Intro to Woodworking Machines – WOOD magazine

[Music] can I tell you why I love woodworking it’s because I’m always learning something new I’m developing a new skill or finding a different way to do something plus I enjoy that feeling of accomplishment I get when a projects complete and frankly I enjoy the occasional compliment for my wife and friends now even though everyone on the wood magazine staff has been woodworking for quite a while we all remember what it was like when we were starting out we had tons of questions about all the machinery that’s involved in this hobby what does that do you know how do you use that safely do I need one of everything I see in the catalogues well during this video I’m gonna provide you with the information that it took us years to learn so I’ll walk you through the stationery tools you see in a typical woodworking shop now you don’t need all of these to get started at once but once you know what each of these tools does it’s easier to decide which ones you need the type of work you want to do now before we start on the tools themselves I want to point out a very useful accessory mobile bases these allow you to easily move tools around in your shop and makes most of whatever space you have available a lot of shops have to share a space with the car and the kids bikes and the lawn mower so mobile bases lets you push your tools out of the way when you’re not using them the table saw is really the heart of this job you end up doing all awful lot of work on the table saw cutting pieces to length cutting them to width first part of the table so I want to talk about is the guard here over the blade and the primary reason I want to talk about it first is I’ve got to get it out of here so you can see what’s going on so first you’ve got a plastic blade guard that covers the blade prevents you from getting your fingers in the way accidentally this can be lifted out of the way you have to anti-kickback Pauls that are spring-loaded here you notice these have some nasty looking teeth on them those are designs so that if the blade should grab it and try to kickback those teeth will dig in and prevent that from happening the third part is really this portion here right behind the blade that’s called a splitter as you make your cut that cut is called a saw kerf the kerf will straddle this splitter helping keep the board from pinching down the back side of the blade thereby again helping reduce and prevent kickback so I’m gonna take the guard off now but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna be working without any type of protection whatsoever I’m going to install what is called a riving knife most of the newer saws now come with actual all-new saws now come with a riving knife and it installs right behind the blade the purpose of a riving knife is simply to keep the kerf open as you make a cut and to prevent the board from shifting toward the back of the blade where it can be lifted and kicked back toward you so now I’ve got the riving knife installed you can see a lot better while I’ll be doing here on the table saw and I’ve still got a level of protection in place so let’s talk about what a table saw is and what you can do with it obviously you’ve got the big table here this one is cast-iron sometimes the wings he’ll be made of steel but typically the center portion is almost always cast-iron below that is a 10 inch circular saw blade you can raise that blade with this crank in the front to cut through thicker and thinner materials depending on how thick it is and then on the side is a another crank that allows you to tilt your blade and you can tilt it up to 45 degrees then there also stops here at 0 and 45 so once you tilt it you can easily bring it back to a perfect vertical position two primary jobs a table saw are cutting pieces to width and to length cutting a piece to length taking something off the end this is called cross-cutting cutting across the grain the other function is ripping for ripping you’re cutting with the grain and let me know you never make a cut freehand on the table saw every cut you make on the table saw has to be guided by one of two things either the miter gauge for a crosscut or in the case of a rip cut you bring the RIP fence over lock it in place and the piece rides against the RIP fence as you make your cut to width to crosscut apiece mark the leading edge at the desired length transfer the mark down the edge of the board so you can align it with the blade set the blade height about one quarter inch higher than the thickness of the workpiece next I add an extension to the miter gauge this gives me a cleaner cut by preventing chip out on the back edge it also helps push the cut off past the blade align the mark with the edge of a tooth then make the cut after making the cut let the blade come to a complete stop before retrieving the pieces to make an angled crosscut called a miter simply pivot the miter gauge head to the desired angle and tighten the handle to hold it in place then move the workpiece past the blade just like with a regular crosscut for a rip cut set the RIP fence to the desired width and lock it in place by pressing down on a handle have a push stick handy to keep your hands safely away from the blade during the cut push the board straight forward keeping it pressed against the fence [Music] when ripping long pieces position an outfeed support to help keep the piece from lifting off the table at the end of the cut the support should be just below the table height so the workpiece doesn’t bump into it so we’ve seen the basics of how to make a crosscut using the miter gauge and how to make rip cuts using the RIP fence there is another basic to know about the table saw and that is that you never use the miter gauge and the RIP fence together to make a through cut here’s the reason why if you’ve made your cut and the cut off is sitting here while the blade is spinning it’s trapped between the RIP fence and the blade and the blade is it gets toward the back that blade can catch it lift the back side and throw it back at you and the top portion of this blade is spinning at over 120 miles an hour this will kick back faster than you have time to realize what’s happening a very dangerous situation so never use the miter gauge and the RIP fence together to make a crosscut but here’s a little trick let’s use something very similar without any danger get a piece of scrap about one inch thick and clamp it to your RIP fence ahead of the blade let’s say I want to cut a piece that’s three inches long since I’ve made right rip fence essentially one inch fatter I’m gonna set my gauge my I’m gonna set my scale here to four inches instead of three then I install my riving knife again plug the saw in I’ll make the cut now to make the cut I simply push my workpiece up against block here [Music] now even though the blade is spinning down there’s room for that piece to be nudged to suicide just a little bit and with the riving knife in place even if it was behind the blade the riving knife will prevent it from getting into those back teeth that are rising toward me so use this little block technique and you can cut pieces to exact same length over and over again a lot of woodworkers say if they could only have one saw it would be the bandsaw and the reason is it does so many jobs it can rip it can crosscut but what it really excels at is cutting