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.
We were in a bind last week in the Toolmonger shop. We couldn’t find the stain we wanted anywhere locally, and we needed it pretty bad to get a project done on time. We swallowed hard and ordered online from Woodcraft. In short, we were impressed.
Woodcraft carries a dizzying array of woodworking items, as anyone who checks out their site can plainly see, but we found the uber swift service to be the real star of the show. After selecting our Red Mahogany Danish oil from the website last Thursday, we paid for it and hoped for the best — but feared the worst. Tales of woe about ordering wood supplies from online suppliers haunted us, but only for around ten minutes. That’s about all it took for Woodcraft’s communication system to kick in.
If ever there was “One Shop Tool to Rule Them All”, it might be the Saw-Aid. Let’s list the functions:
I count eight tools in one. I’m not sure I’d replace my steel rule or brass setup bars with the Saw-Aid, but it looks like a great tool to have by your table saw or to throw in your go bag or toolbox. You can find the Saw-Aid at many woodworking retailers for between $15 and $17.
Our question to you: Is it worth it? Is this something you would use in your shop, or is it something you get as a Father’s Day gift, that sits on your shelf collecting dust? Let us know in comments.
Saw-Aid [Stots Corporation]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon
Sanding usually stands out as my least favorite part of a project — I’m sure I’m not alone. And though sanding flat surfaces is bad enough, the tedious detail work can really kill me. These handy little sanding sticks from Excel Hobby Blade aim to make detail sanding a little easier.
A belt of sandpaper wraps around the 6-1/4″ sanding stick, which is made of impact resistant plastic. The belt rotates to keep fresh sandpaper where you need it — at the taper, the flat sides, or the rounded end. A spring-loaded tensioner keeps the 1/4″ x 12-3/4″ belt in position and makes the belt easy to remove and replace. You can use the aluminum oxide belts for either wet or dry sanding.
If you’ve ever had to lay a curve over and over again, you probably made a template from whatever you had around — a piece of cardboard, a piece of paper, maybe a moldable French curve. Woodcraft recently added a flexible template to their inventory. It’s cool because you can mimic a curve up to 37″ long. Even cooler: You can lock it to keep that curve no matter how many times you transfer it.
The locking template sells for $40, and Woodcraft appears to be the only place offering it.
Curve Template [Woodcraft]
Most woodworkers would agree that the chisel is an indispensable tool, but chiseling can get pretty tedious after awhile. What if you could replicate the same cutting action with a power tool? Arbortech’s Power Chisel does just that. Plus, unlike rotary cutting tools, it leaves behind very little airborne dust or sawdust — just shavings and wood chips.
Dovetail joinery can be one mark of excellent craftsmanship, but woodworkers have been joining with ‘em for hundreds of years. You can always spice dovetails up a bit by varying the distance between the pins and tails — but if you really want your project to be noticed, you should check out Leigh’s Isoloc joint templates. Isoloc templates allow you to create curved and rounded fingers that are only possible with a router.
You don’t always have enough clearance to drill a hole or drive a screw where you need it. Maybe an obstruction blocks the hole, or the combination of drill and bit just won’t fit, as with closely spaced studs. At times like these a tool like Fuller’s flexible extension could come in handy.
Next time you have to bundle boards, pipes, siding, or whatever, don’t reach for tape or rope or twine — grab your roll of Stretch Wrap Flat Twine. If it’s good enough to withstand shipping by UPS, it’s good enough for Toolmongers.
Unlike tape, Flat Twine only sticks to itself, so there are no knots to remember — wrapping the Flat Twine over itself is sufficient. Since it stretches, you can bundle your stuff tighter than with rope or twine. And when you need to separate the materials, just unwrap the flat twine; no knots to untie, no sticky mess left behind.
Pricing starts at $4 for a 2″ x 178′ roll with dispenser. If you can find a rope that length for cheaper, I wouldn’t trust it.
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon
So you twisted the head off a brass wood screw — bummer. If you try to back out the remaining screw with a reverse-thread screw extractor, you may just deform the soft brass rather than remove it. And if you grab the broken screw with pliers, you could end up doing more damage. It might be time to try these broken screw extractors from WoodCraft.
Conventional rollers work just fine for some operations, but positioned incorrectly as table saw out-feed supports, they can push your workpiece to one side or another. A better option, ball bearing rollers allow smooth movement in any direction — so a misaligned out-feed support won’t skew the workpiece.
If you’re looking for a good starter lathe at a good buy-in price Woodcraft is offering a normally $320 lathe for $200. The Record Power Woodturning Lathe (DML 24X/C model) features a grey iron headstock, two shielded ball bearings supporting the main drive spindle that is ground to a tolerance of .0003″ and pressed into bearings.
It’s a ½ horsepower unit with 24” between the centers and a Poly-V Belt drive drive system that produces spindle speeds of 540, 1140, 2440 rpm. It looks like a good system to try if you don’t want to dive into the huge cost of a full sized unit.
DML 24X/C [Record Power]
Record Power Woodturning Lathe DML 24x/c [Woodcraft]
When drilling to a set depth, collar-type drill stops — think donuts — provide a less-than-ideal solution. Since they’re metal, they may damage the drill bit or mar the work surface. What’s more, you need one for just about every drill bit size, and when it’s time to use or adjust them, you have to find the right size Allen wrench. Recently I stumbled across something that may replace the metal, collar-style stop in my toolbox: adjustable plastic drill stops.
Made from brightly colored, high-impact plastic, you can spot these drill stops easily in your toolbox or drawer. They come in sets of two: the smaller one fits bits sized 1/16″ to 1/4″, and the larger fits bits sized 1/4″ to 1/2″. You simply twist the threaded sleeve around the internal double-ended collet to lock it at the desired depth.
At $5 to $6 a pair, are these stops the slickest invention since sliced bread, or worthless pieces of plastic? Tell us what you think in comments.
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Plastic Drill Stops [Lee Valley]
Plastic Drill Stops [Woodcraft]
“Paint easier. Paint smarter. Paint without the wait!” The makers of Painter’s Pyramid claim their product will save you time and effort, and we found much truth in this claim. The simple plastic devices allow you to paint one side of a workpiece immediately after the other without having to wait for the fresh paint to dry. They’re non-stick and non-marring, and they can even handle large workpieces weighing up to 200 pounds!
In a world where power tools dominate most shops, hand tools can still help us out. For instance, a cornering tool, beautiful in its simplicity, does the same job as a router round-over bit, but it does it with no setup, sawdust, or noise. A cornering tool can actually cut a cleaner radius, without the machining marks you get with a spinning router bit. (more…)
Router bit manufacturers must be taking a cue from the razor blade companies — more blades are better. First there were two-wing bits, then triple-wing bits, and now Freud has come out with the Quadra-Cut bit. Freud claims the new Quadra-Cut bits leave a surface that requires no sanding or reworking - even in cross grain cuts.
Traditional woodworkers use a scorp for roughing out concave shapes like bowls, spoons, and chair seats. Pfeil makes this 7″ long scorp with a contoured ash handle and a thick steel shank to reduce chatter as you pull the 1-1/4″ blade toward you. Less chatter = smoother curves.
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