When you’re setting posts for a deck or fence, you need either an extra set of hands or some jury-rigged bracing to keep the post plumb until the concrete sets. But with Cepco’s Post-Pod, you can set up and hold posts without the extra helpers.
This stylish new carpenter’s bracelet…um, this set of carpenter’s brass knuckles…OK, this carpenter’s circular rasp sells for $10 at Woodcraft. The rasp, originally used by staircase makers to smooth curved handrails, shapes tightly curved or concave areas where a straight rasp won’t work.
Remember that time you asked your algebra teacher when you’d ever need to solve for X in real life? There’s a good chance you still haven’t found a use for your higher math skills, but Toolmongers will likely encounter plenty of practical math issues during a project. This handy book’ll show you how to calculate roof pitch, lay out stairs, make sense of a scientific calculator, and lots of other stuff.
The nail gun revolutionized carpentry, but at the expense of tying the carpenter to a stationary compressor. Companies have devised some ingenious solutions to this problem — but battery-powered or battery-and-gas-powered nail guns can be heavy, awkward, and costly; and CO2-powered belt packs can only drive so many nails before you have to buy a new canister. Palmgren devised another solution: a portable, tank-less compressor that weighs just 6.6 lbs including the battery, so you can carry it easily over the shoulder or around the waist.
This really cool-looking edge clamp works great for repairing cracks in the tops and backs of stringed instruments, but the average woodworker might not find it very useful, unless he regularly needs to repair cracked wooden bowls, vases, or other thin curved objects. In that case, this $140 tool just might come in handy.
To drill angled holes, you can tilt your drill press table, but sometimes it’s easier and more precise to use a cradle-style angle vise instead. The head of this particular vise from Palmgren locks at preset stops every 15° from 0° to 90°, simply by inserting an alignment pin. Set any other angle by removing the alignment pin and hand-tightening the locking mechanism.
No, the WASP Sander isn’t designed for White Anglo-Saxon Protestants — it’s an innovative attachment for your drill press. This tool turns your drill press into a belt sander, a drum sander, a floppy belt sander, a flat belt sander, or a curved belt sander, depending on how you configure it.
When biscuits came out in 1956, they changed woodworkers’ approach to butt joinery. Simply by lining up two separate slots and inserting a glue-covered biscuit, you could join panels easily. Now Lamello, the company that brought us the biscuit, has come out with a new way to join wood: the Fixo biscuit.
Blind or “sliver” nailing is an old technique of hiding nail heads in finish carpentry. You raise a thin sliver of wood, leaving it attached; drive a nail, and set it in the depression left behind; and glue the sliver back into place — no filler needed. Lee Valley designed a modern tool to help make this antique practice a bit easier.
Made of stainless steel and brass, the specialized plane clamps a 1/4″ high-carbon steel chisel at a 15° angle. The gouge-shaped edges of the hardwood-handled chisel minimize tear-out and leave a clean shaving. To change the thickness of the shaving, just adjust how far the chisel protrudes from the sole of the plane.
Along with the non-marring plane and the chisel, the Veritas Invisible Nailing kit includes a small container of fish glue. For only $28, this kit’ll help you lend an air of professionalism to your woodworking projects .
Note: Check out page 432 of Woodworking for Beginners: A Manual for Amateurs By Charles Gardner Wheeler at Google Books for a 100-year-old description of “sliver” nailing. While you’re at it, take a look at some of the other great woodworking techniques from 1907 that this great, public-domain book describes.
Invisible Nailing Kit [Veritas]
Invisible Nailing Kit [Lee Valley]
If you’re new to pneumatic tools, you might assume that these tools are going to separate you from a bunch of your hard-earned green — but that’s not necessarily so. The 18-gauge Central Pneumatic is a fine example of an honest, hard-working nailer, and at $20, it won’t murder your budget.
Is this going to become a treasured family heirloom? No. But as long as you treat it with reasonable care, it’ll get the job done long enough for you to save up for a better rig a year down the road. In the meantime, for less than the cost of renting one, you can continue on your woodworking way.
Central Pneumatic Nailer [Harbor Freight]
A few weekends ago I got restless — Norm’s project was a rerun, Bob’s old house episode was even older than me, and there weren’t any other good woodworking shows on. Trying to get my fix, I came across Woodworking Online’s podcasts and the new Woodsmith Shop show.
Every tool collection needs a good hand plane. Without taking up too much space, it can quickly and quietly tweak your woodworking projects. And it doesn’t have to be an elaborate tool — Woodsmith offers a kit for making a simple wooden hand plane.
Want to see something funny? Get a piece of wood that isn’t one of the normal stocks, give it to a bunch of tool guys, and watch ‘em play the “I think that is” game. While very amusing, it won’t get you very far toward actually identifying the wood. The Wood Identification kit can help.
Small spenders take note: Ryobi has added lithium-ion power to their low-buck One+ system, dramatically increasing the line’s potential and raising the bar significantly for affordable cordless power tools. You’ll find several combination sets on store shelves now — all featuring the new batteries plus a retina-burning, high-visibility green color scheme.
For today’s test, we snagged a four-piece set — the “Ryobi One+ 4-PC Lithium Power Tool Kit,” which includes a charger, two batteries, a drill/driver, a reciprocating saw, a circular saw, and a worklight. Wondering just what $300 buys you in a four-piece li-ion combo? Read on past the jump to find out.
I spotted this great deal over on Amazon: a set of four Freud Forstner bits in 1/4″, 1/2″, 3/4″, and 1″ diameters, with a lifetime warranty, for $16. I purchased some Forstner bits for a project a while back when I really should have bought spade bits — if you’ve ever used a Forstner bit in a regular hand drill, you know it takes a lot of force to push them into the material you’re cutting. But they work great in a drill press, especially for making pocket, angled, or overlapping holes.
Freud [Corporate Site]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon
When we first saw pictures of this insane boat, we thought someone was having a good time with us in Photoshop. That’s not the case — it’s the work of Livio De Marchi and his fine woodcarving skills. This really is a life-sized wooden boat, shaped like a Ferrari F50.
This guy’s boat kind of puts to shame the feeble projects most guys attempt in their daily shop-time — but we can’t help but think that the wooden seats could have a bit more cushion on ‘em. Then again, nitpicking this thing is a little like telling Da Vinci he should’ve gone a different way with the Mona Lisa.
Wooden Ferrari Boat [Livio De Marchi]
Furniture builders cringe at the sight of gaping holes in the fascia of their latest wooden creation — but a few cheap, readily available, hardwood plugs can fix those holes up with almost no hassle.
Tons of retailers carry these plugs in various popular hardwoods, from oak to cherry, and in several styles. Whether you choose a classic, rounded screw plug or an insert-type plug, it’ll leave little trace that anything’s there. Some woodcrafters even stain them in a contrasting color, for a stunning overall effect.
However you use ‘em, it’s a good bet the $2 you lay down on a set of 25 plugs will net you some sweet looking screw covers, without you having to turn them out yourself — so you can get back to more important parts of the project.
Oak Furniture Plugs [McFeely’s]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
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