Archive for category Technology

In response to my post about building a chest, Pauly asked, “I am considering making an investment in more power tools. What tools did you need to make it?” I thought that would be a good topic for a post.

Although the cordless drill and the circular saw are the bread-and-butter of my workshop, my miter saw and table saw are the flashy stars. Anything these tools do can be accomplished with cheaper hand tools, but there’s no denying that they dramatically add to speed, convenience, and precision when woodworking.

My miter saw is a DEWALT DW716 12-Inch Double-Bevel Compound Miter Saw. Now, there are those who say that a table saw is the first “big” power tool a woodworker should buy, but I get far more use out of my miter saw than my table saw. The reason is simple: my construction uses a lot of dimensional lumber, and so I end up doing a lot more cross-cutting than rip-cutting. And cross-cutting is what miter saws do best.

The bigger a miter saw, the larger the piece of lumber it can cut through. I bought a 12-inch saw because it could cut a 4×4 post at a 45-degree angle, and I figured a 4×4 would be the biggest thing I would reasonably need to cut. It can also cut a 2×10 board.

Miter saws really shine for applications like crown molding, where precise angles are important. Honestly, I never do stuff like that, and so this saw is really a little overkill. A bit of money could be saved by going down from a 12″ to a 10″ blade, and by going from double-bevel to single-bevel. This means that the saw would only tilt over sideways one direction, and you’d have to flip the lumber if you needed the bevel to go the other way.

Another variation is the sliding miter saw. This means that there is a set of rails, and after you drop the blade, you can slide it straight backwards about twelve inches. This dramatically increases your ability to cut through wide, flat boards, even with a 10″ blade, and means that a 12″ blade can cut pretty much anything you can imagine. The primary down-side of the sliding miter saw is cost: the sliding version of my saw costs $600 instead of $400 for the non-sliding version. A second down-side is that sliding saws need more clearance behind them, to make room for the sliding mechanism. This may be an issue if your workshop already has a built-in station for a non-sliding miter saw.

The major accessory I would recommend for a miter saw is a stand. Because miter saws are used primarily for cross-cuts, you’ve usually got a few feet of lumber hanging off the ends of the saw. That can make it damn near impossible to hold down against the fence. A miter saw stand has movable stops that support the ends of the lumber that hang off the saw’s work surface. You can buy one for about $200, but if you’ve got a little bit of initiative, you can build one for much cheaper. I prefer simply building the station into a counter-top, with the counter-top flush with the work-surface of the saw. This means that lumber laid on the counter-top is also perfectly positioned for cutting, and is supported along its entire length. You do give up portability, though.

In response to my post about building a chest, Pauly asked, “I am considering making an investment in more power tools. What tools did you need to make it?” I thought that would be a good topic for a post.

If I had to pick just a few basic power tools, I would probably start with an electric circular saw and a battery-powered drill. In this post, I’ll discuss the drill.

When I wrote about circular saws, I recommended an electric one. For drills, I strongly prefer cordless. For whatever the reason, I have found 18v battery-powered drills to have more than enough power and endurance for my tasks. That, combined with the convenience of a cordless tool, mean that I’ve never wished I had a corded drill.

Drills are used for two things: driving screws and drilling holes. For driving screws, the most basic accessory that I use is a modular driver-head with sleeve. The driver-head has interchangeable bits that allow me to easily switch from flat-head to various sizes of phillips to hex-head, without loosening the drill’s chuck. The extended driver shaft makes it easier to get the drill into tight spaces. The sleeve makes it easy to get long screws started.

For drilling holes, I start with a set of bits in various sizes from 1/16″ up to 1/2″, such as Milwaukee 48-89-1105 1/16-to-1/2-Inch Titanium Coated Twist Drill Bit Assortment in Plastic Index, 20-Piece. I love that this set includes doubles of smaller bit-sizes, which are more likely to break. For boring holes of 3/8″ or larger through materials more than about 1/2″ deep, I prefer spade bits, as I find they are easier to handle and keep the hole neat.

