At WIA last year Geoffrey showed off the prototype of his latest creation to Glen Huey and myself & I have to say I was amazed.

If you enjoy working with end grain & love inlay then you’re in for a treat!  This system is too cool and is super simple to use.

I’ve already got my name on the waiting list!

So when Shannon sent the tweet about it being available I immediately went to the “Acanthus Workshop” web site & purchased a copy.  What follows is my notes/review of the DVD.

Image from Acanthus Workshops LLC

Part 1: The Intro

We start with Chuck explaining dovetails and how with practice you will become faster at making at making them.

From here he continues to explain that for a professional you want to become fast in order to complete your commission since this is how you can make your living.

He also explains how for the amateur that you want to increase your speed so you don’t get bored during your project.

Cause face it, if you get bored with the project the odds of not finishing it goes up!  (Something I have been guilty of a time or two in my life.)

During the discussion Chuck also talks about his theory of the history of the dovetail.  Using cut away pieces he explains how he thinks it derived from the wedged mortise & tennon joint.

Part 2: The Tools

From here he goes into the 9 tools  needed to make dovetails. During this Chuck walks through why he feels they are important/need and expands on what to look for in them.

That are:

1. Stable work surface (anything from a good bench to a door on 2 saw horses)
2. Vise
3. Dovetail saw (he prefers a western style but says to use what you like)
4. A modest set of chisels (he prefers Two Cherries due to the weight and thickness of them)
5. Marking gauge (any style)
6. Bevel gauge
7. Small square
8. Mallet
9. Hold-fast or clamp

Next Chuck explains the importance of using sharp chisels and goes through his 2 step method:

1. Starting by using a 10″ diameter white wheel on a grinder with a homemade jig
2. Finishing by using 1600 & 4000 whetstones

Part 3: The Triangle Marking System

Now that we have our tools ready we’re ready to start with the layout but before we start Chuck walks us though how to correctly use the triangle marking system.  He walks through how to utilize this system so you can keep your parts aligned.  This way you always know the inside/outside & tops of all your parts.

With your parts correctly marked you’re ready to address the question of “Pins of Tails” debate.  Here Chuck tells you that he prefers pins first most of the time but explains that either will work.  It’s just what makes you feel comfortable.

Part 4: The Dovetails

From here you walk through both through dovetails & 1/2 blind dovetails Chucks way.  I don’t want to go through this in detail because I don’t want to take away from the DVD.

All throughout the steps are shot zoomed in so you get a good view of how Chuck works.  The best part is Chuck included an instructional card that you can take into the shop that explains (in text & photos) both dovetail methods and triangle marking system.

My Conclusion:

Over all the DVD has alot of good informational you can utilize.   I look forward to the next one.  (Chuck if you’re reading, please make it a secret compartment DVD!)

After many long discussions about how to complete this with power tools (that would involve elaborate jigs, much set up time, etc..) I decided to break out my Steve Latta stringing tools I purchased a while back.  Armed with them (and 96 Rock playing on the radio) I set out for an afternoon of using nothing but hand tools.  (Those of you who know me, know this is a big step for me!)

Having already completed the layout work and gluing on my temporary backer blocks I started by setting up the radius cutter and plowing out the curved ends. (Below you can also see where I used a dental pick to help with the clean out.)

From here I set my straight cutter and simply connected the two half circles for each of the 3 sections.

I have to say even though I’m a power tool guy, I did have an enjoyable (and semi-quiet) day of woodworking in peace!  I might have to expand on this!!

I’ve had the Milwaukee Sub-Compact Driver for some time and loved it except that it didn’t accept drill bits.   So when I saw this baby I had to have it!

So tell me, what did you get yourself for Christmas?

So prior to just going hog wild on my apron itself I applied a piece of veneer on my apron cutoff and started playing around with the radius cutter.  After trying the layout a couple of times I was happy with the job the cutter did but boy I didn’t like the center point hole that was left behind.

After thinking a bit I overcame this by deciding to do all my layout work and mark my cross hairs in pencil on the apron.  After that I cut a few shims and marked a set of cross hairs on them and then broke out the hot glue gun to attached the shims to my apron making sure to align the cross hairs from the shim to the cross hairs on the apron.

Now I have a piece of wood that will receive the center point hole that I can remove with a little heat and have zero marks left behind!

Do you have a different way that you would have (or have) attacked this type of issue?  Is so share them in the comments below.

MEN’s TOOLS

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal  bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, denting the freshly-painted project which you had carefully set in the corner where nothing could get to it.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light.  Also removes fingerprints and hard-earned calluses from fingers in about the time it takes you to say, “Oh, sh*t!”

CIRCULAR SAW: A portable cutting tool used to make studs too short.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads.  Sometimes used in the creation of blood-blisters.

BELT SANDER: An electric sanding tool commonly used to convert minor touch-up  jobs into major refinishing jobs.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board  principle…. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your futurebecomes.

LOCKING PLYERS: Generally used after pliers to completely round off bolt heads.  If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intensewelding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire.  Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub out ofwhich you want to remove a bearing race.

TABLE SAW: A large stationary power tool commonly used to launch wood  projectiles for testing wall integrity.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.