curves and also in Reese on the bandsaw gets its name from the blade that’s used on it there’s a continuous loop blade that goes around if we yell at the top and a wheel down below and as those wheels spin the blade goes downward through the table and that’s where of course where your cut is made to help guide the blade there are guides above and below the table this particular saw has bearings on either side of the blade to help prevent it from flexing side to side on some saws you’ll see a little cube type blocks instead of bearings to help guide the blade in this direction behind the blade there’s what’s called a thrust bearing and this prevents the blade from being pushed too far backwards and you have a set of these above the table and also a set below the table you want to set the bearings above the table as close as possible to your workpiece so that the guide is right above your workpiece and preventing any Flex than it can band saws are referred to in sizes in inch sizes 14 inch 16 inch 18 inch and so forth that refers to the distance between the blade and the column here in other words the widest piece you can get between the blade and the column this is a 14 inch bandsaw 14 inch and 16 inch your most common in home workshops we’ve set up this saw with an aftermarket table that gives you a much larger work area and it also comes with this fence that’s of course will guide pieces past the blade as you’re making a cup but there is some adjustability that’s typical of bandsaw offenses and as you need to the bandsaw and I’ll show you what that adjustability is by first making a freehand cut I’m gonna stop right here because what’s happening is the piece is not going truly through on the straight line it’s I need to kick the piece just a little bit to compensate for what’s called blade drift and this fence allows me to compensate for that blade drift as I bring it over I hold this piece steady you can see that there’s a gap that gets larger and larger this fence allows me to kick the back end of the fence over that direction instead of following the line you can simply follow the fence with the bandsaw you can take the fence off entirely and make freehand cuts it’s really a fairly safe saw as long as you know what you’re doing in fact you can even start a cut if partway through it and let go since the blade is traveling downward it always keeps the piece more or less pinned to the table and you can stop make an adjustment keep cutting now the other thing about bandsaw safety you want to be aware of where the blade exits the work pieces you get the end of a cut you don’t want to be pushing back here as the blade comes in use a push stick to finish up the cut and or reach behind and pull from behind [Music] as I said one of the specialties of a bandsaw is the ability to cut curves I find the best way to cut a smooth curve is to move the piece at an even pace looking just ahead of where the blade is cutting kind of like looking down the road when you’re driving another bandsaw specialty is resaw that is cutting a thick board into thinner stop with the narrow curve of a bandsaw blade it’s an efficient way to make thin stock without turning a good portion of the board into sawdust you want a wide blade for this job and speaking of blade widths the most common blade widths used on a 14 inch bandsaw are 1/8 1/4 1/2 and 3/4 of an inch narrow blades cut tighter curves wider blades make truer cuts in thick stock proper blade tension is key to getting good results turning a knob on top of the saw adjusts the tension you must set it to match the size of the blade this mattered on the Sault wider blades get more tension this is the miter saw oftentimes called a chop saw it’s a favorite tool among finish carpenters they will take it to the job site so they can cut molding and trim as they’re trimming out a house and it’s also very common in woodworking shops in the woodworking shop all it really does is a variety of different cross cuts in a straight cross cut the piece is cut square to the edge pivoting the head in either direction produces a miter cut tilting the head produces a bevel cut tilting and pivoting the head produces a compound miter cut this particular saw this is a 10-inch compound miter saw it’s a compound miter because as you see it can cut with a miter and a bevel at the same time a compound cut this is 10 inches because it uses a 10-inch saw blade and it just pivots from a single point in the back to drop down into the workpiece to make the cut you can also get a 12 inch compound miter saw and that of course has a 12 inch blade the other type of saw is a sliding compound miter saw and that’s more like this one this is a 12 inch sliding compound miter saw what a sliding compound miter saw brings to the equation is the ability to slide this 12 inch saw has a 13 inch cross cut capacity which is a little more than typical about 12 and a half to 13 inches is about what you’ll get in crosscut capacity with a slider now using a sliding compound miter saw is a little bit different than you’ll see with a regular compound miter saw here you pull it out to the full length of travel lower the head just above your workpiece start the saw and then push it back through for the cut like this miter saw has really needs some sort of outfeed support when you’re lurking with the longer pieces not gonna be as nice as the cabinets that we had on either side of that 10-inch saw we saw a moment ago or it could be a commercially purchased stand like this one here we have rollers that slide out to give you plenty of outfeed support when you put a long piece up there now you’ve got plenty room out there when the cut is made it’s not going to flop off another option is if you just have a temporary need for some outfeed support so you’re at a job site or just making a few quick cuts you can set the saw on a bench and then use some scraps on either side to support your cut-offs a 12 inch compound miter saw has a crosscut capacity of about 8 inches and a 10-inch compound miter saw like this one has a crosscut capacity about five and a half now it might seem like bigger is always better but really for woodworking you can get by very well for most of the cuts you’ll ever need to do with a 10-inch or 12-inch compound miter saw so you can save yourself some money buying a little smaller saw plus you don’t have to worry so much about that extra space you need behind this off or that sliding action let’s talk a little bit about using the saw safely when you’re making a cut you want to make sure of course to keep your fingers out of the harm’s way out of the way of the blade quick trick I can show you to make sure you always do that is when you grab your workpiece to hold it on the table just take your pinkie hook it on the end of the fence now your hand can’t possibly get anywhere near where that blades gonna go so just hook your pinky secure your workpiece and then make your cut once you’ve got the blade down and you’ve made your cut hold that head down there until the blade stops spinning and then raise it up allowing that blade to stop spinning before you bring the head back up reduces your exposure to that spinning blade plus it also improves the quality of your woodworking because you’re not bringing a spinning blade back up through the workpiece which could cause chip out on this top face when you’re cross cutting lumber that may not be