Apparently available only at Woodcraft, the $90 Vika Quickbench is way less expensive than the $475 Festool MFT/3 (see TM 7/27/09), and 40% less than the $150 Vika Twofold™, but does it warrant a place in your shop or garage? It has a 32″ high, 30″ × 24″ work surface with a 24″ × 3½” opening vise and four plastic bench dogs. The Quickbench can hold up to 300 lbs and, when used in pairs as sawhorses, has a capacity up to 2,000 lbs. Two or more units can also be connected together to make a workstation or larger area bench. There’s a 15A, 3-outlet power strip with circuit protection in the base of one pair of its legs.

What do you think? Would this replace — or supplement — your trusty old Workmate (e.g., TM 8/26/09)? Let us know in comments.

Vika Quickbench [Woodcraft]

King Arthur’s Tools claims that being able to see what you’re sanding means you’ll work faster because you don’t have to keep removing the tool to see your progress. With their Holey Galahad carving discs, you can actually see through the disc to the surface you’re cutting. The discs can be used on wood, fiberglass, plastic, foam core, soapstone, and other materials.

Made in the USA, the discs will fit most 4-1/2″ and 125mm angle grinders — just be sure to keep the speed under 14,000RPM. The 4″ diameter steel discs have sharp conical tungsten carbide teeth bonded over the cutting surface and can be used on both the face and the edge

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JessEm has created a featherboard that lets you adjust its height (or width) independently of position. What’s more, while positioning the height, guides keep the featherboard parallel to the fence or table.

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I’ve had a Radi-Plane (similar, if not identical to, the picture on the left) for many years*, and found it very handy for easing edges. I recently added — following a “suggestion” from the home project coordinator, a.k.a. my lovely wife — a couple of extra shelves to a cabinet above the oven. I used MDF for the shelves and my Radi-Plane did a great job rounding the edges (and was easier and quicker than digging out the router).

While checking options, I found Benjamen’s post on the Veritas Cornering Tool Set (shown on the right above; $33 for 2 tools with 4 different radii and a sharpening kit), and was wondering how these compare to the Radi-Plane (or the apparent equivalents, Woodstock’s W1100 Slickplane [What’s This?], available for $13, and the Rockler radius plane, available for $22). Has anyone had experience with both? Any other good suggestions for quickly and consistently easing edges?

*15? 20? I found a Radi-Plane reference in the Aug. 1990 issue of American Woodworker [Google Books]. My versions are branded “RADI-PLANE, L.A. Mathers Co., Stockton, Calif.”

Street Pricing [Google Products]
Radius Plane [Rockler]

Sharpening flat edges is relatively easy; trying to match the curve of a gouge requires more skill and a bunch of curved stones. DMT is trying to make it easier to keep a keen edge on your curved tools with their new Diamond Wave.

While it looks like a piece of metal that’s had a bad day, it’s actually a combination of convex and concave surfaces coated with a micronized mono-crystalline diamond coating. The curves vary precisely from a radius of 0.0625″ to 1″, which gives it the ability to sharpen a wide range of curved tools. You can use the Diamond Wave dry or with water.

DMT makes the Diamond Wave in the USA. Available in fine (25-micron/600 mesh) or extra-fine (9-micron/1200-mesh), pricing starts at $47 shipped for either “stone.”

DMT Diamond Wave [Press Release]
Diamond Wave [WoodCraft]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

Add Manufacturer DMT (http://www.dmtsharp.com/index.html))

Yes, we know that drill press bearings aren’t designed for sideways loads, but that doesn’t seem to stop companies from designing gizmos like the Wagner Safe-T-Planer. This rotary planer chucks into any drill press with a 1/2″ chuck to shave off up to 3/8″ in one pass.

The 3-1/8″ diameter planer can make passes up to 2-3/4″ wide. The three shielded high-speed steel cutters spinning at 3,000 to 6,000RPM supposedly don’t grab the work piece or kick back, which is probably the origin of the Safe-T in the name. You can use it to surface plane, cut tenons, rabbets, raised panels, and tapers — though we’re guessing you have to tilt the table to do the last two.

Although the Safe-T-Planer is sold by Grizzly, WoodCraft, and a handful of other retailers, the manufacturer is unclear. Trying to track down them down led us to a trademark filed by Aurthur Gilmore of G & W Tools. It’s possible the “W” stands for Wagner, but that’s where the trail ends.

You can get the Safe-T-Planer shipped with a special grinding wheel and a 12-page manual for $58.

