Monthly Archives: September 2013

Poll: Face Frame Joinery

Marc Spagnuolo copyFace frames are incredibly common in modern furniture and cabinets. They can dress up a simple plywood carcass giving it a much more visually substantial appearance. The pieces used for the face frame are typically only about 1 1/2″ wide and where vertical pieces meet horizontal pieces, some sort of joinery is usually needed. So that’s what we want to know today: what’s your preferred method for joining face frame parts?

What is your preferred method of joining face frames?

This poll was created by Tom Iovino of Tomsworkbench.com.

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Waste Management Solutions for Your Environment (edit me)

Studying Skip ArchitechureWhilst you may think of being green and helping the environment as some sort of trend it’s really just you having to use your brain. The logical thing to do when trying to make your home better is to try and think of ways to use less power so that you can save energy. As energy costs rise, we all have even more incentive to become greener in our choices, and the tips we’ll be sharing in this article can help to inspire you in this direction.

Your home furnishings are a good place to look when it comes to making environmentally friendly choices. Reupholstering and repairing your furnishings is sometimes much better than buying new ones as it’s not only green but it will save you money.

If you can’t fix it and you do need to buy some new furniture you can buy second hand items. Antique auctions are a good place to start at when looking for some good bits of furniture as they are held pretty much everywhere. Rare and high end antiques tend to cost a lot however you can find lots of excellent pieces of furniture at good prices in auctions. Trying to save water will help your home become more eco friendly, and also you can save on your water bill by being more water efficient. You can conserve water by modifying your toilet to have a light flush mode. Another way you can preserve water is by installing aerators onto your taps, and you can fit your shower with a low flow head. It may also be a good idea to take a closer look at your water heater. A model that’s energy efficient will give you water only when you need it which is good for cutting down your bills. Water barrels, or a rain collection system, will allow you to collect rain water to later use on your lawn.

Because conventional power prices are increasing many people are looking at alternative energy, like solar energy and wind power. You can make your home a lot more energy efficient by using these natural energy sources. You can have a professional install solar panels or you can buy a kit and do it yourself. There are many options when it comes to wind turbines, depending on where you live exactly. Wind turbines and solar panels are worth the investment if you’re very serious about making your house environmentally friendly. Ideas to make your home greener are reasonably easy to get implemented. It’s simple really, you must just get into the flow of making decisions with the environment in mind. You don’t have to do everything at once; you can do a green makeover of your home, one room at a time.

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Waste Management Solutions for Your Environment

Studying Skip ArchitechureWhilst you may think of being green and helping the environment as some sort of trend it’s really just you having to use your brain. The logical thing to do when trying to make your home better is to try and think of ways to use less power so that you can save energy. As energy costs rise, we all have even more incentive to become greener in our choices, and the tips we’ll be sharing in this article can help to inspire you in this direction.

Your home furnishings are a good place to look when it comes to making environmentally friendly choices. Reupholstering and repairing your furnishings is sometimes much better than buying new ones as it’s not only green but it will save you money.

If you can’t fix it and you do need to buy some new furniture you can buy second hand items. Antique auctions are a good place to start at when looking for some good bits of furniture as they are held pretty much everywhere. Rare and high end antiques tend to cost a lot however you can find lots of excellent pieces of furniture at good prices in auctions. Trying to save water will help your home become more eco friendly, and also you can save on your water bill by being more water efficient. You can conserve water by modifying your toilet to have a light flush mode. Another way you can preserve water is by installing aerators onto your taps, and you can fit your shower with a low flow head. It may also be a good idea to take a closer look at your water heater. A model that’s energy efficient will give you water only when you need it which is good for cutting down your bills. Water barrels, or a rain collection system, will allow you to collect rain water to later use on your lawn.

Because conventional power prices are increasing many people are looking at alternative energy, like solar energy and wind power. You can make your home a lot more energy efficient by using these natural energy sources. You can have a professional install solar panels or you can buy a kit and do it yourself. There are many options when it comes to wind turbines, depending on where you live exactly. Wind turbines and solar panels are worth the investment if you’re very serious about making your house environmentally friendly. Ideas to make your home greener are reasonably easy to get implemented. It’s simple really, you must just get into the flow of making decisions with the environment in mind. You don’t have to do everything at once; you can do a green makeover of your home, one room at a time.

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Poll: Multiple Projects at Once?

There are a lot of steps to woodworking projects. No matter how large or small the project is, every one must go through the following steps: planning, acquiring stock, rough-cutting, milling, joinery, assembly and finishing. Since some of these steps drag more than others, like finishing, I can see why some folks might be tempted to start another project before the first one is totally complete.

partial-projectsPersonally, I avoid doing this. In fact, I truly have a one-track mind in that regard. I need to completely finish a project before even thinking about the next one. Recently, I had to break away from this personal policy due to time constraints. I was right in the middle of building a rustic outdoor dining table (future free site project by the way) when I had to put on the brakes to start the Greene & Greene Blanket Chest for the Guild. Seeing partially-milled stock and project parts laying around the shop drives me nuts! So as much as I am enjoying this blanket chest build, I simply cannot wait for it to be over so that I can complete the unfinished project sitting in a pile on my outfeed table.

