2008-08-20-Woodworking with Routers
Seminars@Hadley
Woodworking Techniques: Selecting and Using
Router Tables
Presented by
Larry Martin
Moderated by
Don Golembiewski
June 20, 2008
Don Golembiewski
Good afternoon. I’d like to welcome you to today’s
seminar from the Hadley School for the Blind.
Today’s topic is Woodworking Techniques: Selecting
and Using Routers and Router Tables. Now let me
welcome today’s presenter Mr. Larry Martin of
Woodworking for the Blind, who’ll be covering a
number of topics on woodworking safety and using
routers and router tables to make your time in the
woodshop more enjoyable. So at this point I will turn
the presentation over to Mr. Larry Martin.
Larry Martin
Thanks very much, Don and good afternoon to all of
you out there in cyberspace. It’s a glorious day here
in the Chicago area, some light broken clouds, nice
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clear skies and wonderful temperatures. I’m going to
celebrate my seventieth birthday in just a few more
weeks and I’ve been in the Chicago area for about 50
years now and I’ve to say this is simply the nicest
summer I ever remember in this area. Well, we’ve got
a lot to do today, so let’s get into routers.
The very first thing that I want to bring up is to talk
about router bits and how the woodworkers organize
their collections. For myself I have three major
categories of router bits. I refer to them as the
straight bits, the small edge bits and the large edge
bits. I keep my bits in their original sleeves, plastic
slips or boxes that they were purchased in and I
house them in a plastic drawer container. It’s a little
plastic box with three drawers in it, one for each of the
three categories.
I’ve received answers from a number of people on
how they do it and there’s a lot of variety. Roger
Hood for instance, has a 2’ x 2’ rack with holes. He
has a Braille sheet to describe each of the bits and
their sizes. He winds up using the 1/2 inch round
over bit most frequently. Frank Chennels for
instance, has tiered strips of wood with 1/4 inch and
1/2 inch holes, one tier for each of them. He’s
memorized their locations, but recently decided he’s
going to put Braille labels on them.
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Diane Meyer for instance, keeps her sets of bits in
their original boxes and then individual ones that
she’s purchased in their plastic sleeves and groups
them by the type, straight, cove, etc. Dale Leavens
has two router tables, three routers including a
monster Triton router. He labels his with DYMO tape
so that he can tell which is which. Bill Reynolds has
two sliding tray shelves in his router table. Dennis
Walker determines the size by feel. Tom Huhn has
made a cabinet for his router bits and he has rows of
bits grouped by type starting with the smallest and
moving on to the largest.
For the types of bits, now, the straight bits are those
that work on a straight edge of wood. The most
common of these would be the flush trim bits or the
straight bits used for cutting dados or grooves.
The edge bits are the more complicated ones and
they’re the ones that really give you the various
shapes. Describing these can be difficult. Feeling
them can be a little bit dangerous because of the
sharp edges to the bit. So what I’ve done is to cut a
block of wood using each of the various bits and then
I can look at these samples. That’s really helpful,
particularly when you’re talking with other people
about what an edge might look like.
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I’m going to reach down now into my box and just pull
out one of them. The first one I pull out is entitled, the
quarter inch radius ogee. The ogee is essentially an
‘S’ curved profile. It has a convex portion of the curve
on top and the concave portion the bottom. So the
convex portion would look like a round over. The
concave portion would look like a cove. The box
probably has 25 different profiles in there and this is
one of the easiest ways of telling what it would be.
The blind woodworked of course could also make
these types of samples and label them with Braille
labels.
I want to move now into a few topics about the bits.
Cleaning and sharpening. The router bit is turning
somewhere between 20,000 to 30,000 RPMs
depending on the type of router you have. It’s
obviously doing a great deal of work. The heavier the
cut you take the more work the router bit is doing and
this means that that edge is being beat up quite a bit.
In doing it, it can easily burn wood and burning the
wood of course is going to cause a pitch residue or
buildup on the router bit.
