Ladies and gentleman, I present to you…..The Wood Shed.
At the start of 2020 I purchased this building and property with the intentions of starting a commercial venture. Most of you know that I have an amazing shop that I built on my own property. However, it’s closed to the public because it is my home.
For the past two years I’ve been looking for a space that I could buy, turn into a workshop for employees, and also have a safe address to sell things out of directly to consumers. And that is what this space will be used for.
I love my job. And while I hope I always have a place, there are a lot of different variables that could happen to put me in a bind and out of work. If I get hurt and can’t build, if you guys no longer care to watch my videos, or maybe if I can’t keep up with the pace the system demands. So I want to diversify to make sure I have something to fall back on if I can no longer make content.
That’s the rational side of my mind justifying it, but I also honestly just want to do everything because it all seems like a blast!
In this new space, The Wood Shed, I am going to start three new branches of business that can all work independently from each other but also nicely feed into each other. These branches will be
1) custom CNC business
2) Milling business
3) distributing tools and equipment for companies that need a central US location
Check out my video above to get a walk through tour and hear about my plans in much more detail.
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The table saw is one of the most used tools in my shop. And in this tutorial, I’m going to be showing you how to make three different jigs to use on it.
The first one is a jig to rip thin strips down. The second is a classic cross-cut sled. And the third is a miter sled that will get you those perfect 45’s.
The first one is the jig to rip thin strips down. It can be a little scary cutting thin strips as you have to get your fence so close to the blade. This jig keeps your hands and fence well away from the blade, but still gives you those nice thin strips.
Building this jig will be easiest if you make the width an even number. I made my board 4” wide. The shoe should be made the same height as the jig (I made mine 1/4”). You don’t want any fasteners in this shoe as it is sacrificial. You’ll eventually replace it when it gets too chewed up. So instead of screws, I’m using a quick setting wood glue.
I attached a handle to the top. Super simple!
Cross Cut Sled
Now we’re going to use this jig to help us make the second jig, the Cross Cut Sled.
When you’re at the table saw, you can make two different cuts. A rip cut, which goes with the grain, or a cross-cut, which goes across the grain. When you make a cross-cut on a board that is longer than it is wide, it can create kick back. And that creates a dangerous situation. By using a cross cut sled, you can nix using the fence and instead use the sled to push the wood through at an exact 90 degrees.
The cross cut sled has two runners, making the sled stable and ensuring a 90 degree cut. I’m going to start by making the runners slightly large, and then sneak up on the cut so I can get them the perfect width. They also need to be just slightly under the height of the table.
I’m going to use my Thin Strip Jig, and since I made mine an even number, all I have to do is add the amount that I actually want to cut. Since the Jig is 4” and I want these runners at 3/8ths, I’m going to set my fence at 4 3/8ths.
I’m going to use these hex nuts just to prop up these runners so they are temporarily above the level of the table saw right now.
I applied super glue to the runners and then placed the base of the sled on top of it. This is just to quickly hold the two together so you can then pop it out, countersink and screw the two together from the bottom.
Now we can raise the blade up to cut half way through the sled. Then attach the leading fence, who’s main job is to keep the sled together across the cut I just made.
You want to raise the blade high enough so you can set the fence up against the bade and not the teeth. Then you can square the back fence up to the blade itself.
I used a quick setting wood glue to hold it temporarily and then I secured it with screws.
The front fence on the Cross-Cut Sled is the important one because it is what is going to reference your material to the blade at an exact 90 degrees. To do this I’m going to flush it up with my hand and only put in one screw to create a pivot point. That gives me some adjustment room to square it up to the blade. You can then secure it with screws.
This next step isn’t necessary, but you can install a chunky block to the back (where the blade comes through) as an additional safety feature.
Keep in mind that this is a bare bones cross cut sled that you can make in under 30 minutes. There are a ton of features that you can add on to it, such as a built in stop block, that can make this sled even more functional.
Miter Sled
The third jig is going to be a Miter Sled. This is a jig to help you make perfect 45 degree cuts, or miters, anytime. No matter how great your miter saw is, it will never compete with the accuracy that a Miter Sled for your table saw is.
The beginning steps are almost identical to the cross cut sled. You need a base and runners. If you are going to be making multiple jigs around the same time, you can go ahead and cut all of your parts at the same time to eliminate having to reset your fence. A lot of people use hard wood for their runners. I’m using plywood, but both are acceptable options. For the base, I’m using MDF as it has the advantage of staying flatter. I then screwed in the runners.
