This week my wife refinished our kitchen table. We bought it 6-7 years ago and since then it had picked up a few scratches and heat marks. It is 7 feet long with 8 chairs and made of red oak with a natural finish.

We bought it from a Menonite furniture shop that is located a couple of hours from here in a rural area. They did a fantastic job at very, very reasonable prices. Unfortunately, the finish was not as durable as we had hoped for. It marked very easily and anything hot, like a coffee cup, that was set on the table left a mark.

She started sanding it with 60 grit to remove the finish and continued up to 220 grit. Then she finished it with 10 coats of Varathane Professional Clear Coat, lightly sanding with 220 between each coat.

Here is the table before the new finish:

Continue reading 'Kitchen Table Refinishing'

1. When gluing up a project it’s inevitable that some of the glue will squeeze out of the joint. It’s best to wait for the glue to “gel up” before scraping it off with a sharp chisel or razor blade. Wiping up the glue before it gels can spread it over the surface of the wood and cause you a lot of sanding later.

2. Yellow and White glues have a shelf life of about 8-12 months after which they should be thrown away. Freezing also damages the bonding power of these glues. If the glue is excessively stringy this can also be a sign that it has passed its useful life. Glue is too inexpensive to risk building furniture with bad joints.

3. When spreading glue out across a wood joint don’t use your fingers! This introduces dirt and oil that may weaken the joint. A better solution is to use an old paintbrush or a small section of a hacksaw blade. Scraps of wood also serve as an inexpensive spreader.

4. Have you ever had trouble driving a dowel into its hole? Quite often air and glue inside the hole can prevent the dowel from sliding in easily. To prevent this resistance you can cut a slit into the side of the dowel. This will give the air and glue a channel to escape the hole. Use your bandsaw to cut the groove in the dowel. For safety, be sure to use a clamp to hold the dowel when you cut the groove.

These are just a few tips that I picked up over this past week. They come from a variety of sources including books, magazines, newsletters, online and from personal experience.

There are more Woodworking Tips and Tidbits located here.

Back to the shop…

Since taking the woodturning course in October I have been itching to start turning more bowls. So in preparation to do some bowl turning I purchased the Henry Taylor 3/8″ Bowl Gouge today. These gouges are ideal for all kinds of face plate turning and have a steep bevel angle.

Back to the shop…

We had a special treat for this month’s Atlantic Woodworkers Association meeting - the guests were whirlygig masters Barry and Kara Coutts. Whirlygig masters, indeed!

Continue reading 'The Answer Is Blowing In The Wind'

1. Stretch a rubber band to the clamps of an F-style bar clamp for one hand use. Pull the clamp open and hold the sliding jaw with your thumb. Then when you are ready to clamp lift your thumb a bit and the jaws will close. Then it’s just a matter of screwing the clamp tight.

2. To hold a block of wood in place between your workpiece and pipe clamps drill a shallow hole in the wood and glue in a magnet. This will hold the wood to the metal pipe clamp.

3. To determine the length of a bandsaw blade when you don’t have a blade to go by, or you’ve added riser blocks, use the formula:

Blade length = = (2xA) + (3.14xB)
A= distance in inches between bandsaw wheel centers when the upper wheel is midway in its adjustment range
B= bandsaw wheel diameter

Or you can always just wrap a string around the wheels, draw it tight, mark it and then measure it.

4. Use adhesive backed foam sheeting to cover the large blade height slot on the front of your table saw to increase dust collection suction. Add this from the inside of your saw and then cut a slot for the height guide shaft.

These are a few tips that I picked up (and/or wrote down) over the week. They come from a variety of sources including magazines, newsletters, online and personal experience.

Back to the shop…

After testing a few projects in recent issues of their magazine that were geared toward woodworkers that do not have a lot of tools, the folks over at Wood Magazine officially launched a new, supporting website for these projects. Going under the banner, Basic-Build, both the website and some future articles will focus on projects that are well designed but require few tools and less skill.

They have created three rules for the Basic-Built projects:

Rule #1: No expensive tools required. No tool in the suggested “Basic-Built Toolbag” costs more than $200, and most cost far less.

Rule #2: You can buy everything at a home center. This ensures that wood, hardware, finishes, and other supplies are affordable and easy to find.

Rule #3: No complicated joinery. Expect screws, butt joints, and half-laps: whatever is simple yet plenty strong without sacrificing style.
Continue reading 'Wood Magazine Launches Basic-Build Site'