drill press jig

  Well I have talked about hand held electric drills in past articles, they are great but not if you want to drill accurate holes in your woodworking projects. You need a drill press, but what kind you ask, lets see if I can answer that question for you.

There are a lot of different things that you need to look for in choosing your drill press. First off there are bench models, floor models, single speed, and multiple speed drill presses.

So lets start with the bench models, as the name would imply, they are mounted on your work bench or a stand alone bench. These bench models have a limited drilling depth because of there height. Also if your work bench looks like mine half the time, you have to move stuff before you can drill your longer woodworking project. You are also limited by the length of your bench. Not a problem if your drill press is mounted on a stand alone bench. The bench drill presses are about half the price of floor mount drill presses but they are more limited in there use.

 Let us go to the floor models as the name says, these drill presses mount to the floor so you can drill from the chuck all the way to the floor. This is important when you have to drill holes into work that is 12 inches or more in height. You will find that floor models have more power than bench models, very important when using large forstnter bits or large hole saws. You want to make sure that you have variable speed, most of the time this is done by moving belts to different pulleys so that you can use slower speeds for metal, hardwood and plexiglass. You need faster speeds for soft woods.

 Make sure your quill feed has three levers so that you always have a handle to feed your bit into your work. You want a table that you can tilt to 45 degrees. I have an adjustable machinist vise bolted to my table, I then have a 1/2 inch plywood table with a 2×2 inch board on the bottom that I can put in my vise to drill my woodworking stuff on. Remove the wood table and use your vice for drilling metal, this works great for me.

 Lets talk safety woodworking beginners don’t understand how dangerous the drill press can be. A drill press will grab hold of anything that is loose. So guys, don’t have your shirt tail hanging out preferably wear short sleeves. Make sure that you have proper hold downs for your work because once that bit sticks in the work it starts spinning and you can’t get your hand out of the way fast enough. I have the scares to prove it. In my younger days I was not as smart as I am now.

 Now for all you lady’s out there, wear a ball cap and please tie your hair back and do the same as the men do with their clothing. Oh yea, this goes for all you long haired guys also. Well thats all for now, but there is so much more about the drill press, we will go into jigs and more latter so bye for now, Uncle Mel

Beautiful woodwork with your scroll saw

So now that you are getting better with your scroll saw skills. It’s time for you to start making beautiful woodwork with your saw. To turn out beautiful work you need to have great patterns. So many times the first thing people think about is getting on line and looking at free patterns. While there are some free patterns that you can get grate woodwork from be careful.

 Because if these are not full sized patterns and they only give you measurements that’s fine if you are making a square something. But doing beautiful woodwork on your scroll saw isn’t for squares. So as I have said in past blogs about free plans there is no such thing as a free lunch. First off most free plan sites do not show the best stuff they have. You have to buy that. So if you are not getting a free lunch you might as well go out and pay for prime rib.

 So for beautiful woodwork get the best full size plan you can. The guy selling you good plans and patterns is doing so to make money and he wants you to come back for more, it is called capitalism. But more than that, these patterns have been created by the guy selling them, he’s proud of them and has used them to do beautiful woodwork that he produces and sells. So what he is selling you is his knowledge and experience. If you are like me you need all the knowledge and experience you can get.

 To get beautiful work it is so important to get started right. All right we now have a full size pattern what we do first is look around the shop and see if you have some old 1/8 inch paneling if not go down to your budget lumber yard and buy the cheapest peace you can get. Glue your paper patterns onto the paneling then cut them out with your scroll saw. You now have a pattern that you can use over and over. You may think that you will only make one from your paper pattern but someone will see your beautiful project and want one and in these hard times thats cash money for doing something you love doing you might as well get paid for it.

 Some tricks for you to turn out beautiful woodwork. After you trace your pattern and start sawing always try to saw out your pencil lines because these lines are very hard to sand out and as they say time is money. To have beautiful woodwork you need to sand your project right. Start with 80 grit sand paper then go to 100 grit and finish with 220 grit this will make your work shine. Finish with a clear oil finish or paint and your work will make you proud. Thank you for reading my blog and I will be talking to you soon together we will do some beautiful woodwork. Uncle Mel