I am just now working out the details but you can expect this project to be released early this summer. It should be a fun little project with a few unexpected challenges here and there including curves, angles, and angled tenons.

The class is almost full and there are only a few spots left so if you’re in the Southern California area and you’d like to take the class,

By the way, if you’ve never been to a class like this, it’s an absolute blast. Nothing like taking an entire week and devoting it to a single project in a fun and positive learning environment. I hope to see you there!!

If you are one of those folks who wants to begin detaching from the tablesaw, you’re going to need to find alternative methods for doing the things that we typically use the tablesaw for, such as cutting tenons. Fortunately, the bandsaw is a very good alternative.

Preparation and Stuff

To cut tenons at the bandsaw, you’ll need a few simple things:

• Realiable Bandsaw Fence – A good fence is a must for this operation. It needs to be rock solid and adjustable for the blade drift calibration. The fence should also be perfectly perpendicular to the table surface.
• Simple Miter Gauge – You really don’t need a fancy schmancy miter gauge for this. The stock unit that comes with your bandsaw should suffice. If your workpieces are really wide though, you might consider adding a tall fence to the gauge.
• Stop Block and Clamp – A stop block made from scrap wood will allow us to make multiple cuts of a consistent depth. This is crucial for getting good results. It’s also a good idea to chamfer the bottom of the stop block so that dust can escape and wont interfere with workpiece registration.
• Featherboard – A featherboard will hold the workpiece securely against the fence. Not absolutely necessary but highly recommended.

The last thing you need to do, and perhaps the most important, is to make sure your bandsaw is fully calibrated and tuned up. If you haven’t tuned your bandsaw yet, watch this video!

The Process

1. Layout the tenons using a fine pencil and a marking gauge.
2. Set up the stop block for the appropriate depth of cut, using the shoulder line as a guide. Clamp the stop block securely to the fence.
3. To cut the cheeks, set the fence so that you are cutting just outside the pencil line that is closest to the fence, keeping the blade in the waste. Remember, you can always do a little cleanup later with hand tools.
4. With a featherboard in place, make the first cut. Once you make contact with the stop block, wait a second or two before retracting the workpiece. This allows the blade to come back to its “home” position giving you the full depth of cut.
5. Flip the piece and make the second cut.
6. To cut the tenon sides, adjust your fence to the appropriate position and make both cuts. If your shoulder is the same on all four sides, you won’t need to move your fence at all.
7. To cut the shoulders, set up the stop block as a “stopped” fence. In other words, clamp it to the fence BEFORE the blade. This will allow us to make our shoulder cuts while safely releasing the off-cut into an open area. Using the fence directly would result in the off-cut being trapped between the blade and the fence, which is never a great idea. Set the fence so that the blade is cutting just inside the shoulder line, again with the blade in the waste. Using the miter gauge, cut the shoulders on all four sides of the board. You might even consider clamping the workpiece to the miter gauge for even better results. Keep in mind there is no stop being used during this step because when you see a piece fall off the board, you know you’ve gone far enough.

Your results could very well be perfect right off the saw, but you want to inspect the joint just to be sure. Using a shoulder plane and/or a rabbeting block plane, you can clean up the shoulders and the cheeks. A chisel should help you easily fine tune the tenon sides.

I recommend running a couple of test pieces to get the feel for the process. Once set up, cut all of your tenons at once for the most consistency possible. All told, this process is arguably just as fast as the tablesaw method. So if you’re looking for a high quality substitute for tablesaw tenons (that still involves power tools), give your bandsaw a shot!

We often talk about workbenches as being “lifetime” projects, meaning they will likely be with us for the duration of our careers. So by nature, this is a very meaningful project. But for me, it goes well beyond that. I simply can’t look at my bench without thinking of my wife and son. Every saw cut, every plane stroke, and every hole drilled has Nicole and Mateo all over it.

Now don’t get the wrong idea. I sure as heck didn’t slack off when it came to the educational side of this project. In spite of being short on sleep and a little loco en la cabeza, I was focused like a laser beam on getting these videos completed and in the hand of Guild members each and every Friday. The end result is over 10.5 hrs of high quality instructional videos!! This is our largest Guild Build to date! The short video above is just a promotional video that we plan to use on our sales pages, but I thought I would post it on the site for all to see. If you are interested in seeing this build, as well as all of the other Guild Builds available in the Wood Whisperer Guild archive, sign up for a membership today!

