Setting jointer knives appears to be universally every woodworkers worst duty. When I talk to woodworkers, the one thing they hate doing most is setting jointer knives (although many also hated setting planer knives, but that`s another article).

One of the biggest problems is many did not know what height the knives should be set at. Many woodworkers believed that jointer knives should be set at the exact height of the outfeed table. Which in theory would be correct but in practice is not the best idea. I even had some woodworkers who adamantly believed the jointer knives should be even with the infeed table. This is the WORST thing you can do if you EVER want to get straight, flat boards.

If you set jointer knives BELOW THE LEVEL OF THE OUTFEED TABLE, the boards you run through your planer will be bowed like the lower runners of a rocking chair. The more you run them through the jointer the more bowed they will get ... to the point, the only way to correct the bowing is to mark a straight line down the length of the board and run the board through a table saw - freehand. THEN adjust your jointer knives correctly and start all over again runing the board through the jointer.

 

" The first thing every woodworker needs is a work bench. Even before any tool is purchased you need a work bench. There are a million designs and every woodworker has a different work bench, even if they are based on the same plan or design. A number of our members have asked be for more details on my work bench and so that is what this video is to do, review one option in work bench design.

Overall construction is simply based on air dried common 2x4 and 2x6 lumber which makes the bench heavy and hard to move … one of the few times this is a good thing. The original top was also 2x6 but over time I found these to be too uneven, even when they were planed flat, and so I added an MDF material over top. Because I didn't want the MDF material to conform to the existing top when I screwed it down I had to shim parts of it up so it would remain absolutely flat.

I soon discovered that most of the things I was making were square along at least one side and I was for ever squaring things up for gluing and assembly. I thought, “wouldn't it be nice if I had a square glued to the top of my work bench … which is exactly where the corner squaring jig comes from. ... click Rad More below for more info ...

Need an extra hand? Try using a feather board. They are easy to make and very useful for helping to make accurate cuts in your wood.

  Want a no-fuss finish on your project? Try Tung oil, it is one of the only oils that actually dries and can be re-applied in layers for a hard, durable finish.

  Trying to cut large sheets of plywood on your table saw? Try the safer, more accurate method, flip the plywood over, put it on a couple of saw horses and use your circular saw with a good blade in it. Then do your final cutting on the table saw.

Want to makes some nice elegant dovetail corners for your project? Think about using box joints, they are easier to make, almost as strong when glued, and most people other that woodworkers and a few furniture experts don't know the difference between box joints and dovetail joints ... and anyway, box joints look great

Having trouble making mortise and tenon joints that work? Yup, they look easy but in fact they are time intensive and fiddly to get a perfect joint. Why not try using "floating tenons" they are easier to make, the joints come to gether better, you can make them as long or short as you need, they are argueably as strong or stronger than standard mortise and tenon joing and ... well, when they are glued up joint, who will know it was a floating tenon or not?

I'm always amazed in this world of high technology and all it's whizz bangs, that someone ... somewhere never forgets about the simple things in life. The small things that often frustrate us to death but that we never seem to overcome. Enter the new "Bench Cookies from Rockler. These are simple little discs with non skid material applied that not only allows them to stand off the workbench, thus giving the worker some room underneath the project ... these little things stick like crazy, even when grit and sawdust tries to confound them.

At first I wondered how many times I would really need to lift my work piece off the workbech top, but I soon discovered that was not the real issue, the real issue was all the stuff that always seemed to accumulate under my work piece, like nails, screws, bits of wood, tools, pencils ... the list goes on and and on. The real problem with thes is that in some cases I don't want the back to get scratched and marred, I want it to be clean, which doesn happen when a screw rolls under and all of a sudden your piece now has a dint or scratch in it.

I also like the fact that I can use them for painting and staining, simply by moving them in from the side of the piece. To me, the that is the best part of these accessories, when you want to paint, stain or varnish all sides of a piece, when it is small it often moves around on you ... but not with these little items. If I only used them for finishing they would be worth EVERY PENNY.

     

For those of you ... who like me, don't always like working with plywood because of it's sizing issues, there now it hope.

To refresh your memory, as you know none of the plywood you purchase is dimensionally the the thickness size you purchase. For example 3/4 inch plywood is almost never 3/4 inch thick. The reason for this is the standards adhered to by the plywood manufacturers industry states, in essence, that a 3/4 inch thick plywood can NEVER exceed 3/4 inch thickness. Since all plywood is manufactured green (i.e. it still contains a lot or water and will shrink as it dries) this means that the dimensional thickness will be less that the generic name it is given. That is that 1/4", 3/8", 1/2" 3/4" will all be somewhat LESS thick that what they are called. This means, working with plywood can be a challenge, despite all the other benefits that plywood has, like strength, flexibility lamination of hardwoods such as Oak, Rosewood, Maple, Cherry etc. all have a thin veneer of that hardwood laminated to an otherwise softwood plywood base.

So ... if you are wanting to make a nice Oak Book Case, and Oak Plywood is on special at your local lumber store, you run on out, pick up a few sheets and get ready to start making some cuts. Then you realize that none of the 3/4" Oak Plywood sheets are actually 3/4" thick, but are somewhat less ... now what ...