To make the fencing for the Miter Sled I used two pieces of plywood glued together. I then pushed my sled base half way through. I then took my speed square (as I know it is at a 45 degree angle) and referenced off the blade to draw a 45 degree mark.
Now I can take my fence material and glue it as close to this line as I can get it.
You want this fence to overhand your kerf line so that after you secure it in place, you can run the sled through the blade and cut it at an exact 90.
Now I can set the second fence next to the first and use the table saw to make its cut.
I’m then apply glue to the second fence and use an accurate 90 degree angle to line it up to the first. Then you can flip it over and secure it to the bottom with screws.
Just make sure that when you are cutting pairing miters, you use one fence to make once side and the other to make its pair.
And that’s it! Keep in mind that these are bare bones sleds to to get you going. You can always incorporate add ons to upgrade your sleds and jigs further.
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In these videos, I’m going to be giving you an introduction to one of my most used and versatile tools. It is a 3D modeling software called SketchUp.
Before I build anything, I first build it digitally in SketchUp. This not only saves time (because I can go into my shop with a detailed plan) but also saves on material because I can figure out any potential mistakes before I even make my first cut.
The learning curve can be a little frustrating if you are learning it on your own. So, the goal of these videos is to shorten the learning curve for you to get you going.
My videos are going to be geared towards woodworkers, but know that SketchUp has a ton of resource videos that I’ve linked below.
The first video gets you started by covering the main concepts, the basic tools and their functions:
In this second video, I model a basic woodworking project from scratch and apply the teachings from Video 1:
Hopefully these videos are helpful for you to get you started with modeling in SketchUp!
Check out SketchUp’s learning campus (self-paced tutorials that range in difficulty and topic): https://learn.sketchup.com
Big thank you to SketchUp for sponsoring these videos! Use code “APRIL” to get 15% off a SketchUp Pro license for the first year (offer ends March 31, 2020) http://bit.ly/2uehhtC
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A little over a year ago, my friends at Crimson Guitar gave me this parts tray in a guitar body shape.
It is crazy how often I utilize this parts tray. And it got me thinking that I would love to create some in different shapes. So in this video, I’m going to show you how I build these custom parts trays. I did a few different shapes and my favorite were an axe, a chicken and a Texas.
The first thing I did was to use my CNC to cut out a template. This way I can use a flush trim bit in my router to cut out the shape.
I’m secured the template to this wood so I could use the router to hog out the material. I went through and made a perimeter cut, and then go back to the center and hog out the material.
One great thing about this router is that it has a fixed or plunge base option. I can start with the bit just above the wood, and then slowly plunge it in to whatever depth I need. With every pass, I’ll plunge down a little bit deeper until I get the overall depth I want.
This router method ended up taking longer than I thought. So I decided to move to the drill press and take out the bulk of the material there with a forstner bit.
Now that I’m in the middle of this, I’m realizing that there is an even better method to this. Instead of starting with the interior cut I’m going to start with the profile cut. When I started with the interior, I didnt have a great way to attach the template to then cut the profile. Let’s switch it up and see if that works better.
I started off by attaching the template with double sided tape. Pro tip: dont buy actual double sided tape. Buy carpet tape. It’s double sided but much less expensive.
Once I reached the end of my bit, so I took off the top layer template and then repeated the process, cutting down further.
On this piece of maple I had a few mistakes.
So I switched over to another board. I use this template to do the profile…
… and then I switch over to this template to carve out the pocket on the inside.
Now, to trim the waste material away, you can do a few different things. I trimmed mine up at the bandsaw and then ran the bottom over the jointer to remove that additional 1/8th inch bottom layer. However, after trimming it up at the bandsaw, you could also use a flush trim bit to remove the waste as well.
I have a CNC, so I could have easily made these there. But I really wanted to build some by hand so I could show you how to build a custom parts tray yourself. Even though some of these are much less perfect than a CNC cut, I really love the character they have and I enjoyed the process.
If you’d like these parts trays, I do have these three shapes available HERE.
Hopefully you guys found this one useful. I’ll see you on whatever I’m building next.
If you haven’t already, don’t forget to sign up at the top of this page for my newsletter so you don’t miss new projects!
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