It’s important to keep the bits clean. One of the
easiest ways to buy one of the various products for
cleaning saw blades or router bits. These generally
have some type of a petroleum product in them to
help remove the pitch buildup. It’s also just as easy to
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use something like Goo Gone or Simple Clean, those
various brand items used for cleaning up things. And
finally, you can simply use ammonia. I often have a
little tub of ammonia, dip a saw blade into there to
loosen the pitch and you can obviously do the same
thing with the router bits.
Keeping them clean is going to help a great deal in
preventing burn on your wood. But also all this heavy
use is going to take a great deal of use and therefore
you need to keep the bit sharpened. The important
thing about sharpening a bit is to only sharpen the flat
side. Never, never touch the profile because it’s too
easy to change the profile and more importantly too
easy to change the balance of the router bit. Using
something like a diamond stone it’s easy to rub that
stone over the flat side to keep it sharp.
Now, the handheld router – there are three types that
I consider, the thick space router, the plunge router
and then as a separate category the smaller routers
like the laminate trimmers, which typically are fixed
base routers as well. Either one is used for the
handheld operation.
Now in handheld operations it’s extremely important
to remember the direction you’re going to be moving
the router. If you take the router turn it upside down
and you’re looking down on the bit – so the router is
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below and the bit is protruding above – that bit is
going to revolve in a counterclockwise direction and
you want to feed the wood into the turning bit. So if
you’re using the outside edge of a piece of wood and
a handheld router you want to feed the wood from left
to right on the router. On the other hand, if you have
an inside edge, for instance the inside edge of a
frame, you then would feed the wood piece from the
right to the left.
The handheld router is used for a variety of different
projects. One of the most common would be of
course edge treatments. You want to treat a table top
to give it a molded edge or a plaque for instance.
These are typically used by installing a fence on the
project and then butting the router up against that
fence and moving along the edge. Other bits will
have a guide bearing and this then will be placed
against the edge or against a template to accomplish
the same work.
The second type of use would be a template. You’re
cutting shaping and smoothing a wood piece and you
need to know how to make that template. Templates
typically are cut out on a band saw, which leaves a
relatively rough edge. You’re cutting along a
guideline. The sighted woodworker of course can see
this. The blind woodworker is going to have to take
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other steps to be able to cut close to the line,
including very likely getting help from somebody.
But once the item is rough-cut then the real work
begins and that work is in fairing the curve. Fairing
the curve is the most important thing about a template
because if there’s the slightest bit of jiggle or rough
spot in the template the router will pick that up and
you will see the rough spot after you cut it.
What I do is I take that edge and I begin sanding it,
often with a sander on the drill press to get it roughly
sanded and then using a block of wood or a rounded
piece with sandpaper on it to keep rubbing it over.
The most important thing you want to do is take your
finger and trace the outline. Your finger will tell you
where there are little gaps, gouges or rough spots and
these are what you work on and sand them nice and
smooth.
Once you’ve got the smooth edge, sand it with a high
grit to really smooth it off. Maybe even wax it to really
make it smooth and now the router can easily follow
that edge. The guide bearing will ride tightly on it and
you’ll wind up with a very nice curve.
There are other types of templates that use right
angles, templates such as for cutting a hinge or a
mortise. These can be made relatively easy because
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what you’re trying to do is to create an open space,
an open square or a rectangle inside of a piece of
wood. Now obviously cutting that inside of a piece of
wood is going to be tough. There’s a much simpler
way. Use hardboard or thin MDF, cut some straight
pieces that give you nice straight edges.
Now let’s say you need to have your opening exactly
one inch wide. Cut a strip one inch wide, cut other
strips that are larger, say 1 1/2 to 2 inches wide that
will be the long edges and then position the one inch
wide piece between those two long edges and glue
them together. You now have got a template with
exactly parallel edges and precisely right angle
corners.
The handheld router can also be used for joinery.
The plunge router typically is used for this and mortis
jigs are used. We will get to that in a later seminar
session on exactly how to cut the mortises. It’s a
relatively complicated topic, but an important one.
The other uses for the handheld router would be in
hollowing out a piece of wood using an inlay bushing
kit, cutting dados, cutting grooves and reeds. All of
these types of things can be done with a handheld
router.