perfectly straight you want to make sure you don’t have a gap between the lumber and the fence the reason there’s a rotation of that blade to pull the lumber up against the fence and as it cuts through as you’re pushing against there the blade may cause that kerf to close a little bit bind around the blade and it can cause the head of the saw to kick up a little bit easy way to cure that is simply turn the piece over now I’ve got that bow back there it’s tight against the fence before it makes contact with the blade other thing to consider is does it crown up off the table for the same reason this one has a little bit of a crown here so I’d like to flip that upside down I’ll keep this edge against the fence now I can hold that down and cut that safely it’s tight against the fence it’s tight to the table on some cuts they’re a little bit awkward and the temptation is to get your hands where they shouldn’t be it sometimes it’s your want to hold here and move the saw with this well never cross your hands this hand is in the path of the blade if you need an extra hand for some of these jobs so let’s come with hold down and this simply drops into a hole behind the fence and then you can pivot it closer to the blade then you would want to put your fingers a couple twists of the screw and that firmly holds your workpiece to the table so you can make the cut keeping your hands where they should be safely – saws are great for making all kinds of cross cuts one thing to know though if you go out to buy a miter saw it’s probably going to come with the blade that it’s better suited for the construction site for guys that are chopping two by fours and two by sixes get yourself a good quality sixty tooth or 80 tooth blade that’s designed for a miter saw and for wood work and get yourself a lot cleaner cuts with a sixty or eighty tooth blade a lot of woodworkers when they’re starting out they go to the Home Center and they buy the pre milled lumber like this one by four and that’s very convenient but it can get a little bit expensive and you’re kind of limited in the types of species you can use if you want to broaden your horizons so to speak final white a variety of species you can build from and perhaps even save a little money you might consider instead going to buying rough sawn lumber like this to bring rough sawn lumber like this into pieces you can use in your projects you need to flatten it and square it up and bring it to a consistent thickness that’s where the jointer comes in it’s the first machine used in this process the joinery is really a fairly simple machine take the guard off here and I’ll show you all there really is of the jointer is an infeed table a cutter head here that has knives in it and an outfeed table the outfeed table is set so that it is exactly as high as the knives where there are the highest point of their rotation the infeed table is set just a little bit below the knives so as the cutter head spins the workpiece is fed across there the knives take a little bite off the board and that newly jointed face then rides on the outfeed table as you complete the cut I’ll put the cutter guard back on I’ll show you how it works look at the end of the board and you can see the gap between the bottom face and the outfeed table caused by the crown in the board and listen closely you can hear spots where the cut is lighter than heavy that’s because some spots don’t make contact with the cutter head yet while others do after one pass you can see where cuts were made and where there’s still work to be done marking the face with chalk shows us better [Music] [Music] [Music] I’ve got this one serviced pretty close I’ve got one small area up here that still needs to be flattened out a little bit but I’m not gonna worry about that for the time being I’ll take care of that with a planer later now that I’ve got one face that is flat I want to join one edge so it is square to that face and that’s the other thing that jointer does very well this fence is set exactly 90 degrees to the cutters so when I run my freshly jointed face up against that fence and joint this edge those two surfaces end up perfectly ninety degrees to each other as when joining the face you can hear where the knives cut the low spots and miss the high spots [Music] [Music] so there I have two faces ready to go this edge is flat and this edge is at a perfect 90 degrees to this face the next step in the process is to finish up the opposite face and the remaining edge and those two jobs are done at the planer and the table saw this is a thickness planer this is the second machine you use when you’re bringing stock to be straight flat and square for use in a project its job is to bring material as his name says to a consistent thickness this is built kind of opposite from the jointer in the jointer the cutter head was down below here the cutter head is suspended up above there is a pressure roller or a feed roller on either side of that cutter head they kind of have a little rubber grip and they grip and pull the piece through the cutter head and at the same time they press it flat to the table that’s one of the reasons you need a flat face here to feed in through if you had a cupped piece that you’re feeding through the planer those pressure rollers can actually press that cup out of the board it planes it and then as soon as it gets to the opposite side and the presser pressure rollers release the board it springs back in a cup and now you’ve got a board that’s consistently thick but it’s also cupped so you need to plane one face flat or joint one face flat first and now you’re ready to feed things into the thickness planer a lot of thickness planers these days have what is called a thickness gauge so you can tell before you begin the cut about how much stock you’re going to remove about 1/32 of an inch sixteenth of an inch is a pretty healthy cut the wider your board the less material you want to remove in each cut to adjust the height of the cutter head there’s a crank up above crank it one way to raise the cutter head crank it the opposite you see the cut head start to come down and the gauge will rise a little bit we’ll just go about about 1/32 of an inch for our removal operation the machine is really pretty automatic start it up feed the board in the pressure rollers grab it and pull it through out the other side [Music] it’s easy to see where the face has yet to be planed like along this edge so lower the cutter head and feed the board through again one last pass takes care of the entire width of the board now I’ve got a piece that is a consistent thickness it’s flat on both faces and I’ve got one edge that is perfectly Square to both those faces all I’d have to do now is take this to the table saw and I’ve got a good true edge to run against my rip fence drift this piece to final width this is the drill press now the drill press is really a pretty simple machine use it for drilling holes as you might suspect let’s talk about the mechanics of the drill press first then we’ll show you a little bit of what it can do at the back here you’ve got a motor that is suspended from the back of the assembly and that’s attached to a series of pulleys and the pulleys of course are connected by belts and by changing the arrangement of the belts on the pulleys you can change the speed of your drill bit this one has as most do has a very nice handy chart