General
Kaleo came out to see Marc while visiting family after returning from Australia. Nicole, Marc, and Kaleo went to In-N-Out Burger for lunch. The next episode of The Wood Whisperer will also feature Kaleo.
Matt is going to take an all-day class with “The Schwarz” called ‘The Forgotten Art of Handsaws’. The class will be in Strerling Heights, Michigan. Matt has also found this to be a convenient way to pick up a few new tools.
Marc is looking to start attending more live classes and schools to learn new things and broaden his experiences in the woodworking world.
Lie-Nielsen is running around 30 days out on orders due to the overwhelming demand. Are other tool manufacturers this covered up with business? Could there be a big resurgence in the craft? Or maybe more people are realizing the difference between finely made tools compared to those found at a big box store?
A couple of new products:
* Powermatic Air Cleaner – Featured on the back cover in the last issue of Fine Woodworking.
* New router offerings and multi-function table from Festool that are due out in May.
Voicemails / Emails
Ben – Connecticut
I have a question about designing a table in general, but in particular a desk I’m going to try to build. I’m in the military and I move every few years so any piece of furniture I build has got to be able to be put on a moving truck and not get destroyed and be able to be moved around the house. I’d like to build solid legs that don’t come apart, but that’s really not practical. Most commercial furniture has bolts to fit in the corners to fit in place. I’d like to do something better than that, but still have legs that detach. Is there any way to design the legs of a table in general but a desk in particular so that they come apart? Would something like a stop dovetail joint be appropriate? Would that work without glue in it?
Skee
I just bought myself some Forstner bits and when I got them out of the box… well, I don’t understand how they’re going to cut a flat bottom when they have what looks like a brad point in the middle of the bit that is clearly going to have to go deeper than the rest of the bit. So, in the center, there seems to be a centering point that would help keep the bit aligned and steady as it makes that first initial cut, but how am I going to get a flat bottom out of that? Are there two different kinds of Forstner bits? One that has a flat bottom and the other than has the little centering widget there?
Jim – New Jersey
I just finished watching Marc’s episode 6 on jointers and planers, and I’ve got a quesion. I don’t own either one, but I do have a pretty good router setup with a router table. I’m just curious, if I was buying just a planer to plane both sides of a board, that would give me both faces parallel then use the router and router table to edge joint the faces. Would that work? Just looking to get some feedback to see if I’m making the right decisions.
7 replies on “WT31”
Great show guys!
Caller 1. I made a kitchen table for a friend that had to be totally KD . I cut mortices (really slots) in the legs vertical from top down wide enough to hold the apron plus a wedge drive wedge down from top of leg. Held top on with blocks in slots in apron and screw up into top. In use for a family with kids as their kitchen table for 5 + years & still going strong.
Caller 2
MLCS makes a Forstner bit with an adjustable screw spur that can be retracted after you start the hole.
Regards,
Scott
Seemed like an odd question about the forstner bit, but I have ground the spir off but for the reason of not wanting to dimple the backside when using cup hinges on 5/8 flat panel. Although we’ve all used a forstner in a hand drill they are intended to be locked down in a drill press. Skee could file the center point off and jig-up his piece down in a drill press, but I’m not sure why you would want to do that.Like you said, router for a clean bottom. Boring with a forstner bit is usually accompanied by an insert.
As for the knock down desk, a hettich catalog has all kinds of
hardware to go along with your wood joinery and screw inserts nothing wrong with that Matt…….. old books by James Henessey, Nomadic Furniture 1 and 2 are good books to stimulate approaches to knock-down furniture (if I recall 1 is better than 2) not for use on projects just for thought. The key to Knock down furniture is to look outside of furniture and look at hardware. For instance in an art gallery, look and see what “hardware” is used to hang a mobile sculpture or look to the hardware that is used in hanging glass. The hardware for glass usually has good end cap pieces that provide a nice finished look. You have to mix and match within the glass hardware line but you can usually get something to work and look finished. Knock-down has gotten a bad name because of its association with lower cost so furniture designers stopped the design process in that market. Knock down is a good overlooked niche market. It’s rarely thought of, yet we move all the time living a nomadic lifestyle. Hey Matt…….you know the mahogany…well….got a kncok-down or 2 or 3 story there too.
Anyway, its about how you look at and use hardware.
Neil
hey guys great content. i have one comment.
if you could add the length of time of any audio or video podcasts it would give me an idea if i have enough time at any particular moment, to listen.
Thanks again
Forstner Bits:
Check out Fine Woodworking Magazine for April 2008. On page 49 they review Forstner Bits and there is a photo of a bit from MLCS that has a retractable center spur!
Marc and Matt,
Again another great show….Marc I was wondering if you were planning on providing a list of the schools you were thinking of attending. I know of only one in my area and that is American Sycamore Woodworking Retreat & School. The gentleman that runs the school is Michael Van Pelt. (You actually interviewed him at the Las Vegas wood show). I was just hoping on finding more than just a few hours seminar at the local Rockler store.
Thanks,
Scott
Hi Marc and Matt.
I listened to episode 31 of WoodTalk On-Line this weekend, and wanted
to comment on a few items:
Matt, if I understand Chris Schwarz correctly, he delineates a
carcase saw from a tenon saw according to the way the teeth are
filed. Carcase saws are filed cross-cut, while tenon saws are filed
rip. This also seems to be the way Lie-Nielsen categorizes their
saws, but it’s not universal, check out Adria for instance. It can be
confusing…
Regarding “Ben’s” question about a knock down joint that can be used
to attach a leg to a table apron, how about a sliding dovetail? I
wasn’t sure whether this is what he meant with his description, but
the tails could be cut onto the aprons, and the slots would be
mortised into the legs. Provided that the aprons are of sufficient
length and the joinery is accurately cut, this joint should hold
together firmly. For extra stability, the joint could be glued with a
heat “soluble” glue (e.g., PVA, or hide glue). When moving day
arrives, use the heat gun to soften the joint and remove the legs.
Hide glue is nice in that it cleans up nicely and adheres to itself
readily. 😉
I am really surprised that both of you missed the obvious answer to
“Ski’s” questions on flat bottomed Forstner bits. I guess neither of
you had the chance to check out Roland Johnson’s article on them in
the current issue of Fine Woodworking. In that review, he
specifically mentioned Forstner bits with a retractible screw spur
from MLCS. They didn’t do that well, mind you, but the option exists…
Finally, to the gentleman from Parkridge, NJ (sorry, but I couldn’t
make out his name…) looking for an alternative to milling his own
lumber, but not wanting to purchase a jointer. I have two
suggestions. Marc mentioned the first: use jack and jointer planes
and a straight edge to somewhat level the edges of one side of the
board and run that (side down) through the planer. Depending on the
size of the board, it shouldn’t take too long, and as an added
benefit, if the board is larger than your planer, you can always mill
it to S4S without sawing it in half! The second idea is along the
same lines, but relies on the boards being nearly flat already. You
could use a belt or disc sander with an aggressive grit to flatten
the high spots of the board much like in the first suggestion. The
problem that I have with this is that, while it will work, the
embedded grit left in the surface of the board will prematurely dull
the planer knives.
That’s it. I look forward to listening to your next episode, as well
as the next episodes of each of your respective podcasts.
Regards,
J.
Protool make forstner bits that have a hollow shaft. A morse taper accepts various sizes of centring spurs, a centring drill or can be left unused. The hollow shaft is threaded on the other end to fit shaft extensions. These drill bits are very easy and accurate in drilling stepped holes and or very deep holes well over 1.5 feet. As an accessory an accurate adjustable depth stop is available.