Safe-T-Planer [Grizzly]
Safe-T-Planer [WoodCraft]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]

The Carver’s Spoon Plane may resemble a spoon, but you’d be better off using it to hollow out a wooden spoon then trying to eat with it. Used to clean up and smooth hollow or concave surfaces like spoons and bowls, the spoon plane is simple to control and cuts quickly.

The 6″ long spoon plane is cast in bronze and coated with titanium nitrate, giving it a smooth and shiny finish. The head of the spoon holds a 1-3/8″ wide plane blade and the large handle fits comfortably in your hand.

Woodcraft sells the Carver’s Spoon plane for $27 shipped, but it requires honing before use. For an extra treat, watch the video of Charles Neil explaining the Carver’s Wooden Spoon on the WoodCraft site. He’s a colorful character, to say the least.

Carver’s Spoon Plane [Woodcraft]

The Modified Square isn’t an easy tool to wrap your head around — I’m still trying to completely understand it myself.  At first glance it looks like a framing square that got into a bad accident, but upon closer inspection there are some intriguing uses for it, like transferring measurements from the underside of a workpiece to the top and finding the quarter points on round stock.

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Wooden shims have their advantages — for instance, with just two cheap tapered shims, you can adjust their width almost infinitely — but they’re not very handy if you want a bunch of 1/8″ shims.  Plus if you don’t stack an even number of shims, the surfaces aren’t parallel.  Although these Handi-Shims are more expensive, they might work better for some applications.

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The commonly recommended method for stopping a drill bit at a marked depth is to wrap it with tape. While this works most of the time, the tape can slip, and if it doesn’t it winds up looking pretty ragged by the time you’re done with the fourth hole.  I’m tempted to try one of these adjustable bit stops if for no other reason than its tape-goo-free operation — I’m a cheapskate at heart, but the only thing I hate more than spending cash is cleaning tools.

The stop, which also functions as a bump stop, wraps around standard 1/16″ to 1/2″ drill bits and holds tight to the bit with a quick twist.  Constructed from nylon plastic, the drill stop will run you $6 from Woodcraft.

Adjustable Bit Stop [Woodcraft]
Street Pricing [Google]

Woodcraft is having a sale at all their locations this Friday and Saturday — twenty percent off all Jet and Powermatic tools and accessories.  It’s not a bad deal, especially if you’re looking at getting a big piece of gear like a full-sized wood planer, table saw, or floor-standing drill press.

So if you had your eye on a Powermatic PM2000 3HP table saw, for instance, you’d normally be out about three grand;  this weekend you can shave about $600 off that.  Unless you’re buying equipment used or off the back of a truck, you probably won’t find better deals on this big a selection anytime soon.

I’m going down to check it out, but will wind up leaving my wallet in the car just in case I’m tempted –- which has happened in the past.

Sale Sheet [Woodcraft]

I don’t know how woodworkers do it. A good quality clamp will run you $30 to $60 per clamp — yet most committed woodworkers have a wall of 20 to 50+ clamps. That money would buy me the cabinet saw I’ve been looking at, and I feel lucky to own the half-dozen bar clamps that I do have. This R&R Stackable Clamp System at my local Woodworks caught my eye, and it looks like a good deal — but unfortunately it’s still out of my budget.

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Incra’s miter sliders provide rigid and stable T-slot runners for your router table, table saw, or band saw jigs.  Incra designed them for use with their Build-It System panels, but they can also give your custom jigs precise-fitting runners with minimum play.

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Some glue dries clear, some dries yellow, some dries brown.  Regardless of what color it dries, one thing’s for sure — it’ll be the wrong color.  If you need color-matched glue, FastCap sells a colorant kit for their 2P-10 two-part adhesive that might do the trick.

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We’d like to give credit to reader fred who recommended some Zerust products in this post almost a year ago — we forgot about it until we saw these liners for sale.  Of course we’ve talked about non-slip toolbox liners before, here and here, but if you’re thinking about throwing down that kind of money for the Craftsman product, why not buy a non-slip liner that also protects your tools from corrosion for almost the same price?

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A blade organizer like this one might be a little overkill if your tools never leave the shop, but if you’re constantly on the move, having all your blades in one secure location could be worth the $40+ price tag.

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Shopping at my local Woodcraft, I was torn between these Polypropylene Glue Spreaders and the typical horsehair brushes, the ones with the metal handles and about a 1/2″ of horsehair.  With all those fibers, the horsehair has more surface area, which equates to more glue on the brush — but they’ve only got a few uses in ‘em till they’re just too gooped up, and then they hit the trash can.  These plastic glue spreaders, on the other hand, are reusable with most woodworking glues;  just let the glue dry and it’ll peel right off.

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