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PROJECT: In-Drawer Knife Block
The best way to store kitchen knives is in a knife block. It will keep them organized and protect the blades from both getting damaged and perhaps even injuring you! While countertop knife blocks often...
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PROJECT: Utensil Tray
This silverware and utensil tray has enough spaces in its main compartment to keep your forks, knives and spoons in order. There’s also a rear compartment that can be used to store steak knives or as...
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Extend Your Router’s Repertoire
A router table can handle a host of woodworking chores — template routing, jointing and cutting mortise-and-tenon joints. Handheld routers, meanwhile, are used most often for the edge-shaping and...
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Using Rail-and-stile Router Bit Sets
Take a close look at the corner joints of nearly any cabinet door made these days, and you’ll likely find some variation of rail-and-stile joinery. These sturdy, attractive joints can be made easily in...
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Working with Loose Tenons: Festool Domino
Along with dovetails, traditional mortise-and-tenon joinery is among the strongest there is. But where dovetails are perhaps most useful for corner joints, mortise-and-tenon joinery is adaptable to a...
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Working with Loose Tenons: Beadlock
Rockler’s Beadlock jig system takes a simpler and less expensive approach requiring only the drill/driver you already own and a Beadlock jig. Similar to using a dedicated hollow-chisel mortiser or a...
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Working with Loose Tenons: Drill Press
If you make a lot of square-ended mortises, a dedicated hollow-chisel mortiser is a great tool to have. But mortisers are really just tricked-out drill presses that connect a line of square holes, and...
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General Finishes Dead Flat
General Finishes Dead Flat, a durable matte sheen is included in its High Performance Topcoat lineup. It’s a single-component water-based cabinet and furniture-grade finish that can be brushed, sprayed...
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Working with Loose Tenons: Router Table
Another way to create mortises without special machines or jigs is with the router table you already own. Marking the workpiece is minimal, as just about everything is controlled by how you set up the...
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Making Tenon Stock
The Festool Domino and Rockler Beadlock systems are designed to use proprietary loose tenons; you just buy a bag of whatever size you need and you’re good to go. But you can also make your own — a...
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A Bit About Abrasives
Despite the name, sandpaper isn’t made with sand. Natural minerals like flint and garnet were once mainstays but have largely been replaced with synthetic materials. Neither garnet nor flint is...
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Sanding Techniques and Best Practices
Dust collection is important everywhere in the shop but even more so with sanding, which creates extremely fine, near-invisible particles that can float for hours. Fortunately, nearly all modern...
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Understanding Surface Sanding
Smoothing large, flat surfaces is a sander’s bread and butter. Observe all the above practices, along with a few more. Always keep the sander moving without forcing it. This not only makes smoothing...
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All About Track Saws
Conceptually, track saws are simple: The sole plate of a circular saw is shaped with grooves on the bottom surface. These grooves fit onto rails on the track’s top surface. The track-and- saw...
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Cutting Slabs with a Track Saw
Common 10″ table saws typically have a cutting depth of 3″ to 3-1/2″, while 12″ machines cut around 4″ deep. That’s plenty to tackle most slabs, but the problem is wrangling that slab atop the saw and...
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Cutting Waterfall Joints
Any miter joint with continuous grain looks awesome in a project, but the appearance is especially striking when the grain runs over the long edges of a table with a “waterfall” effect. These...
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Kerf-Bending with a Track Saw
When steam-bending isn’t an option, especially for sheet goods, the traditional way to create curved workpieces is with kerf-bending. The method is simple: Cut a series of parallel kerfs on the back of...
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Other Track Saw Solutions
So, you’re convinced: After all this you really want a track saw, but it’s not in the budget. Well, you’re in luck, as there are a number of track saw adapter kits that can turn almost any regular...
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Essential Track Saw Tips
Track saws are game-changers, but there are some very basic things to remember. Here are three tips to keep your cutting right on track. Theoretically, you can make a track as long as you like by...
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Translucent Screen Shutters
Windows are meant to deliver light into your home’s interior, but they can also provide an unwanted view into your home. That’s why almost everyone wants and needs some form of window covering in their...
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