I think we ought to take a break right now and starting
treating some questions. We’ll give about ten minutes
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for questions on handheld routers. We’ll then go back
to router tables and have a question session following
that as well. And then a couple of features – we’ll talk
about some new tools and accessories, projects by
blind woodworkers and then have a final period for
questions again. So I’m going to release the mic now
and we’ll take some questions. Are there any
questions Don?
Don Golembiewski
No one has put a text message question up at this
point, but if anyone does have questions certainly
hold down your control key and we will get to you as
soon as possible. One question, how would one
decide what would be the best profile for the edge of
a table or a frame that they’re building? And how
would they choose the correct router bit for that
procedure?
Larry Martin
Here’s how I do it; the answer that I give is it’s a
matter of esthetics. What are you looking for in it?
I’ve got a drawer full of router bits and I’ve got a box
full of samples, so I run through them quickly. Almost
always I eliminate virtually all of them to begin with,
getting down to one or two, sometimes maybe three
and I look at it and pick out which one I want.
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The sample identifies what the router bit is, so I go
and do it. But it really is a question of esthetics.
There are a few types that simply won’t work for your
project and you’ll see that as you use the samples
because it doesn’t match up with your project. But I
think that the real answer is it’s what you want in style
and appearance.
Don Golembiewski
Another question is there is sometimes some
confusion between picking out a carbide bit for your
router and the option of using a steel cutting router bit.
Can you explain the difference between the two?
Larry Martin
The HSS bits, the high speed steel bits are good
workman like bits for the router. Their one drawback
is that they dull more rapidly than the carbide bits do.
The carbide bits are more expensive, but they hold
their edge a lot longer. Nearly all the bits I have are
the carbide bits. They are a bit more expensive, but
they will last a lot longer and that’s the type that I’ve
chosen to buy. But either one will work. You’ll have
to pay more attention to the high speed steel, the
HSS bits, to make sure they’re staying sharp and
you’ll have to use your diamond stone on them more
frequently.
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Don Golembiewski
Thanks Larry. That answered my question. Are there
any other questions at this point for Larry Martin?
Otherwise we’ll move on to the next section of our
seminar on woodworking using routers.
Larry Martin
Well, let’s start talking about the router table then,
using the router in a router table. When using the
handheld router, the router motor, the body of the
router itself is uppermost and the bit is protruding
downward from the router. Exactly the opposite
happens when using the router table. The router is
mounted to the underside of a table, so that the motor
hangs down lowest and the router bit protrudes
through an opening in the router table.
Two points I want to mention right here to make sure
we cover them. There obviously will be an opening in
the tabletop for the router bit to come through. It’s
very important to keep that hole as small as possible.
I’m holding in my hand right now a plastic type of
insert. This particular one has an opening of about 2
1/2 inches. It obviously will accommodate the larger
bits.
If I’m using a smaller bit I’ll shift to a different insert
that will have an opening only about one inch wide.
The main reason for this is safety. If you’re moving a
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wood piece across the table and the piece is just
slightly bowed so that the leading edge bends down
somewhat, it could well get stuck in that opening.
Therefore the smaller the opening the less likely that
is to happen.
The second point is in the router fence, the fence to
the table. Very often the fence is pulled up quite
close to the router bit. The fence is what’s guiding the
wood piece often. In that case the face of the fence is
exactly parallel with the outer cutting edge of the bit,
once again, to provide an opening for the blade. The
wider that opening is the more possible it is for the
wood piece to get caught on the edge. So zero
clearance openings are very helpful.
To make a zero clearance opening for your fence is
relatively quite easy. You may have a variety of
different fences, but this method will work with all of
them. Take a piece of hardboard 1/8 inch thick or
maybe 1/4 inch thick. Cut a piece roughly 2 feet long
and it’s going to be probably 4 inches wide or so.
You’re going to use double-faced tape to put this
facing on your router fence. Then gradually bring the
fence forward into the spinning blade and that blade
will cut an opening, a hole through this piece of
hardboard.