inside to show you which arrangement of belts and pulleys gives you what speed and this one goes from about 340 rpm up to 2800 rpm down here is the chuck this should look familiar we’ve never seen a handheld drill this is the part that holds the actual bit and like some of the handheld drills this one opens with a key insert the drill bit snug it up and it’s ready to go some models also offer keyless Chuck’s you can just tighten them with twists of your hands this assembly raises and lowers a drill bit raises and lowers what’s after this whole assemblies call the quill so you’ve got that travel so you can drive the bit straight down into your work and then on the left side here there’s a column and this one has a screw type stop on it you dial these down to a specific depth and now when you go with your travel is limited so you can drill a hole of a limited depth that’s called a counter bore so if you don’t wanna drill all the way through a piece this stops the bit before it gets through this particular model is a floor type drill press floor standing drill press it’s pretty obvious where that name comes from insist on the floor the other type that is available is a benchtop drill press it would typically have a foot at about this level and you would set that on top of a bench for work a bench top drill press might be the best place for you to get into a drill press if you’re doing woodworking the floor standing model offers a whole lot more capacity to get the table down so you can get a larger workpiece between the table and the bit but for most of the jobs you’re gonna do in woodworking a bench top drill press will cover you and they’re a little less expensive on most drill presses you’ll see a geared assembly like this handle spin the handle and you can set the table and whatever height you want and then tighten the handle to lock it in place tables will also pivot so you can just move it out of the way if needed and you can tilt it raises back up to where you can get to it by loosening a bolt down here you can then pivot the table and there’s a gauge here to show you how much your tilt is and there’s one final control down here pinches the table in place so you can rotate it if that’s needed now a table does an awful lot but frankly this is one of the shortcomings of the drill press because this works fine for metalworking which is where the drill press originated but if you want to improve your drill press for woodworking one of the best things you can do is at a table this is one that was featured in wood magazine drill press table offers several advantages number one you’ve got this much larger work surface so it’s you can more easily support larger work pieces like you would have and when you’re building a cabinet or something I think one of the best features if you have the opportunity for this dad this fence here that you can clamp in position and move work pieces along now you can drill holes that are consistently spaced from the edge of a workpiece and drill here here and here also gives you a better margin of safety as you’re working if the bit should catch in a piece it’s not going to spin because it’s pressed up against the fence this one also offers extendable wings you can clamp stop blocks here so you can move a piece out and always drill holes in the same please feet in the same place on multiple work pieces when you’re using a drill press really very simple I’ve got this piece that I’m going to say this is the side of a cabinet I’ve got shelf pins measured out specific distance I’m going to position these under the drill press my first mark whoops that looks like a bit of a problem my handle is hitting my fence but that’s really not because these handles are designed to unscrew for that very reason just set that on the side and now I have my travel that I need so I’m on my first mark position the fence and lock it down now I can start drilling holes since I don’t want these holes to go all the way through I’m gonna use my stop over here just make them just a quarter of an inch deep I just show you how deep that’s going to go that’s how deep the drill bit will be when it hits the stop so all my holes would be of consistent depth [Music] so you can see how I can keep moving down the line and drilling holes let’s say I did want to drill through holes here I’ll just take my stop up so it’s out of play I don’t want to drill through and drill into my table so take a piece of scrap put it underneath there now when I drill through I’m drilling into the scrap and not my table [Music] the other thing that backerboard does for you is gives you a nice clean back on on your holes let me show you another neat trick that your drill press can do this is a drum sander you can take this and put it in place of a drill bit and turn your drill press into a drum sander for sanding curves I’ve got a project right have a cut out like this you can see where my pencil line is I’ve rough cut that on the scroll saw and then I need to stand up to this line while doing that by hand would be very tedious and probably not really exact with a drum sander in the drill press turn this on [Music] and I’m getting very close to my layout lines there I’d like to be able to freehand this so I can use the full surface of the sanding drum like this but once I get close to the edge I want to make sure my edge here is 90 degrees to this face so to accomplish that on a clamp of scrap just in front of the sanding drum here slip my workpiece in and raise the table so it just catches the drop now I can finish up resting this on the piece here I’ll end up with a server that is 90 degrees to the face only one do this for the end begin the one drawback is I’m using just a portion of the sanding drum here but this will give me a nice square surface one of the strengths of the drill press is you can use bits you wouldn’t want to use in a handheld drill this is a wing cutter it spins around here and cuts perfect circles and you can cut rather sizable circles by adjusting this arm in and out in the case like this I’ve got a piece that I can’t use the fence the piece extends too far back so I can’t use the fence to brace it against I want to make sure this piece stays put and with this thing spinning around I really don’t want my hands anywhere near this so I need to clamp the piece in place I’ve got a backer board between my table and the workpiece so when the bit pokes through won’t tear up my drill press table clamp the workpiece in place make sure the tables locked in place and we’re ready to go a wing cutter should run at very slow speeds [Music] so there we have a perfectly circular opening and if perhaps you’re making wheels for a toy project you’ve also got perfectly circular cutouts there is another type of large bit that drill presses handle quite easily they also cut circles they are not as adjustable as the wing cutters in fact they’re not adjustable at all they are at fixed diameters these are called hole saws you take a look at the teeth on that you can see where they’re called hole saws it’s just like a series of saw teeth around the perimeter with a drill bit in the middle to guide now those aggressive teeth on a hole saw here again those teeth can grab hold of the piece and spin it around if it’s not clamped down so you want to clamp your workpiece securely in place that’s what doesn’t come spinning back on you also a bit you run