This compass cutter cuts circles ranging from 3″ to 15″ in diameter. While building several sets of cornhole boards, I needed a way to create an evenly-spaced painted ring around the hole. That’s when I decided to build this “compass cutter”, which is essentially an over-sized compass with a blade in place of a pencil. It’s used like a normal compass but instead of drawing a line, it’s used to create a circular cut-out. For my cornhole boards, the […]

I wish I had made this plywood cutting table a long time ago. It makes quick work of breaking down a piece of plywood into more manageable sizes, especially if using a track saw. Perhaps the best feature of the table is that it is portable, allowing it to be assembled in an area with lots of elbow room (such as a driveway) and then stored as a compact bundle in the woodshop when not in use. Most woodworkers that I know – myself included – lack sufficient shop space to have a […]

The Dewalt Track Saw has a unique advantage over other track saws: a double-sided rail – a rubber edge strip on both sides –  which allows cutting along both sides of the rail. This means there’s no need to flip the track around to cut from the opposite direction and the overall life of the rubber strips is extended because there’s two of them. All other track saws (so far), come with single-sided rails. Unfortunately, a drawback of Dewalt’s double-sided rail is […]

I recently purchased a Makita track saw to help cut some panels for cabinets that I was planning to build. Before buying the saw, I read a number of online reviews and concluded that this product offered the best bang for the buck, especially if one is not a full-time carpenter/woodworker. In terms of cutting performance and features, it compared favorably to the Festool and Dewalt track saws and seemed like a relative bargain at $400 for the saw plus a 55″ guide rail. The same package […]

This simple router circle cutting jig was made from a piece of left-over 7/16″ PVC board that I found in the scrap bin.  My impetus for building it was that I needed to cut 6″ wide holes for several corn hole game sets and I decided that the manual scroll saw approach with resultant wavy edges just wasn’t going to cut it (no pun intended). Furthermore, I wanted a quick and easily repeatable system because there were a total of six holes to cut. I considered buying a jig but […]

The requirements for this wishing well were rather simple: it had to be relatively compact but large enough to cover an unsightly well pipe, but also inexpensive and easy to make. Of course, I also wanted it to look half-decent. I think I succeeded on all counts. The well was built over the course of a few evenings for a total cost of about $40. Most of the material came from a left-over section of rough cut treated pine fencing (advertised as cedar). In addition, I picked up a few pieces of 1 […]

Here is a nifty calculator for making items via splayed joinery that was graciously provided by Gerald R. What exactly is “splayed joinery” you say? Well imagine a tube made from multiple pieces of wood (staves) in which one end of the tube is larger in diameter than the other. An example is a tapered round waste basket. To construct the tube, each stave must be cut at the appropriate compound angle. That’s where the Stave Calculator (Stavulator?) comes in. You enter in […]

I’ve been dabbling with intarsia for the last few months and it’s been quite the learning experience. If you’re not familiar with intarsia, it refers to a woodworking technique/art form that involves inlaying different pieces of wood to create a pseudo 3-D picture. It relies on the natural variations in wood grain and color to create the illusion of depth and texture. My interest in intarsia began many years ago when I came across an article in Wood Magazine that featured Judy […]

I’ve been the proud owner of a government surplus 1970s-era magnifying desk lamp for more years that I can remember. For most of that time, it sat unused in a closet collecting dust but I finally found a use for it – as a magnifying light for my Dewalt 788 scroll saw! But the trick was to figure out a way to mount it. This relic of the past has a 1/2″ thick rod at the base that is designed to fit into a matching hole on the desk surface. Once the rod seats in the hole, the […]

I recently decided to try my at intarsia and I quickly realized that it involves lots of sanding. Much of this sanding involves rounding the edges of pieces in order to create a 3D effect and perhaps the best way to perform this task is with either a flex or pneumatic sanding drum. The softness of these drums allows them to partially wrap around edges to produce a curved surface rather than the flat surface created by a conventional hard sanding drum. In addition to intarsia projects, there […]