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That then becomes your auxiliary fence. The router
bit will spin within that opening. It’ll have zero
clearance on the side. Your cuts are smoother, but
more importantly it’ll prevent any part of the wood
from getting caught in the opening. The perfection of
your cut depends on the guide bearing and how flat
the work piece is to the work table. Either of these
things is going to leave a ripple in the cut that you
make.
Larry Martin
So making the hold downs in the push blocks are
extremely important. When you have a push block as
I’ve described it’s going to be very easy to keep the
wood piece against the fence. It will not be so easy to
keep it flat on the table, so a second device is needed
for that. Very often what the answer might be is to get
a hold down or a push block exactly the same
thickness as your work piece and then mount a
second piece over the top of it that will lay on top of
your work piece and hold it down flat against the
table.
In my push blocks I have one that’s about 6 inches
wide and I have two handles on it, so that I can
position my hands there and I know I can control the
push block and keep them away from the bit. The
hold down to hold the work piece tight against the
worktable could be attached with double-stick tape.
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But I might be a little bit leery about that, so I often
would use screws so you know it’s going to be exactly
in that place and it’s not going to give way at all. The
smaller the piece that you’re working with the more
important these items become.
Featherboards are also very useful. There are two
different types. One would lie on the router table and
that of course would push the work piece against the
fence. The second would attach to the router fence
itself and that will push the piece down faced against
the table top. Both are needed. They have to be
loose enough to allow the piece to move through it,
yet tight enough to really keep them flat and tight.
Feed rate is very important. The slower the feed rate
the smoother the cut is going to be. However, too
slow a feed rate will burn the wood. Wood like cherry
for instance, will burn more rapidly than many other
types of wood. The motion that you use in feeding
the wood stock from right to left on a router table is
extremely important. The smoother that motion is the
better the cut you will get.
If you have a long piece you’re simply not going to be
able to put it through in one fluid motion. You’re going
to have to stop partway to reposition your hands. The
shorter that stop is the better, particularly if you can
ease the pressure off of the piece away from the bit
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and then pick it up again. That will give a smoother
cut.
One other technique is the deeper the cut you’re
going to make take it in very small bites. For
instance, you’ve got a large edge forming bit. You
might want to do that in two or three different passes.
Set the fence very close to the work piece and make
the first cut. Move it back a little bit and make the
second cut. Move it back a little bit and make the
third cut. And then for a final cut really push the work
piece tight against the fence and make the final cut.
This will remove whatever little pieces of chatter there
have been left behind. Direction of feed of course is
from right to left with the work piece.
The router table is used for the same kinds of things
for which the handheld router is used. First is the
edge treatments, you use this for table tops, for
making plaques, for face frame edges, for making
picture frames or rounding over furniture parts.
Template cutting is done very neatly on the router
table. The template of course should be a couple of
inches longer than the work piece, both on the
starting end and on the finishing end. What this
permits you to do is to position the template in place
against the fence or the guide bearing and begin the
cut before the bit actually engages the wood.
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Secondly, as you’re finishing the cut you can continue
to ride against the template after the cut is finished
and then it’s going to be a much smoother cut.
The router table is not used for joinery. At least I
don’t use it at all for joinery. Climb cutting is one
issue I want to talk about. Climb cutting is moving the
work piece in the wrong direction. On the router table
you’re going to move the work piece from right to left.
However, when you’re putting an edge and let’s call it
a chamfer that you’re putting on the four edges of a
block of wood, cut the cross grain portions first. And
the easiest way to do this is to begin the feed from left
to right. That’s called a climb cut. You’re cutting
away from the turning direction of the bit.
This is a dangerous cut, but it is a better looking cut. I
do this on cross cutting. I will begin the cut there and
continue it for about 1/2 inch or so and then back the
piece away from the router bit then do the cut in the
proper direction, from right to left. And as the cut is
finished it will go into the previously cut portion and
there won’t be any tear out. The reason that you cut
the cross grain portion first is because if there is any
tear out then you’re going to remove that tear out
when you make the long grain cuts on the long edges
of the piece of wood. It will remove that.