at slow speed [Music] when you compare a drill press to the alternative which is probably a handheld drill there really is no comparison with the drill press you get so much more power you get accuracy and your get repeatability it really deserves a place in your woodworking shop next couple tools I want to talk about our types of Sanders now what you see here is not the type of sander you would use to smooth out panels and other project parts for a piece of furniture that you’d use a random orbit sander such as this for that type of work these Sanders are really meant more for reshaping of project parts in the middle you got a motor and then there’s a shaft at each end that drives two different types of sandwich on that end is a disc sander we’ll talk about that in a moment we’ll start over here with the belt sander belt sander simply runs downward like this when the motors and is turned on [Music] the table tilts or can be set at 90 degrees to the Bell now one of the best uses for a belt sander like this is simply smoothing out perhaps finishing up the edges of a piece you’ve gone through a table saw or bandsaw me and have a little burn mark on the edge of a piece the belt disc sander like this will quickly take off that little bit of burn mark the table has a slot in it and that accepts a miter gauge that’s real convenient when you’re doing for example the ends of narrow pieces like this you can keep that workpiece Square to the belt as you stand it [Music] it also allows you to work back and forth across the full width of the belt making better use of your material it’s also very useful I think probably I use mine most for smoothing out curved project parts when you have a project part that needs to be cut to a curve typically it’ll be rough sawn at the bandsaw and then you’ll bring it back over to a the belt sander to finish it up sanding up to the line so running as quickly as it does that built sander removes stock quickly and gets me write down my liens taking care you still see a few of the bandsaw marks but not nearly as pronounced as they are down this edge that I have not yet sanded it don’t gives you a lot of a lot more area a lot of straight area here you can work back and forth as it rotates around you have a lot more area you can work on so it doesn’t clog nearly as quickly there are times that the the disk portion of the sander is a little more convenient one of the advantages you have with a disc sander is you’ve got a circle so the outside edge is spinning more quickly than that part closest to the middle so you can adjust your workpiece to where you need it on on there depending on how quickly you want to remove stock or perhaps how prone it is to burning if you have a species that’s likely to burn you would work closer to the middle where the speed is slower if you need some aggressive stock removal work out here towards the edge now notice this little arrow here this shows you the rotation of the disk you always want to work so that the disk is pressing downward keeping your workpiece on the table they can see how quickly that remove stock [Music] so even though we start out ruffcut with just a few seconds here at the disc sander we can bring this curve right up to where it should be both of these tables also tilt so if you want to sandor it bevel or a chamfer on a piece you can simply raise or lower the table [Music] now belt disc sander works great when you’re working on outside crews or outside edges like you like on this piece but what if you have a cut out like here you can’t use that on the belt disc sander that’s where an oscillating spindle sander is nice to have here you’ve got a drum that runs up and down and it’s oscillate like this so you’re using more of the drum surface you can typically take this put it on here and now you can work on inside shapes oscillating spindle sander typically come for the variety of drum sizes you want to use the largest diameter drum that you can for the curve at hand for this inside contained curve this drum almost fits the diameter and gives me a smooth transition as I sand that curve here if this were to be the apron or the base of a project I’ve got a much larger more gentle curve so I’m going to trade this out for a larger drum one thing to note is on an oscillating spindle sander this is a reverse thread so it’s not just righty-tighty it’s righty loosey you have to remember it’s backwards now the reason for that is when you get the drum in place and it starts to spin that rotation keeps the nut tight on the shaft just cinch it down that’s all there is to changing drums and now I can work along here standing up to my line oscillating spindle sander is terrific because you can work however you need to all the way around the piece that there’s a table surrounding it so whatever’s comfortable from whatever angle you’re if you have a piece that really has a severe turn to it you can stay in the same place work the piece around it’s always supported on all sides of the drum the router isn’t a stationary tool I want to talk about it because it’s really one of the most versatile tools you have in your shop first what is the router well at its heart you’ve got a motor with a shaft that extends out one end and that shaft holds a collet that holds a cutting bit now the Kaulitz come in two sizes there’s a quarter inch collet and a half inch collet and as you tighten this nothing to call it that tightens its grip around the bit holding it securely in the router bits of course will in come in quarter inch and half inch shanks if you have a choice opt for the half inch shanks the largest size this gives you more area to grip and it gives you a smoother running bit some bits you have only one option they’ll only come in a quarter inch shank typically smaller bits so if you have to have a quarter inch you have to have a quarter inch and that’s why it’s good to have both sizes of Kaulitz there are two types of routers the first is a fixed base here though as the motor fits in a base it slides up and down in that base to set your bit height and once you’ve got the bit properly set you lock it in place and now you can perform your work the other type is frankly a little more versatile for handheld work this is a plunge router you’ve got the motor and the call up a bit mounted and the collet the difference is that the motor is mounted onto two spring-loaded rods so that you can start with a bit above your work start the bit running and then plunge it into the work move it along and at the end of a cut make a clean exit by raising the bit up let me show you how these work I’ll start with a fixed base router first set how far the bit extends past the base that’s the depth of your cut to make a stop cut that is one that starts in the middle of a ward on a standard router you have to tip the router so the bit clears the workpiece then start the router and tip the router down route the end stop the router and wait for the bit to stop before lifting it up on a plunge router I set the bit by plunging the bit until it touches my bench top then locking it in place to set the depth of cut I set this stop rod so it’s the desired distance above the stop I can start the router with a bit above the workpiece plunge it straight down and lift it out of the cut at the end [Applause] [Music] let’s take a minute to talk about the router bits if you’re looking the woodworking catalogues