Reclaimed Wood & Free Wood - Money Saving Tips for Woodworking Part 2

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I am always looking for wood. I am not always intentionally looking, but it's always in the back of my mind. I look for all sorts of wood, new wood, used wood, demolition wood, cut trees ... it's all potential sources of wood. This article will reveal many of my sources and ways of acquiring lumber that may help others get good wood for good prices and in some cases even spare sending wood to the landfill.

There are lots of different places that are great sources of finding new and used wood, but be aware that you are likely not going to be purchasing premium wood, so there will be some work in it for you. There may be excessive trimming or gluing, or the wood may only be suitable for smaller projects. That is what you often get with discounted or free lumber. It just means you need to but a bit more effort into using it, but the savings could be well worth the investment ... 

Fact or Fiction: Zero Clearance Table Saw Inserts Make Better Cuts

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For many, many years there has been a long-held belief that Zero Clearance Table Saw Throat Plates give better quality cuts on the underside of the material being cut than non-zero clearance throat plates, and I too, have been a perpetrator of this theory. Many Years ago, before carbide tipped tables became popular and we were still using steel blades, I tested this theory and  ... yes, zero clearance inserts did improve the cut. 
For some reason, lately, I wondered that with the much better quality of saw blades if this theory is still true or not so I decided to try out a few of the blades I have and see if do cut better with zero clearance or not.

I started off by trying some of my crosscut blades on some very dry, fine grain fir. I Set up my table saw first with a Freud 90 tooth cross cut blade and with the zero clearance insert I had made and made my first cut .. they replace the zero clearance insert with the factory non-zero clearance insert and made the second cut ... 

Clamping Hacks Part 3 - Woodworking Tips and Tricks

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Clamps and woodworking are integral to one another. If you do woodworking, you need to use clamps ... sometimes lots of them. Unfortunately, clamps are often awkward to use, especially when you have coated your wood with wood glue and it starts drying the moment it is spread on your wood and if you don't attach the 2 pieces of wood in a timely manner, the glue will stick poorly, or not at all. And of course, that is the time for you wood clamps to start acting up ... and if you are like me,  always seem to have to be unscrewing the handles and getting them in the correct positions. Gluing could be the most stressful time of woodworking ... at least it is for me and that's why I try to do everything I can to make my clamps more user-friendly because for some reason I never seem to remember to take the time to prepare them for their clamping ahead of time.

Check out some these ideas to help make clamping a bit less stressful ...

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Making Table Saw Inserts / Throat Plates (Dado & Zero Clearance Inserts) HD

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Alas ... there is no standard in table saw throat plates. There are some manufacturers that are similar but it seems most all make their own versions. While there are many different throat plates or inserts as they are also called, there are also a variety of ways to make replacement ones. In trying to keep things as simple as possible, I will be showing how to make throat plates in a pretty simple way that will hopefully give others some ideas on how they might best tackle this table saw feature for their own saws.

To clear up some confusions on throat plates, shop made throat plates often have their relief cut made by the blade they will be used with making a very close tolerance between the blade and the throat plate, hence the name "zero clearance", but they can also have a wider tolerance in which case they would simply be called "inserts" or "throat plates". All the term "zero clearance" refers to is the distance between the throat plate and the blade.

The main reason to ensure you have and use table saw throat plates is a safety feature. Of course, we need access to the blades for changing them, and sometimes when cutting dado or making sider cuts with dado blades, wobble wheels etc, we need to use a throat plate with a wider space to accommodate the blade.

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