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If you’re cutting deeply, again do it in steps a little bit
at a time. And always make your final pass with it
really tight against the fence or the fence moved a
minute amount so you can get a very smooth cut.
The router can cut more easily provided it’s only
cutting a little bit of wood, rather than taking a big dig.
The router table has tremendous uses and there are
all sorts of router tables. You can make a basic one
with 2” x 4” legs and a flat top. You can buy a basic
commercial one. You can buy really detailed
commercial ones and you can build really
sophisticated ones. I find the router table to be
extremely useful to me. I probably use the router
table five times as much as I use the router freehand.
Let’s take a break here now and see if there are any
more questions.
Don Golembiewski
I have one question. If I’m on a limited budget would
it make sense to hold off on the purchase of a router
table or do I need one immediately to really do as
much in my workshop as I want?
Larry Martin
I think my answer is that the router table would give
you a great deal more flexibility. When I began
woodworking, which is now more than ten years ago,
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I had only the handheld router and I used it relatively
frequently. But once I got a router table I used the
router a whole lot more frequently because there were
so many more things to do. And for me it was much
more comfortable using the router table. You had
much greater control of the work pieces.
You can’t do everything on the router table. For very
large pieces they simply don’t lend themselves to the
router table. But usually the pieces tend to be
smaller, so I think that even on a limited budget it’s
very worthwhile to get the router table. Now on the
limited budget it certainly can be a simple router table.
You will get a lot of flexibility out of that and with time
as you use it more you can build your own
sophisticated router table.
Caller
Could you go over that part where you run the board
through both directions? I think it was on the end
grain, cross grain.
Larry Martin
Yes. That’s making a climb cut. The example I used
was a board on which you want to put an edge. The
edge can be of any type. I used the example of a
chamfer edge. That’s probably the most frequent use
I make of it, but it could be any of the edge forming
bits.
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When you cut the cross grain you’re going to have a
little bit of a tough job at the end of the cut. Let’s say
we’re going to cut the cross grain and we are not
going to do a climb cut. We’re going to go straight
across. We’re going to do it from right to left only.
We begin the cut and there’s no problem. We get
almost all the way through it and as long as we’re not
taking a real deep cut there’s no problem.
But at the very end of the cut there will be a big
problem and that is because the router bit, as you
look down on it is spinning counterclockwise. You’re
now coming up against the unsupported edge of the
piece of wood. The router bit going in that
counterclockwise direction is simply going to rip out
the end portion of the crosscut.
There are two ways of avoiding this. One is to use a
climb cut at the beginning. So you take this board
and let’s say that this board is 6 inches wide and let’s
make it 15 inches long. So we’re going to the 6 inch
wide portion, the cross grain portion. We will begin
the cut on the left side of the bit. We’ll butt the board
against the fence. The fence is going to be just
slightly indented from the edge of the bit, so a small
cut is being taken.
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We’re going to begin the cut moving the board form
left to right and only doing it about 1/2 inch or 3/4 of
an inch, something like that. That bit is going to cut
into the wood fairly neatly. Now we move the board
away from the fence, away from the bit and go to the
right side of the bit. Butt the board up against the
fence and begin the cut in the normal manner from
right to left.
What happens there is it begins to cut in the uncut
portion of the board and you continue the cut all the
way through until it reaches the part you previously
cut. There it’s going to be angled towards the end of
the board. There is no unsupported wood and the bit
will cut right through that into your previous cut and
you’ll have a nice clean edge.
The second way of doing this to forget about the climb
cut. Forget about the left to right portion and we’re
going to do the cut only from right to left. And this you
would typically use with a thin piece of wood. You
would have a great deal of difficulty controlling a piece
of wood that’s say 1 inch wide only keeping it flat on
the fence. By holding the length of the wood you’re
simply going to tilt it a little bit.
So now we take the board and in this case let’s call it
1 inch wide and 12 inches long or so. We’re going to
put that 1 inch portion against the fence. Now since
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it’s so difficult to hold that square to the fence we’re
going to take another piece, a square piece of
plywood for instance and back up the board. Now we
can hold the length of the board against the edge of
the plywood. The second edge of the plywood is tight
against the fence and we’ve got the board supported.
