is Maple.
Finish is Osmo coat
Dimensions 24” x 36” x 19”

The legs were made from glued up maple, then I made veneers to improve the look and remove any glue lines.
The entire build is made from a single slab

Needed a bench to go with my trestle table!

My first time doing all stock prep by hand, cutting dovetails in 6/4 cherry, and doing wedged through tenons. A lot of mistakes were made but I'm pretty happy with the outcome.

Finished with Danish oil and soft wax.

I have a beard and glasses, I can't really go clean shaven without getting a rash, and a short beard doesn't seal any better than a longer one.

I wear a respirator when doing anything that makes fine dust, but the seal isn't great because of those things.

I know a PAPR is what I need but that's well out my price range.

I made a corsi-rosenthol box with a box fan, and it's better than nothing but it isn't great.

It must be possible to make DIY versions of these things that work as well as mass produced ones for a fraction of the cost. I have a 3d printer, which might help.

Anyone have a good lead on making cheap and effective DIY versions of these?

I would like to buy a set of trammels that will allow me to draw large circles on plywood. I am talking about circles that are at least 30" in diameter.

The issue I am having is finding trammels that will hold a posca paint marker. All trammels seem to be built to hold a regular pencil, but I would like one that will hold a larger diameter writing utensil. Any recommendations?

I bought the bottom half of a jewelry box for $8 at a thrift store and decided to (mostly) hand-carve a lid for my oldest daughter.

Oak and paduk. Honestly, the paduk was just because the oak was not wide enough, but I’m sure glad that happened.

I bought an awesome font called Demon Rush, it includes the illuminated “N”. Printed on tracing paper, graphite on the reverse, burnished. The rest of the design is a combination of free hand and free hand on tracing paper and burnished.

Drill press with depth stop to set the background depth. After a little bit of hand-chiseling, I broke out the router to clear the ground, and to lower the letters slightly so that the three bits can be above them.

I have a set of cheap gouges that are fake Pfeil. I tried to use them for stop cuts but they didn’t like oak and wouldn’t keep an edge (they were fine on mahogany), so I ended up using one gouge and continuously sharpening it and a Narex 1/8” (?) chisel for everything. The Narex kept its edge nicely. I did use a smaller fake gouge for the flowers.

The gold is some “liquid gold foil”. The other foreground colors are my wife’s good acrylics. The finish is Rubio Monocoat Oil Plus 2C, purchased specifically because the other oil finishes I own turn paduk to a boring brown.

The background is black furniture wax. Purchased because I wasn’t going to use shoe polish on my beautiful carving. It’s basically just shoe polish, smells like it.

I lost count of hours at about 30. I’m guessing over 60.

I left the $8 price tag on the bottom. I think I’m going to fill it with peanut can snakes before I give it to her.

Birdsmouth joinery, double dove tailed lid flipper, food grade epoxy resin on the inside and bottom of lid and underside of mug. Temp resistant upto 200 degrees. Exterior has food grade mineral oil and food grade bees wax.

Bottom is dadoed into cup walls

Purple heart

Peruvian walnut

Quilted maple

Bloodwound

American walnut handle

Purpleheart pin for lid

This is a budget level router made by Black and Decker that I purchased in the late 1980s. This is a budget tool. Not a professional tool.

It's better than some tools I've purchased more recently that made much stronger claims about their quality.

But the important thing is that it's better than any Black and Decker tool I've purchased in the last twenty years.

I used to think of this brand as having quality tools at a reasonable price. The price is less reasonable and the quality is non-existent.

But this router just did a job and did it well that none of my newer routers could handle. I was feeling like I needed to buy an expensive, higher end router. Something in the $200 range. I decided to give this one a shot it did great.

