Disc Sander - I need a disc sander from time to time, but not enough to invest the money in buying one. Since I have a lathe, which is pretty good at going round and round, all I had to do was figure out a way to adapt it. The sanding disc, which is 11-3/4” in diameter, is attached to the lathe’s spindle with a spare faceplate I had and the rest rides along the lathe’s bed, with a simple clamp mechanism made from a bolt and a threaded star knob.

A lot of you enjoyed my video on Ryobi tools... and a few people got mad about it. Oh, well. I'm at it again, stirring the pot and giving my two-and-a-half cents worth; this time, about Harbor Freight and their tools. The short version is some is good and some is not so good. Take a look at the video and leave us a comment on YouTube, if you like it. That helps promote the channel and our community of woodworkers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNpSqbomkIo

I'm looking for a good dado set that is beginner friendly. I'm a DIY enthusiasts and have a 10 inch Dewalt table saw. Any suggestions or words of wisdom, stories of experience to share? Is it more important to have various shims, number of teeth? Sooo many questions!

One of the first tools any woodworker needs is a good saw. What kind of saw we buy often depends on the budget we have available to us. Like many woodworkers, I started out with only hand power tools (back then there weren’t any cordless ones) and no stationary tools. Although I had learned woodworking from my dad and used his table saw, I couldn’t afford one myself. Of course, I was a teen at the time, just having moved out of the house and working my first real job. Paying the bills and buying food pretty much ate up whatever money I had. But not everyone who starts out in woodworking is in that same predicament. I’ve run across many woodworkers who are retired and just starting out their woodworking journey. For them, the issue isn’t buying the cheapest thing they can, which will do the job; but rather buying the best thing for their needs as beginning woodworkers. So, should someone in that situation buy a circular saw or a table saw? The first thing we have to understand about the two, is that they aren’t really the same tool. I mean, the circular saw isn’t just a portable table saw. While the blades look more or less the same, other than size, the table and the fence give a table saw much more capability than a circular saw. It is the table and fence that make the table saw the most versatile saw in the workshop, able to do much more than just make straight cuts. While table saws were once considered useful only for ripping boards and breaking down sheets of plywood, today they are used for many more tasks, like cutting tenons, crosscutting, making miters and making keyed spline joints. This wide variety of tasks, and more, is possible due to various sleds and jigs that woodworkers have developed for use with their table saws. On the other hand, the circular saw is actually a carpenter’s tool, designed for cutting dimensional lumber quickly. It excels in cutting through 2x4s and larger boards. Carpenters also use it for cutting plywood, but they generally aren’t looking for the degree of accuracy that woodworkers are. For the most part, ± 1/8” is accurate enough for carpentry work.

Besides the table saw, the router has become the most useful and versatile tool in the workshop. Originally invented in the late 1800s, it was at first envisioned as a tool for cutting dados, grooves, and V-grooves in wood. While it can still be used for those purposes; the wide assortment of router bits available to us today, make it possible for this tool to be part of nearly every project. Back when I started doing woodworking, there were basically two uses for routers; shaping the edges of panels and carving out letters in signs. Through the years, I’ve seen more and more router bits come onto the market, expanding the usefulness of this tool. Today, routers are not only used to work edges and carve out letters, but also for joinery and to carve out bowls. People keep finding more and more uses for this versatile tool. A large part of this increase of the router’s purpose has come from the tool industry seeking ways of performing tasks normally reserved for a shaper, essentially the router’s big brother, on the router. This has led to a lot of joinery cuts, as well as the ability to cut baseboard and other architectural molding on the router. In order to do this, the router is often mounted in a router table; providing stability and a table surface, which is larger than the shoe of the router. While not every router cut can be done on the router table, it is especially useful when cutting these more complex profiles. The router table also makes it possible to use the router for smaller pieces, safely. Today’s routers have changed considerably, getting both larger and smaller than those of the past. Fixed and plunge routers can be purchased with more powerful motors than those of a generation ago. At the same time, trim routers, also known as laminate cutters, have become more powerful, becoming able to take over many of the more traditional router roles. While some tasks require a more powerful motor, it is possible to use many edge shaping bits with a trim router.