So while it can’t always be helped, I avoid working on multiple projects like the plague! What about you?

Do you ever start a new project before finishing an old one?

This poll was created by Tom Iovino of TomsWorkbench.com.

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Home Improvement Ideas for Making Your Home Greener

The term green home improvement simply put conveys changing your residence in a way that is taking charge of your surroundings and being efficient with the energy you use. You might have to come up with more money in the beginning but it is a matter of fact that energy amounts will be lessened. Listed below are clear thoughts to help you create a more green home as you improve it.

refurbished-signPainting either the interior or exterior of your home is one of the simplest ways to create a fresh new look, and you can focus on doing this in an eco-friendly way. With the use of paint that is green, you know that polluting the environment is something you do not need to worry about. Recycled latex paints, clay based paints and milk based paints are several classifications. The majority of home improvement stores and hardware stores carry the recycled latex paint and they are easy to obtain in numerous colors. Keep in mind that working with this paint type could protect the Earth as well as your health, because you have to inhale and exhale the oxygen in your home and the natural paints do not have the probable poisonous chemicals that other kinds could have. Trying to save water will help your home become more eco friendly, and also you can save on your water bill by being more water efficient. You can conserve water by modifying your toilet to have a light flush mode. You can also add aerators to your taps to save water as well as adding a low flow head to your shower. Your hot water heater is also something you should take a close look at. A model that’s energy efficient will give you water only when you need it which is good for cutting down your bills. Lastly, you can use less water by installing rain water barrels outside of your home. You can then use this water on your lawn and plants.

There are some ways of heating your home up efficiently, and this will greatly impact your energy bill. Even though fireplaces look good they are the absolute worst way of trying to keep your home warm. On the other hand, there are fireplace inserts that can change this in your favor, so if you have a fireplace you should look into this option. A pellet stove is another good way of warming up as they burn corn pellets and wood. Due to the cost of oil rising rapidly, getting one of these is usually cheaper. Insulation is the key thing that will make a big difference when making your home energy efficient.

Carrying out an eco-friendly makeover for your dwelling can be enjoyable and great for the electric bills. The value of your house can also rise if you decide to sell. There are multiple plans of action to create a eco-friendly home and there isn’t room to talk about all of them, however don’t let that stop you from looking further and find ideas that are perfect for your home.

If You need to discover more about Skip bins Brisbane this will form the base from which you will expand, so here it is: Sunshine Skip Bins.

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Custom Dust Port Fittings For Portable Power Tools

A shop vacuum plugged into a dust port is a great way to collect the dust produced by hand held power tools. Unfortunately there does not seem to be any consistency to the size of dust ports and it is likely that the standard 1 1/4″ hose that comes with many vacuums will not fit. Adapters are costly and clumsy to use but there is an easy and inexpensive way to make your own custom sized bushings.

Purchase a golf club protector tube – these go inside the golf bag and make it easier to take the clubs in and out. They are about $1.50 at sporting goods stores and the most common ones have an inside diameter of exactly 1 1/4″ which is what makes them useful for this application. The picture below on the right shows a standard hose plugged into the end of a protector tube.

golf-tube bushing1

Use a fine toothed saw to cut several lengths about 1 1/2″ long. Put one aside and then use a pair of scissors to slit the others so that they fit over the one that has not been cut. The cut pieces now have enough flexibility to fit over the non-cut piece, creating a wider diameter port on one side. You can add more cut pieces as needed to increase the diameter until it fits into your tool port. Just be sure to align your split pieces so that the gaps don’t overlap.

bushing3 bushing2

When the outside diameter is just a tiny bit smaller than your dust port, wrap a couple of turns of electrical tape around the outside. This will keep everything together and you now have a bushing with an inside diameter of 1 1/4″ and an outside diameter guaranteed to exactly fit the dust port.

The finished product is shown fitted onto a standard hose. One tube will make perhaps 4 or 5 bushings so you can have different sized adapters for all your tools for just pennies.

bushing4 bushing5

Eric Wood is a retired university professor from Ontario, Canada. An avid (some might say rabid) do-it-yourselfer, he enjoys the challenge of devising low-tech, low-cost solutions to workshop problems.

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Poll: Tool Belts

tool-beltIn a wood shop, we generally have the luxury of organizing our gear in such a way that nothing is more than a few feet away. A pencil, eye protection, a square, even a calculator are usually within arms reach for most folks. Yet some of us like to have our most frequently-used items directly on our bodies with the help of either an apron or a tool belt.

If it weren’t so darn hot here all the time, I’d use an apron every day. It protects my clothes from dust, glue, and finish and ensures my adjustable square and pencil are always ready to go. It’s also handy for stashing peanut M&Ms. And while a tool belt would certainly be cooler (temperature-wise), it seems like it brings a lot of clunkiness around the hip area, which is usually where you’re going to come into contact with stationary tools and workbenches. So as far as I’m concerned, the tool belt is best left for the job site.

So what about you folks? What do you think about tool belts for woodworkers?

What do you think about tool belts for woodworking?

This poll was created by Tom Iovino from TomsWorkbench.com.

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