are in stores you are going to see literally hundreds of types of profiles and it can be a little overwhelming as to which ones do you need bits fall into one of two basic categories there are those that have a bearing like this and these are meant to run along the edge of a workpiece to cut a profile for example here on this chamfer bit we’ve got the bearing that runs along the edge of the profile and as the cutter spins it makes that chamfer along the edge the other type of bit is those without a bearing here’s a V groove bit and a dovetail bit and these are meant to work in the middle of a workpiece the bearing doesn’t get in the way so if you were to plunge this into the middle you could cut a V groove here using the tip of the bit those without a bearing need to be guided in some way earlier you saw me routing the plunge cut in the middle of that board in that case the router is being guided by the straight edge to give me a straight cut now you can use these freehand if you’d like if that’s the effect you’re after for example sign makers when they’re making signs that have the letters that extend above a releaved field that’s pretty much done freehand with a straight bit in the router plunging it in and simply guiding around a pattern a handheld router is very convenient for a lot of jobs for example if we wanted to route an edge around this workbench take the router right to it and you can route all the way around this workbench there are times however where for example if you wanted to do the edge on a small piece like this trying to balance that router on there it can be a little bit iffy you don’t have much of the base resting on their router can tip gouge at the edge of your workpiece ruining it so there are times where instead of taking the router to the workpiece it’s easier to take the workpiece to the router and that’s where a router table comes in now router table the router hangs upside down below the table out into a plate like this plate goes in and that’s perfectly flush with the top of the table now you can take your workpiece and guide it past the bit you have much better control now you don’t have to worry about the bit tipping or anything the other great advantage that a router table offers is it gives you a chance to use a fence what the fence can do is slide it right up to the bit you can set the fence flush with the bearing and now you can use the fence as a bearing surface right past the bit helping you guide even a longer piece and you can take the fence even push it farther forward so that you’re using only part of the profile of a bit so for example on this bit we have a round over bit in there with just part of it exposed [Music] [Music] now one of the other advantages that a router table fence offers you is the chance to have a dust collection port on the backside and if you hook up a shop vacuum or a desk collection system to that port you can collect a lot of the chips that are made before they ever hit your shop floor [Music] but so far I’ve been routing the long edges of a workpiece routing around the end of a narrow end of a piece requires a little bit different technique if you try to move it past a bit like this it’s probably gonna wobble not really terribly safe instead you can just grab a piece of scrap out of your scrap bin put it against the fence and hold your workpiece against the scrap and the fence and I’ve got a much steadier assembly to go past the bit [Music] and in addition that workpiece that scrap backs up the cut so you get a very nice clean exit at the back of the cut so that’s just a little bit of what you can do with a router table you can see it’s a real valuable item to have in your woodworking shop now as you’re shopping for a router consider using it in a router table and frankly the best router to put into a router table is a fixed base the reason for that is you’re not fighting those spring-loaded rods when it comes time to make bit height adjustments so does that mean you need two routers will fixed base to put in your router table and a plunge router to do your handheld work well not necessarily there’s a bit of a compromise a solution to that that is the combination kit with a combination kit you get one motor and two bases a plunge base and a fixed base since you’re only using one at a time anyway this can be a great way for you to spend just a little bit more than the price of a single router and really get to keep the fixed base mounted on your router table put the motor in there when you need it and when you need handheld work that plunge router is better suited for you’ve got that if your disposal – if you’d like to find more free videos about what router can do for you visit our website Wood magazine comm as you look at these projects that are spread out here on the bench would you believe they’re all done on the same tool that tool is the lathe they were all turned from squares and larger chunks of wood into these shapes you see here salt and pepper shakers platters lamps these are all things you can play it’s a way you can express your artistic side of woodworking if you will so let’s take an introduction to the lathe the lathe is really a fairly simple machine you’ve got this long bed here iron bed underneath this is the motor and the motor drives the headstock there’s a set of pulleys down here and up in the headstock connected by a belt similar to what you’d find on a drill press and when you flip on the motor the headstock spins you can adjust the speed on the lathe that’s similar to what you do with the drill press by changing the position of the belt on the pulleys this particular model has very nice it has a variable speed on it so once you set the pulley speed you’ve now got a range you adjusted in so you can dial it to the slowest in that range or pick it up to a little faster gives you a lot of flexibility as you’re turning to find the speed that works best for whatever tool you’ve chosen this is the tool rest to rest is where your tools rest as you’re turning it gives you a place to embrace things keep it steady as you’re working it slides along the bed and locks in with this lever stay in position and then you can adjust the position of the tool rest up and down typically you want about on center for the object that you’re turning or slightly below most ladies will come with to to arrest this is a shorter one and then there’s a longer one longer one handy if you are doing some spindle turning where you need to have more travel for the tool you don’t want to keep positioning the tool rest so you can work this full length here or if you are doing some face turning on something wider you can again work this whole distance instead of having to readjust a smaller tool arrested this is called the tailstock tailstock slides back and forth when you’re doing spindle turning a blank mouse between the headstock and tailstock and then spins between these two the way you mount items for spindle turning typically you’ll use what’s called a spur Center you can see why it’s called a spur Center it has little Spurs in a very sharp point at the center and prepare a turning blank by just drawing diagonals from corner to corner to find the center then with impact device just drive the spur Center in there just enough to seat it this will go into the headstock the tailstock end there’s another pointed Center simply slides in to the tailstock give