We begin the cut, push it through the bit and it will
come out the end of the board, but it does not tear out
because the cut will continue into the edge of the
plywood. So the side of that board is fully supported
and then once you begin cutting into the plywood you
can back it away from the fence and you may damage
the plywood edge, but that was the very purpose of it,
to protect the unsupported edge of your work piece.
So those are the two ways. The first is the climb
cutting and the second is to use a backer board. The
backer board is both for protecting the edge and
secondly for keeping the piece square to the fence.
If there are no other questions we’ll move on to a new
section now. Don and I talked and thought we would
bring some features into these programs and the first
is going to be New Tools and Accessories. And I’ve
got three items to bring up to you.
Popular Woodworking in their online newsletter
released today the first photos of a new made in the
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U.S.A. Unisaw cabinet table saw. The news letter
gives details about the saw’s specs. It was just
introduced at a woodworking show. The table saw
will be released in early 2009, but pricing has not yet
been determined. If you want more information you
can go to this website
www.popularwoodworking.com/articledisplay?id=1774
8 or you can simply go to popwoodnewsletter@fwpubs.com.
Rockler is offering a new portable router table. It’s 21
inches wide by 16 inches deep by 16 inches high and
it sells for $200. The router plate is predrilled for the
Porter-Cable 690 and 890 series, the Bosch 1617 and
1618 series, and the most popular DeWalt and Makita
routers. It has a 1 inch thick MDF top with 3/4 inch
aluminum miter track and plate levelers. The fence
has an aluminum backbone and adjustable melamine
faces with T-slots. It can be moved easily between
job sites and the woodshop. Rockler can be reached
online at www.rockler.com or by telephone at (800)
279-4441.
And the final item Forrest Manufacturing now offers a
custom ground version of its well known Woodworker
2 table saw blade. This version cuts flat bottom kerfs.
The blade is expensive, $120, but it makes tear out
free absolutely flat bottom cuts in both soft and hard
domestic woods and exotic woods. Flat bottom kerfs
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are needed when cutting the lots for splines used to
strengthen mitered corners of boxes. Flat bottom
kerfs are also essential when cutting box joints.
A less expensive alternative would be to send them a
spare table saw blade and have them custom grind
the blade to have a flat top. Forrest’s cost for that is
about $20 to $25 depending on the number of teeth in
the blade and about $10 shipping. Forrest can be
reached online at www.forrestblades.com or by
telephone at (800) 733-7111. For sharpening details
go online to www.forrestblades.com/sharpprice.htm.
In each of these sessions we plan to feature new
tools and accessories as they become available. If
you come across a tool or accessory that you think is
particularly helpful to blind woodworkers please let us
know. Contact us at
woodworkingfortheblind@comcast.net.
A second feature will be projects by blind
woodworkers. Over the past couple of years I’ve
received photos of the projects made by a number of
blind woodworkers. From time to time I’d like to share
a description of those projects with you. Here’s just a
sampling.
First each morning out in my garden I can hear the
musical tinkling of small chimes that hang from a
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scale model of Gordon Mitchell’s tent camper. He
and his wife Linda spend many summer weekends
camping around Ontario, Canada. And they gave me
a set of these Chimes and I love them and they give
them to their friends that they see year after year.
Number two, Dave Albrektson has had a number of
his wood creations featured on the blog of Doug
Stowe, who is a prominent woodworker and
woodworking teacher living in the Ozarks at Eureka
Springs. You can go to his blog
www.wisdomofhands.blogspot.com and search for
Doug’s entry for July 14, 2008. There you can see
Dave Albertson’s sleek maple triangle table as well as
a number of his boxes. My favorite is one made of
maple flanked by purpleheart. Dave wasn’t real keen
on working with the purpleheart, but it does make a
fine looking box.
Ron Faulkner recently sent me a photo of some of his
inlay work. This particular piece was an end panel for
the side of a desk. The inlay work was shaped much
like the design of a raised panel with coved corners.