For holes larger than 1/2″, of course, traditional drill bits aren’t really even an option, as they pretty much top out at that size. Here’s a decent set of spade bits: DeWalt DW1587 6 Bit 3/8-Inch to 1-Inch Spade Drill Bit Assortment.

Lastly, I have occasionally found a set of hole-saw bits to be useful. For one thing, they’re the easiest and fastest way to cut holes up to about 4″ in diameter. I started using mine when I was making self-watering planters and needed to cut a bunch of holes for 4″ PVC in the tops of plastic containers. I had been drawing the circles and cutting them with a jigsaw, which was slow and messy. When I switched to a hole saw, my life got a lot easier.

Shopping for hole saw sets can give a bit of sticker shock. Basically, a hole saw set consists of two mandrels (one for smaller saws and one for larger) and various sizes of saw. They easily run $50 to $100 depending on how many sizes of saw come with the set. The thing is, if you’ve got a specific project in mind, you can save a lot of money in the short term by buying a mandrel and the exact size of saw you need, but you will pay much more in the long run buying the saws individually compared to a set. For example, this set (Milwaukee 49-22-4095 Electricians Ice Hardened Hole Saw Kit, 10-Piece) has two mandrels and six blades between 7/8″ and 2 1/2″ and costs just under $50. By comparison, a single mandrel and a 3″ blade will run about $25, half the price of the six-piece set. In the end, it’s up to you, but I sucked it up and bought the six-piece set. I bought the 3.5″ blade that I needed separately, because it didn’t come with the set. At the time, I didn’t need any of the smaller blades, but I did need the mandrel. I’ve since used the smaller blades multiple times, and I came out way ahead compared to buying them individually when I needed them.

Oh, and let’s not forget that when you buy the hole saw blades in a set, you get a nice plastic carrying case for them. Now, if only I could figure out how to get the 3.5″ blade that I bought separately into that case. Hmm… maybe I’ll drill a hole in it.

There are lots of different types of drill bits out there, but those are the ones that I use. Actually, after my first big woodworking project, I bought one more set. In soft-wood, it’s a good idea to pre-drill screw and nail-holes, and in hardwood, it’s mandatory. For the best-looking projects, screw heads should be countersunk below the surface. Screws can simply be driven below the surface of soft-wood, but this sometimes results in stripping the screw and/or breaking off its head, which is a mess. I had this happen enough during the building of the chest that I ordered a set of countersink bits. These bits are pre-sized to drill pilot holes for common sizes of wood screw, and have an adjustable collet at the top that bores out a countersink hole at a pre-determined depth. This means that you can easily drill the pilot hole and countersink hole in one step.

Finally, here is one accessory for the drill that I have not yet bought, although I have been sorely tempted.

One of the most basic problems I have with a hand drill is getting it to go in perpendicular to the wood. This is, of course, what a drill press is good at, but you can’t always maneuver a piece under construction over to the drill press’s work surface. This drill guide attachment is designed to ensure that the hole is drilled at a precise and consistent angle. The only problem is that it’s $30 or so, and in addition to that, I’m not convinced that its utility would make up for its unwieldiness. I’m often drilling upside down or sideways into a piece of work that’s under construction, and it can be hard enough to maneuver the drill into place without having this big guide hanging off the front. Finally, reviews on the device and others like it are decidedly lukewarm.

In the next post, I’ll get to some of the real power tools: table saw and miter saw.

In response to my post about building a chest, Pauly asked, “I am considering making an investment in more power tools. What tools did you need to make it?” I thought that would be a good topic for a post.

If I had to pick just a few basic power tools, I would probably start with an electric circular saw and a battery-powered drill. In this post, I’ll discuss the circular saw.

The precision and speed of use with a circular saw is not the same as with a table saw and miter saw, but the value for the money is immense. You can get a good circular saw new in the $150-200 range, and used for half that, and be able to do almost any cut you would ever need. By comparison, a miter saw and table saw can easily run $200-300 each, and that’s for bottom-of-the-line models. Table saws especially can run into the thousands.

