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Jigs and woodworking are synonymous. There are many reasons for woodworkers to make jigs. Sometimes they are made for a single cut or single use, sometimes they are used to make multiple numbers of something and other times they are made to help improve safety. Whatever the reason, jig making is a part of woodworking. They can simple or complex but are often made from bits and pieces of wood found around the workshop that would otherwise end up as firewood.
I always seem to be making one sort of jig or another, the biggest problem I have is after I store them for a few months (or years) I forget what I had them for. What's worse, I have been known (on a few occasions) to make a new jig, when I already had one but forgot I had it.
I have a few jigs that I use all-the-time, like the ones featured here.
Popular Woodworking Jigs
The first, is the center finder. I always seem to be cutting wood in half. I purchase a lot of rough cut lumber that is quite wide and often needs to be cut in half to run through the jointer and planer. I also find that I am often ripping thicker boards in half and all of this means finding an accurate center.
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There are so many woodworking projects that use hinges, I am always astounded at how many different kinds, sizes and types there are. Easily the most used and perhaps the most useful is the common Butt Hinge.
It can be used inside the frame, outside the frame, between the frame and door and it comes in many, many variations.
If you wondering what a Butt Hinge looks like, just look a pretty much any door, unless it has some sort of a decorative hinge, it probably has Butt Hinges installed, and even if it is decorative, it might still be some variation of the a butt hinge.
Selecting and Installing Simple HInges
Installing hinges is like many other things in woodworking, once you are shown a few tips and tricks, they become easy to install and are properly aligned, straight and help to augment your woodworking rather than taking away from it. In this video we highlight some of those tricks and tips to make hinge selection less frustrating and easier to to do.
Copyright - Colin Knecht
woodworkweb.com
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There have always been some sort of mechanical fasteners in woodwork shops, but since the invention of the compressor, air nailers have become increasingly popular, and for good reason. They come in so many different sizes and with so many different lengths of pins or nails available, it's easy to see how they can be a woodworkers best helper.
I see them used often for making jigs and for temporary clamps when gluing smaller pieces together, they are quick easy and in many cases the pins or nails can be hidden used in such a way that they don't affect the look of the piece.
For our video we were delighted to be provided with a couple of great air nailers from tacwise.They even provided us with a very cool stapler that we will review at the end of this article. Thanks Tacwise!!
Air Nailers for Woodworkers
We won't cover every size here, but we will give an overview of some of the most popular sizes for woodworking ...
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Most people who purchase wood routers, start off by purchasing just the router unit - no router table. A router by itself is a great tool, and is enhanced by matching it with a router table. Although the standalone router has somewhat limited use, for some, it is all they need and does a perfect, quick, easy to replicate job for them.
In this video and associated article we talk about using a standalone or freehand router unit, how to use it safely, how to set it up and what you can hope to achieve with it. In our case we will be using a Plunge Router, but a Fixed Base Router would have similar set up, with the exception of the depth setting. If you are looking for more Router Information you can also purchase Colin's One Hour Popular Woodworking Course "Router Basics" ... click here to check it out.
Using a Router Freehand - Beginners #11
In order to make this quick and easy to understand we are going to try on put everything in point form so it is easier and quicker to read through. We would appreciate your feedback on how this works for you ....