Page 102 - Learn Woodworking

Many people think the jigsaw is only good for making curved cuts. We show you how to use a fence and choose the right blade to make straight cuts with your jigsaw.

A router guide collar is a useful accessory that threads onto a router base and guides the router along a pattern or template. The one safety concern with guide collars is that they can loosen and possibly fall off, causing damage to your work or maybe an injury. You can make sure that your guide collar won't loosen by using PTFE ahead tape (also called teflon tape) to wrap around the treads. You can find this special tape in the plumbing section of most hardware stores.

A stopped dado or groove is a cut that does not run all the way through a work piece. Making stopped dado or groove cuts can be tricky because you can't see the bit. The trick is to make marks on the router table to show where the router bit is located and make marks on the work piece to show where to start or stop cutting. A technique called a drop cut is used to start the cut. A drop cut is similar to a plunge cut, but instead of plunging the bit into the work piece, the work piece is lowered onto the bit.

A dado joint is a flat bottom channel that is cut to fit the width of another piece of wood. They are perfect for supporting shelves in cabinets or dividers in boxes. We show you how to cut a dado using a table saw and stacked dado blade set.

Learn how to cut accurate tenons using a table saw. You can use a regular saw blade or a dado set to cut the tenons for mortise and tenon joints.

When you need to cut multiple cross lap joints with uniform spacing, reach for the Rockler Cross Lap Jig. Screw it to your miter gauge and use it with your table saw and a dado stack to cut the half-lap joints for anything with a wooden grid: lattice, wine racks, grilles/mullions for glass doors, and torsion boxes for your workbenches and table tops.

The best way to store a band saw blade is in a coil, the way it came from the factory. Learn how to fold your band saw blade into a coil.

One of the best ways to fix dents in woodworking projects or furniture is to use heat and steam. Apply a few drops of water to the dent and then apply heat using a scrap of cloth and an iron.

Hand sanding is one of the best ways to smooth the surface of woodworking projects. Learn everything you need to know about how to finish your woodworking projects.

Learn how to attach wood veneer to a plywood substrate. Veneer is a thin piece of solid wood. Plywood is most commonly used as the substrate because it is dimensionally stable, meaning that it does not expand and contract much with changes in temperature or humidity. Veneer is attached to the substrate with wood glue.

In the long run, dulling teeth will eventually reduce the cutting performance of your table saw blades. But an even quicker and more insidious culprit is built-up, burned-on gunk. It makes dirty blade teeth wear out faster than clean teeth. Here's