yourself plenty of room here now that’s in the headstock and I’ll bring this up so that the point again intersects my Center Point lock the tool rest in place the tailstock has some travel in it so as I turn this crank tailstock is driven forward that drives that Center into the blank and now we’ve got some pressure to love that piece stays put so now it looks like we’re just about ready to turn position your tool rest so again it’s just a little below center you want to check that your turning is clear of the tool rest I’ve got some more room here I can bring it closer going close you certainly don’t want it touching as it spins and lock it in place let’s take a moment talk about some of the tools that you can use returning there are a lot of tools available for turning catalogs are filled with all kinds of specialty tools you can really get by with a starter set that consists of four tools this is called a roughing gouge it’s heavy beefy and as its name suggests is for roughing out it’s we’re taking this rectangular block roughing off the corners and getting it close to cylindrical a second tool in your basic set what’s called a parting tool just narrow it’s a sharpened down to a point and it really has a couple of uses the name comes from the fact that when you get done with a spindle you may have some waste left down here at the end and you would simply push this in to cut away the waste and part the spindle from the waste separate it from the waste parting tool can also be used to mark locations on your blank that you want to turn to a particular diameter so if I want to bring this to two and a half inches in diameter I would simply turn this down then use calipers to gauge two and a half inches and I can Mark various points on a spindle for Bowl turning when we actually do face plate turning bowl gouges are the next tool you’d want these are easy for rolling and shaping inside and outside curves on bowls there’s a spindle gouge much smaller gouge much finer for doing finer work kind of detail work in spindles these four tools are a good starting point for your turning as you get into turning and discover what types of turning you really like then you can expand your tool collection as your needs warrant so let’s actually do some turning here recommend a face shield for this chips are gonna fly and it has been known occasion that a blank will separate from the lathe you want to be protected from that so a full face shield is a good idea I’m just gonna rough off the corners here to show you how the roughing gouge can be used to bring this close to cylindrical when you first start turning not some scrap and try each tool to find the angle and the height that works best here the tool rest is in line with a centerline of the blank so the gouge touches just above its center and the gouge is skewed to one side slightly as I slide it along the tool rest it chips away at the corners don’t get too aggressive with these first cuts though looking from above you can see the shoulder starting to form where the rounded portion meets the still square portion of the blank hold the tool handle firmly in one hand and brace your arm against your body but don’t tighten up stay relaxed grip the tool blade with your other hand and use one or two fingers to guide it along the tool rest you can hear the difference in the cut as the blank gets close to cylindrical it’s a continuous cut now instead of the chattering hit and skip of earlier i’ve switched to the parting tool now to define a diameter on the blank i made an initial cut then i check my progress with a pair of calipers you know i’ve still got a ways to go so i’ll cut a bit deeper then check again once the calipers fit in the groove I’ll use my spindle gouge to create a smooth transition on either side of that reference cut you’ll find that tools work differently as you roll them pivot them and change the angle at which they address the blank play with them all find out what works best one thing I really like about turning is how fast sanding goes just let the blanks pin and hold sandpaper against it so that’s the basics of spindle turning let’s move on to face plate turning get rid of my sample piece here to switch between the two I’ve got to remove my Center from the head and tail stock and there’s a rod that comes with your lathe just goes through there and you give it a tap lock those loose we got a handy little storage rack right there for my faceplate turning you’ll have a blank this one I’ve already rough cut round and it’s mounted to the faceplate the to mount this you’ll have a hole drilled in the center of your blank then with little brute force you’ll screw the faceplate down into that hole and then secure it with three screws now obviously this leaves some holes in your project but you want to make sure that you put this amount the faceplate in areas that will be turned away as the project develops once the faceplate is in place its threaded on the inside and it threads on to the headstock with faceplate turning typically the first job is to true up the blank that is turn it into a true circle this also helps balance the weight of the blanket of spins the roughing gouge handles this job with some gentle rolls back and forth to be in hollowing a bowl I use a bowl gouge you always work to the left of center so the rotation of the blank presses the tool down on to the tool rest on this particular blank I’ll cut just through the quarter inch thick walnut layer to reveal the maple below so that’s the basics of faceplate turning now there is one more way you can mount things on a faceplate remember I mentioned how putting a screw mount screw holes into your blank means you’ve got to turn that area away you’ve always got some holes in your blank that have to be dealt with there’s another way to mount stock that doesn’t create any holes and that is called four jaw Chuck I’m gonna use this project as an example this is a platter sits on a pedestal in the bottom of the pedestal or on the top of the pedestal there is what’s called a spigot and that spigot fits into a recess on the bottom of the platter so this was turned it’s all completed now there’s no sign of how this was mounted on the lathe there’s no screw holes of any type because this was done with the four jaw Chuck four jaw Chuck mounts on to the headstock just like your screw mount and then using this wrench it’s kind of like a drill press Chuck you can turn this to expand and contract these jaws in the case of this spigot turn the spigot on that piece and then clamped it into the four jaw Chuck now it’s firmly gripped you can bring the tool rest around and turn your workpiece to the shape that we show here and then of course bring it to the front and then hollow out the bottom so that’s how a four jaw Chuck grips a spigot and you can do just the reverse to grip a recess it’s dial is down here so in spend of contracting around a spigot you can expand it out into that recess this is firmly gripped now you come in you can shape this side now there is one more tool that’s really critical to your success at the lathe you must have sharp tools that’s the only way to really get clean cuts and for that for sharpening your tools you can get just a little slow speed grinder a relatively inexpensive way to get into sharpening this one has a rough wheel on one side and then on the other side the wheel you use most often for