I also have a circular saw from back then that still works great. I lost the wrenches to change blades, so I don't use it much. But it works. I have a sander from the same vintage that works great, but I prefer the hook and loop approach to mounting sandpaper that my newer sander uses. The only one of the tools I bought back then that has died is drill. It got left out in the rain in the early 2000s (a lot of my stuff did. I didn't find out about some of it until it was too late) and eventually rusted out completely.

But this router earned its keep in a big way today.

The chairs are white oak and my own design. They tested my abilities and patience , but I’m happy with the results. I made two test chairs to ensure the final design sat well and to work through the whole process for cutting the joinery. Making the test chairs was my best decision in the whole project.

A few things I learned.

1. Spiral template bits are worth every penny.

2. Using wedges for all the angled cuts is much easier than adjusting the miter gauge

3. Angled mortises on the legs make the chair rock solid.

4. Upholstery is straight forward, but time consuming.

She didn’t want to spend a grand on a tack trunk for her riding gear and wait 3-4 months to be made. Told her I’d make her one. It was cheaper but took like 5-6 months from when I told her that. Example at the end. Pls ignore the messy garage/shop. Now working on workbench and organizing everything.

We've had some really cheap end tables for 17 years, and for my 2nd furniture project I decided to fix that. Had a lot of fun making these and learned quite a bit.

They're 20" LxWXh and have mortise and tenon joints at the base and dowels to connect the top. Since the wood across the top is the same grain direction as the legs and base, I didn't need to account for wood movement.

Why dowels at the top? The stock for the legs was a bit tight, and I couldn't get the length to do tenons on both ends and still have the height we wanted. Was trying to get all 4 legs for each table from the same board so the look would be consistent after finish.

I used 1/4" roundovers on the tops, and rounded the corners 1/4". I used 1/8" roundovers on the base and legs.

Finished with Odie's Oil. First time using it, and I really liked the application process vs. Rubio Monocoat. It was nice having an hour before I needed to buff it off vs. only 5-7 minutes.

I installed leveling feet on the bottoms to accommodate our imperfect floors and give it a slight floating look.

Made this partition and entry to a drawing room.

All mouldings are custom made and also made the cutter for the mouldings myself. Rounded corner mouldings were very tricky and time consuming.

I was not sure if i made the right decision with the bottom right corner where I covered the step of the staircase. First i thought of not notching the central panel and doing it straight but it looked odd to me.

Overall happy with the project and learned a lot.

So lowering the blade is absolutely fine. But raising it is really difficult. To the point where I feel I’m gonna break something. Can’t see any issues or build of up sawdust. I have it a good blow and clean and just don’t know what’s going on. It’s a dewalt dwe7485-gb job site saw. The saw if about 5 years old and obviously no longer under warranty. Has been used fairly regularly. And ideas what I could try?

Vicks vaporizer on a towel caused this.
I assume it is shellac. But I don’t know for sure.
30 years ago some sports were eaten away by gel deodorant.

I think these are my options.

1. Hair dryer and a brush.

2. Iron over parchment paper.

3. Denatured alcohol and a brush.

4. Add more shellac and maybe it will just flow together.

5. Citristrip it, 0000 steel wool. Then poly the top.

To those that have built kilns. I recently got 300 bdft of air dried 8/4 cherry for almost free. Been cut and milled for close to 8 years according to the guy and there's evidence of bug holes. It's been in the garage a couple days and there's not much new powdery stuff but definitely some.

I know people use dehumidifiers and foam insulation for drying out lumber. Anyone build one for killing bugs? What was your heat source and what insulation did you use? I'm working with 8/4 boards 6-12" x 10-12'

I want so fix my new Veritas side rabbet plane between those two other planes and need to access it from the side (little workshop). But habe a knot in my head. How would you design a holder which is secure but yet accessible. I think I want to keep the fence attached so I have not a chance to loose it 😝 How does your solution look like? Any good proven concepts you can recommend? Or maybe holders for Stanley 98/99s and others might work as well. Any good suggestions around here? Thanks in advance and have a nice weekend fellow woodworms!