Page 93 - Learn Woodworking

These wood and epoxy coasters are a perfect DIY project to use up scraps of wood you have around your shop. It's also a great opportunity to make a project with epoxy without having to purchase gallons of it. I used MAS Table Top Pro Epoxy and Mixol Universal Tints to create the epoxy stripes. The skills you learn on this project can be applied to making larger epoxy projects, such as river tables and deep pour projects.

Slap some stain on a piece of wood and you change its color. Apply several layers of stain and you can add depth, hide sapwood streaks and mismatched wood, make one wood mimic another, match a commercial finish or fool the eye to create inlays and stringers that don’t really exist. Layering stain is one of the simplest, yet most effective, tools for bringing wood to life, or changing its appearance entirely.

A great technique for flattening the surface of large slabs and odd shaped cross-sections.

Understanding how sandpaper works and how to use it will save you time and energy.

A stone-simple jig makes it easy to cut mitered spline joints on your router table.

The GuidePRO GP5 Resaw Featherboard provides continuous pressure against the resaw fence, leaving both hands free to guide your work. Resawing lumber is cutting the stock lengthwise along the edge. Resawing a board creates a thinner piece of stock. This technique is used to make thin panels, such as veneer, and also to make book match panels.

When neither edge is flat, you have options.

Here's a workshop measurement problem that’s all too common: You measure an opening on a cabinet carcass for a door, but by the time you get to the saw to cut the door's stiles and rails, you've forgotten or (worse) remembered the dimensions incorrectly.

When you've got a big project ahead of you, it's tempting to cut all parts to final size following the dimensions shown on your cut list. But it's better to plan your cutting strategy out so that your workflow is efficient, and you don't end up with mis-cut parts.

Checking the length of a part seems like a pretty straightforward process, but there are several possible stumbling blocks that can mess things up.

Use this simple drill press jig for increased accuracy.