BAND SAW: A large stationary power saw primarily used by most shops to cut  good aluminum sheet into smaller pieces that more easily fit into the  trash can after you cut on the inside of the line instead of the outside edge.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the maximum tensile strength of everything you forgot to disconnect.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the vacuum seals under lids or for opening old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splashing oil on your shirt; butcan also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

STRAIGHT SCREWDRIVER: A tool for opening paint cans.  Sometimes used to convert common slotted screws into non-removable screws and butchering your palms.

PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to make hoses too short.

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is  used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent to theobject we are trying to hit.

UTILITY KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts.  Especially useful for slicingwork clothes, but only while in use.

SON OF A BITCH TOOL: Any tool that you grab and throw across the room while yelling,  “Son of a Bitch at the top of your lungs.  It is also, most often,  the next tool that you will need.

Earlier in the month I had purchased a precision collet from PreciseBits.com that would allow me to use 1/8” bits in my Colt for inlay work.  (Routing for stringing 1/16” and below)

When I tried to test fit the collet it worked great except I could never get it tight enough to actually hold a 1/8” bit.  This is because I was using both a spanner wrench that came with the collet and the tiny wrench that Bosch mailed out to people who didn’t like using the “red button” to tighten their bits.

The reason I don’t use the “red button” to help tighten my bits is because I use a Micro Fence plunge base with my Colt.  (Something that made the Colt 100x more useful!) And by doing so the base hides the button making it impossible to reach hence the use of two wrenches.

So what we found is that the precision collet was so much larger than the stock collet that it bottomed out on the wrench.  This made it impossible to completely tighten.  You could get it tight enough to not come off but not enough for it to hold the bit.

This is where out of the box thinking comes in.  We had to have a thinner wrench.  Since we didn’t have access to grinder we used a spindle sander and a fence to sand the end of the wrench down.  This allowed us to get it thin enough (without making it too thing to be used) so we could hold the bit in place.

What we deducted is that we know Bosch doesn’t give the extra wrench away with the kits (you have call them to get it) because of the “red button” deal and that PreciseBits.com didn’t have it when designing the collet for 1/8” bits.  Or if they did, they decided to still make it extra long to get extra threads holding the bit in place since it was so small.

So after that we walked over to Stan’s (a local doughnut shop) to reward ourselves for a job well done!

Now I’m wondering what I can modify this Saturday…

• Collecting every how-to book we can find on a topic
• Subscribing to every woodworking magazine we can find
• Scouring the web for every free plan we can dig up
• Buying museum books covering a specific time period
• Or a combination of all

Now I’ll be the first to tell you I refer to my museum books (and Glen Huey’s) all the time.  They are an endless resource of detail and information when I can’t get my hands or eyes near a collection to study for a project.

Tome Reader by Ozyman

Well as the years go on those books are being publish less and less and the ones that are out there are becoming harder to come by and if you find the one you want or need it costs a small fortune!

So with the graces of the internet, more auction houses and bloggers are posting beautiful photos and details online.  Now the problems with this is keeping track of them and let’s face it when you need them your computer will crap out and you’ll lose your bookmarks.  (Personal experience it talking here)

To help get around this I found a wonderful free tool on the internet (on for my iPhone) that does all that but more for you.  It’s called Evernote and if you haven’t seen it, it’s worth its weight in gold!

Some of its features are the following:

• “Type a text note. Clip a web page. Snap a photo. Grab a screenshot. Evernote will keep it all safe.”
• “Everything you capture is automatically processed, indexed, and made searchable. If you like, you can add tags or organize notes into different notebooks.”
• “Search for notes by keywords, titles, and tags. Evernote magically makes printed and handwritten text inside your images searchable, too.”

I’ve used this so much that I’ve graduated from the free version to the pay version.   By doing so I’m now keeping track of woodworking projects, work ideas, home photos, blog ideas, you name it and it can’t be easier to use.   (NOTE: For $5 a month you get more monthly allowance for uploads & storage with the pay version but if you don’t use the crap out it you’ll never need to think about the pay version!)

I don’t want to waste your time with a tutorial on how I put it to use.  I’d rather you go take a look at it and see how great it is.

And no, I’m no way associated or get paid by them.  It’s just too cool of a tool to not share!

Well after several years of collecting routers and playing “Where’s Waldo” with their accessories I started looking at ways to keep everything together without giving up shelf space and keeping them easily within reach.

So I kept looking in magazines, books and on the web looking for something I liked or didn’t like about what others have made or sold.  After about 3 minutes of that (ADD kicked in I guess) I said heck with it and opened up Sketch Up.

With that I basically spent an evening (according to my wife anyway) drawing and redefining the design to make a shelf that held 3 routers (but let you keep a bit loaded) and had a shelf to house the wrenches and other crap that you never use but don’t want to throw away.

Armed with that plan, I set off to the garage to build 2 of them but before I cut anything I redesigned it yet again.

In my original plan I had my bottom shelf attached to the sides/dividers with a ½ dado but decided I wanted to beef up that support. So I moved the bottom and the shelf up ¼” so I could make full dados instead.

I don’t know if anyone had a need for anything like this so I’ve uploaded my original Sketch Up file into the 3D Warehouse for you to download and use. It works well and its super easy to build.

(Actually, I could have sworn I saw a version of this idea in an old ShopNotes so Ann & I spend an hour combing through every issue of it and Woodsmith magazines I have.  After coming up empty handed I figured I must have drept it up then went to Sketch Up.)