Moisture Meters - Choosing and Using Them
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Surprisingly, many woodworkers do not have moisture meters, and of those who do own them, most seldom use them. With wood being as active as it is, it seems that using a moisture meter to help determine the amount of wood movement would be pretty important. To novice woodworkers, wood movement is something that is not well understood, but it is a very important component of woodworking and needs to be studied by any serious woodworker. As we all know, wood, even after it is cut is constantly either absorbing moisture or giving off moisture. This is the a nature of wood. The absorption of moisture is primarily taken in through the end grain of wood, but some moisture is absorbed through the side side grain as well.
The result of this moisture absorption is that the cells of the wood expand, and can, in some situations, damage woodworking projects by breaking glue joints, expanding doors, having some wood material bow, and generally making your hard created woodworking project distorted at the least and even destroyed in rare conditions.
But as everyone knows who is working with wood, movement needs to be understood in order without the wood coming apart on you or reacting in some way you don't know. Knowing how moisture meters work can help you understand how to use them properly ....
Dovetails have long been associated with quality woodworking and quality furniture. Dovetails look great and add a unique detail that shows the craftsmanship of the woodworker. Traditionally, dovetails were cut by hand using a back saw and a chisel, and in some cases a coping saw top help cut out the unused pieces. If you are a dedicated hand tool craftsman and or are a commercial woodworker and you can take the time to practice hand cutting dovetails, it is possible to get some amazingly accurate and beautiful results. If you are a some-times, novice or infrequent woodworker, cutting hand dovetails is something you may do very seldom so getting nice cut dovetails is much harder to do, and that is why a number of companies have developed and sell, jigs that can help those "infrequent" woodworkers in making quality dovetails.
Woodworkers are always looking for wood that has "figure" or some other anomaly that makes it distinctive. Figured wood is relatively hard to find, as is most wood with some sort of distinction. When it comes to wood that look different there are a few different things to look for and it depends on what you want to do with the wood when you are looking. Wood turners are very often making smaller pieces like bowls, urns, pens and other smaller projects so finding distinctive wood for a turner is very important. Luthiers are probably the highest on the level of looking for distinctive woods because they are always looking for some sort of figured wood for making musical instruments. Wood artists who make smaller projects are also often looking for wood that is different so there is a big call for these kinds of woods.
Judging by the number of questions I received about making the box joint jig, it is evident that I didn't cover off with enough detail exactly now the "indexing" or "finger alignment" worked, so this video is to make up that shortfall. When you are making Lynn Sabin box joint jig, one of the key components is the Readi-Rod (also known as threaded rod, Redi Rod, Ready Rod and Thready Rod). The rod basically has three components, the length of the rod, the diameter of the rod and the number of threads per inch that are carved into the rod. Of Course the length is important as it needs to be the full length of your jig, the diameter is not so important but I found 3/8" to be a good weight to work with, and the final Very important component, the threads per inch ... should be 16 threads per inch. There are many other options of threads per inch and you can decide if another is best for you, but for most woodworkers 16 will be the best and here's how it works.