Some time ago Louis Scrivani sent me photos of a
footstool and a box he made. He spends a lot of time
exploring the internet and often sends me interesting
links of woodworking videos and information on jigs.
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One of my favorite photos came from Mickey Fixsen,
who made a wonderful clock for the National
Federation of the Blind to honor Dr. Kenneth
Jernigan, who was a monumental figure in promoting
independence and opportunity for the blind. Mickey
continues to promote independence and opportunity
in his own work. Among his other projects are
building hotrods and sports cars.
Tom Huhn recently sent me a photo of a candle
holder he made that is now on tour with other
artworks of visually impaired workers. The base is a
rectangular piece of African ribbon mahogany that sits
on four round legs. And the base supports three
block pieces that are the actual candle holders. Each
of these block pieces is made of five laminations. The
top bottom and middle layers are of African
mahogany and two layers separating the top bottom
and middle are light colored maple. It’s a nice looking
arrangement. Each block has been drilled with a
large Forstner bit to create the circular recess for the
candles.
Neville Davidson sent me a nicely arranged photo
showing the four stages of his process for
constructing small crosses. Some 16,000 of them
he’s made over the past few years. He starts with two
large pieces of wood stock and dados both sides of
them with a 1/4” x 1/4” notch. He then crosscuts each
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of them to slice off individual pieces. Each of these
pieces has a notch on the long sides. He then rips
those pieces down the center to form two sets of the
individual parts of the cross. The larger one is the
upright piece and shorter one is the cross piece. The
pieces fit together with a half lap joint. It’s a very nifty
construction plan.
Lenny McHugh decorates his house with large
Christmas items including very tall candle sticks he
made to attach to the porch railing, a snowman to
stand by the front door and a lighted wishing well.
Lenny also sent photos of a jig he worked up to use
his drill press to sand smooth circular wheels. The
center hole of the wheel was attached to a bolt
chucked in the drill press. He then held sandpaper
attached to a smooth wood block up against the
spinning wheel and sanded the circumference as
smooth and as perfectly circular as can be.
Ralph Haney sent me a series of photos showing the
many stages of his process of ripping out the rotted
floor of a camper and the long job of replacing the
floor and reconstructing the interior of the camper.
We’re running out of time now, so just one more.
Vance Eller recently sent in photos of a terrific nine
drawer kneehole desk he made as well as a rustic
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kitchen hutch with spectacular wood knots in the side
panels.
Each of these sessions we have I hope to be able to
be able to feature more work by blind woodworkers.
So grab a digital camera and send me both photos
and a description of your work. Send them to me at
woodworkingfortheblind@comcast.net.
Don Golembiewski
Larry that was just terrific. And before we ask for any
final questions I just want to point out a couple of real
quick items. First, if you purchase any woodworking
tool please read the manual fully and be very aware
of all safety features associated with the tool. Always
keep in mind you need to keep all safety guards in
place, whether it’s a table saw or other tool, so that
your safety is always utmost.
It’s always recommended when you’re using tools that
are loud to use hearing protection, safety goggles and
be careful about sawdust because some woods do
produce dust which is not just irritating, but could be
harmful to your health.
Having said that, I would like to open up the mic for
any questions for Larry Martin of Woodworking for the
Blind.
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Caller
Thank you Larry. I have a question about your work.
Router bits, what is it? Is it a set of routers or some
parts of a router or some other device. I looked it up
in my dictionary, but I don’t get it. Thank you.
Larry Martin
Would you say the word again please?
Caller
Oh, yes. I mean router bits. Router bits.
Larry Martin
Okay. A router bit, b-i-t. The router bit is the device
that fits into the router. It consists of a shaft and the
shaft is usually 1/4 inch in diameter or the larger ones
are 1/2 inch in diameter. And at the end of the shaft
is the profile of the cutting portion of the bit and this
could be either a straight bit so that the cutting portion
would be straight lines or it could be a molded portion
such as a concave or convex shape. But the router
bit itself is the attachment to the router and it’s the bit
that does the actual cutting. Does that help?