the touch-up scharping is an aluminum oxide wheel and it’s nice to have the grinder sitting close to your lathe like we have them here so that as you’re working and a tool gets dull you can just step over here turn the grinder on and do a quick touch-up on an edge bringing it back to working sharpness and then step right back to work oh there is one more tool I think that was very critical for successes of the lathe after you’re done you got to clean up when you look at these copper suncatcher cutouts you might admire the artistic work that went into the delicate cuts and the same with this barnyard puzzle a little more quizzical but you look at each puzzle piece you can see the intricate cuts the curves that were created on these and you might wonder how in the world can you do such a thing well this is how with a scroll saw scroll saw is really an entertaining way to spindle you can actually lose a lot of hours in the shop it’s a lot of fun and it’s let’s just express a little bit of your artistic side again when it comes to woodworking scroll saw consists of a blade here and these come in various widths it’s extended between an arm above the table and an arm below the table and these arms bounce up and down together like this oscillate set saw blade up and down so that you can cut cut out parts and according to a pattern also on the scroll saw you’re gonna find this foot here this is designed to rest just a little bit above or lightly on your workpiece you cinch that down what that does is as the saw blade comes up it’ll tend to want to grab the workpiece and bounce it up off the table so this helps a fight that keeps things pressed down to the work surface this little contraption coming off the side here is a little blower the motor runs a little bellows forces air down here and it directs air right at the saw point point where the saw blade is cutting so that it keeps sawdust off your line you can always see where you’re cutting working with a scroll saw is really very very simple it’s an easy tool to run and it’s one of those things it’s easy to learn takes a lifetime to master but you’ll enjoy every minute of it this particular saw you have a switch that you pull on it also has a variable speed so you can just how quickly that oscillation is occurring or material that cuts easily or is thinner you can speed it up if you have a instance where you need to slow down to get the most control you can do that as well I’ve got here the little tractor pattern that goes with this barnyard puzzle I’m gonna cut out a little bit of it here just to show you how much fun this can be and how how quickly and how tightly scrollsaw should turn around curves [Applause] so there’s part of our tractor cut out now you may wonder it’s easy to go around the outside of a pattern and follow those lines which might wonder is how do I cut out things like the wheels that are hollow or here by the smokestack we’re down here on this wheel well what you can see I’ve done is I’ve drilled a hole in what will be my waist area that allows me to undo the top of the blade and thread it through that hole in the pattern then I can wreak Lampe the blade in position and start cutting inside there’s an inside cut out this one I’ll probably have to clean up a little bit with a file some sandpaper but it’s always better to leave a little bit of extra material and another secret about cutting onto a scroll saw pattern remember don’t get too obsessed about hitting those lines exactly once the patterns gone no one’s gonna know you can stand away a lot of your mistakes next item I want to talk about really isn’t a tool for your shop as it is a method it’s something you need to do is dust collection there are basically two ways to collect dust one is collect most of it at the source that’s with using some sort of dust collection method and the other is to protect yourself if you can’t collect it at the source inevitably some is going to get into the air and you need to protect yourself either with area filtration or with a personal device like this respirator that fits over your mouth and nose and filters out the dust the paper masks that you see at all the hardware stores and home centers are not really that effective against the finest dust that that kicks up into the air they don’t seal real well around your nose around your chin especially if you have facial hair so you want something it has a good rubber seal all the way around so you’re not breathing in that dust for mechanical ways to collect dust at the source the simplest is a shop vac they come with most come with a two and a half inch hose and that fits a lot of stationery tools even their bench top tools like this spindle sander just slips right onto the port there and let me show you the difference in dust collection first with how much dust collects without the shop vac running then I’ll turn it on you’ll see how it draws all that dust away you can see how that dust just gets pulled right down into the machine and into the shop back it’s not just necessarily a health a convenience thing but it’s also a health concern you want to make sure you’re collecting as much of that dust as possible so that you’re not breathing it again shop vac a good basic way to start a dust collection system however is probably not enough to handle larger machines that generate a lot of chips such as the planer even the table saw in a table saw the blade spinning creates a bit of turbulence and it fights the little bit of draw that a shop-vac can can overcome for tools like that you want a dedicated dust collector the dust collector consists of an impeller that sits inside this housing here think of it as kind of large fan blade that pulls a lot of air motor the drives impeller is down below you have a bag down here the chips are drawn by the impeller through this hose and they shoot through here and gravity pulls them down into this bag the air is exhausted through this top bag and this top bag filters the air as it returns to the shop this we have a test here is flex hose it’s nice to have because you can then take the dust collector for a machine to machine it simply slides onto a four inch port like that these are nice the hose clamps that have a big thumb wheel on them thumb screw you can put that on there with a couple of twists of the lever it’s secured and you’re ready to work one convenience that we’ve added and I highly recommend is a remote control for your dust collector this is the cord from the dust collector plugged into the remote the remote then plugs into the power in the wall and this is what you would carry with you in your shop apron or perhaps keep it by the tool press the on button the dust collector turns on press it all it turns off so that way you can be over here ready to do some planing and turn on the dust collector when you’re ready [Music] [Applause] you’ve ever run a planer without dust collection on it you know all those chips we’ll be shooting out of here all over your shop so dust collection here saves a lot of cleanup time and it also keeps a lot of that dust out of the air well that covers the basics of the machinery you’ll find in a woodworking shop if you’d like to get more detailed information about what you’ve seen in this video you can find it in the pages of wood magazine or visit our website Wood magazine calm [Music] …

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