I would choose an electric saw because I have a little battery-powered one and it dies after, literally just a few cuts through a sheet of plywood. It is clearly under-powered for the job. I think it was intended more for cross-cuts on lumber and trim pieces. Speaking of power, don’t skimp. Cutting through big pieces of 3/4″ plywood takes a bit of “oomph,” and you don’t want the blade binding or the motor struggling.

The value of a circular saw is dramatically increased if you have a cutting guide. The problem with circular saws is that they don’t cut as straight a line as a table or miter saw. When doing long rip cuts, such as down the length of a board or across a sheet of plywood, a little bit of wandering off your line can add up to a lot of inaccuracy. When doing cross-cuts, it can be hard to get the end of the board exactly square.

For cross-cuts, I recommend a Speed Square. That link is to the 7″ version, but they come up to 12″ (and probably larger) if you need to cross-cut pieces of lumber bigger than 7″ wide. You place the lip of the square against the edge of the board and use the perpendicular edge of the square as a guide for the base-plate of your circular saw.  Above, you can see an illustration of this process. It’s really quick and much more accurate than trying to follow a marked line.

For the record, speed squares are actually very versatile and useful tools, that are much more than a straight-edge. Here’s a video describing more.

For rip-cuts, I recommend two different types of guides. If you’re doing a long rip-cut along the length of a board, such as cutting a 2×4 down to a pair of (approximate) 2x2s, or cutting strips of 1/8″ trim off of a piece of 1×4, I suggest a Rip Fence like the one shown below.

This device attaches to the baseplate of your circular saw and runs along the edge of the board, ensuring a straight cut… well, ensuring that the cut is as straight as the edge of the board, anyway. Rip fences like these may be custom-fit to a particular make or model of saw, and not all saws may accept them, so you should look into this before you buy.

For long cuts down sheet stock like plywood, I would choose a clamp-down cutting guide.This is, basically a straightedge between 4′ and 8′ long that you clamp to the sheet of plywood, and then you run your saw against it to make a straight cut. Not too complicated, right?

Now, this is a link to a clamp-down cutting guide that costs about $35, but I don’t recommend it and that’s why I’m not going to put in a picture. I just want you to see what NOT to buy. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with that particular device, it’s just that it costs $35 and you can easily make your own for much, much cheaper. Here are two links (1) (2) to online instructions.

These cutting guides can be as complicated as you want to make them, but I took the simple route. I bought a piece of 4′ long x 1″ square metal stock at the hardware store. This was about $10. The reason I used a metal bar was I wanted to be as sure as possible that my guide was a straight line, and a piece of wood might not accomplish that.

Then I took a left-over piece of 1/4″ thick plywood. I used self-tapping screws to screw the piece of plywood to the piece of metal stock so that one end of the plywood was flush with one edge of the stock. Then I ran the circular saw down the length of the plywood, with the baseplate pressed up against the metal guide bar. This addresses a problem with cutting guides, which is that you have to compensate for the distance between the edge of the baseplate and the blade when you set the guide in place. Putting on a larger piece of plywood and then cutting it off using the metal guide bar itself means that the edge of the plywood is exactly where the saw’s blade is going to cut. Now, when I want to line up a cut, I just place the edge of the plywood where the cut should go, place the saw’s baseplate against the metal guide, and cut. Piece of cake!

With a 4′ guide I can cut across the full width of a sheet of plywood. If I ever needed to cut the length of a sheet, I could easily make an 8′ guide, but I haven’t yet had to do that. For an 8′ guide, I probably would not buy metal bar stock. I probably would just cut off a piece of plywood and use the factory edge as the guide.

Incidentally, if you’re going to use a clamp-down guide, or if you’re going to do much carpentry at all, you’re going to need clamps. I recommend these as a starting point: Irwin Industrial 12-Inch Quick-Grip Bar Clamp with Bonus 6-Inch Mini Bar Clamp. These clamps are easy to tighten and release one-handed (trust me, this is essential) and they have a million and one other uses, whereas if you bought that purpose-built clamp-down guide, you wouldn’t have a set of clamps to use for anything else.

Next post: the power drill.