Caller
Oh, thank you. I think get it basically.
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Larry Martin
I’m glad to hear that. And where are you from?
Caller
I’m from China.
Larry Martin
Well, there’s evidence that these broadcasts are
going round the world. We’re very glad to have you.
Your Olympics have certainly been a big treat for the
world.
Don Golembiewski
Are there other questions for Larry on routers, router
bits or other woodworking tools? Or if you have a
suggestion for another seminar on using a particular
technique or a tool in a woodworking way please feel
free to chime in and share your ideas with us.
Caller
Do you have any suggestions about where or how to
best find table saws that are already assembled. I
many years ago purchase a table saw and had some
help assembling it and it never has really cut very
straight and that sort of thing. I’ve at times asked
about table saws that dealers had that were already
assembled, but they very seldom seem to be
available to buy.
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Larry Martin
Generally I think it would be difficult to find a table
saw already assembled and the main reason for that
would be because of the large size of it, it would be so
difficult to move it. If you get a contractor saw, which
is a little bit smaller you could get that preassembled,
but then the table top for the saw is going to be quite
small. Let me give you an example of the table saw I
bought when I started. This was a contractor saw, but
it came with an extra table, which went to the left
side…
Caller
I’ve been doing woodworking for quite a long time as
a hobby and I have just recently learned about your
seminars, this being the first one that I’ve attended. I
want to know actually three things. How often do you
do these seminars, number one? Number two, are
there any woodworking courses available at Hadley?
And number three, have you done or do you intend to
do a seminar on tool sharpening, not necessarily saw
blades, but chisels and knives in the shop and that
sort of thing? Like I say, I’ve been doing it for a long
time and I always think that I could use more tips on
sharpening. So I’m wondering if you’re going to do
any seminars or if you have done any on sharpening
of chisels and whatnot.
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Don Golembiewski
That was a good question. In terms of the seminars
that we will be having, we always review interest
levels and input from participants and determine what
will be the next seminar and when we will do another
one. We have planned on having follow-up
woodworking seminars on targeted topics and
sharpening is certainly one of those things that we
should consider.
The second question you asked was do we have
Hadley courses on woodworking and no we do not.
That is something that we have not been able to put
together. There are many topics that are not as well
covered in a distance education format as others. But
there are courses or instruction could be available at
a local rehabilitation center. The Veterans Affairs has
a series of blind rehab centers around the country and
for people who are veterans taking in a woodworking
course at a center is a great option. But look around
locally for a rehabilitation center that may have a
woodworking option. And perhaps Larry can add
additional comments.
Larry Martin
I’m aware of two or three centers in the country that
offer woodworking for the blind. I’m going off the top
of my head now to try to remember this. There is a
group in Minneapolis. I can’t recall the name right
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now, but checking services for the blind in
Minneapolis will get you there. There’s a second one
in Boston at an old well established school there.
Once again I forget it. But I could send this
information to anybody who wants it. And there’s a
third one in Louisiana that I know. Once again, I don’t
remember the name, but these places have large
woodshops and teach woodworking.
Very often most woodworking taught at blind centers
is done for the primary purpose of teaching
confidence. If the blind or the newly blind person can
operate woodworking machines he certainly gains the
confidence to handle blindness in life. These three
places seem to go beyond that and teach
woodworking for its own sake, to really get across a
great deal of woodworking knowledge.
Beyond that none of the established woodworking
schools likely would handle a blind person. The
insurance concerns are just going to scare them. I’ve
talked to a few of them and so far there’s been no
interest in opening it up to that. But if you contact me
at woodworkingfortheblind@comast.net I can send
you all the information that I’ve put together on these
schools that do teach woodworking.
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Don Golembiewski
Great information Larry. I want to thank you very
much for covering this topic today, Woodworking
Techniques: Selecting and Using Routers and Router
Tables. And I want to encourage the audience
participants to check out your website,
woodworkingfortheblind@comcast.net. Again, thank
you Larry and we wish you all well. Thanks again.
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