The purpose of the splitter/riving knife is to prevent kickback as it physically stops the wood from making contact with the back of the blade (the source of kickback). If your saw came with a good quality splitter or riving knife, I certainly hope you are using it. Sadly, many saws on the market today come with a complicated metal and plastic dinglehopper contraption that is intended for safety, but actually resembles a medieval torture device and is probably better suited for that task. It’s no wonder these things are usually taken off the saw and never put back on. And if you happen to have an older saw, you probably have no splitter at all. So what’s a safety-minded woodworker to do?

In my opinion, the simplest and most inexpensive solution is MicroJig’s MJ Splitter SteelPRO. The beauty of this system is that it works on just about any tablesaw, regardless of age or quality level. The splitter can be installed into any zero clearance insert so the installation process is incredibly simple and fast. Optional features like the “mini featherboard” and the Kerf Keeper make this deceivingly simple system very customizable and versatile. The video will go into detail on both of these optional features. The MJ Splitter SteelPRO comes in both full kerf and thin kerf versions, depending on what type of blade you run on your saw.

As much as I like the MJ Splitter system, you won’t see me using it on the show and I thought this deserved some explanation. The reason is because I already have a standard riving knife installed on my saw and it works great for my purposes. As I mentioned above, this product is great for folks who either have no splitter at all, or who’s splitter is a piece of junk. Coming in at under $40, you’d be hard pressed to find anything else that gives you more bang for the buck in terms of safety!

Sign up for MicroJig’s newsletter and you’ll have a chance to win a free plan for a replaceable zero clearance insert!

A cyclone separator is essentially a bucket with a fancy lid. When connected to a vacuum source, the lid creates a cyclonic suction that collects large dust particles minimally, and the small dust particles at best. By adding one of these to a standard shop vac or dust extractor, you can collect much of the dust before it ever reaches your vac’s filter. So why would you want to do this? One reason is safety. Many times, a filter will get clogged with both large and small dust particles, eventually clogging up the system. This could lead to dust leaking through the system and being expelled back into the shop air. By removing the large particles and even some of the smaller particles, your vac filters don’t have to work as hard and are less likely to become clogged. At the very least, it will take a lot longer for a clog to occur.

The second reason is to save money. I never run my shop vac or dust extractors without a filter bag. Disposable filter bags wind up costing me a lot of money over time. By separating out the chips and dust BEFORE the vac, I can simply empty the bucket over and over and the fill rate on the disposable bags drops dramatically.

I’ll be reviewing the following cyclone separators: The Oneida Dust Deputy, The ClearVue Mini-CV06, and Rockler’s Dust Right Vortex.

Price

Oneida Dust Deputy Deluxe – $79
ClearVueMini CV06 – $149
Rockler Dust Right Vortex – $89

The ClearVue CV06 comes in at the highest price point of all three of these units at $149. The Dust Right Vortex is $89 but can often be found on sale for $69. The Dust Deputy Deluxe kit retails for $79. Oneida also carries other kits costing as much as $199 for the Ultimate model and as little as $39 for the DIY standalone cyclone body.

Winner: Dust Deputy

Connectivity

One of the greatest frustrations in dust collection is dealing with various port and hoses sizes. Fortunately, all three kits come with their own short length of hose for connecting the cyclone to the dust extractor. I had no trouble connecting all three units to both my Festool CT33 and my Rigid Shop Vac. The port for the tool connection was a bit of a different story. I had three hoses to test: my large Festool boom arm hose, my 36 mm Festool hose, and my standard Rigid shop vac hose.

Mini CV06 – All hoses connected with no problem.
Dust Right Vortex – All hoses connected with no problem.
Dust Deputy Deluxe – The large Festool boom arm hose and the Rigid shop vac hose both connected with no trouble. But I was not able to securely connect my 36 mm Festool hose. The diameter of the hose port would have worked just fine, but this particular one does not allow the Dust Deputy’s port to penetrate far enough for the friction fit to engage.

Winners: Dust Right Vortex & ClearVue Mini CV06

Portability

The one major drawback of a cyclone separator is that you now have one more thing to lug around the shop. Since it is essentially tethered to your vacuum source, the whole setup and be quite a pain in the neck. Many folks make custom carts specifically for this purpose. But the manufacturers of these units didn’t leave us hanging.

Dust Deputy – Includes casters for rolling around as well as an attachment kit for mounting to a dust extractor.
Mini CV06 – Does not come with casters but does come with an attachment kit for mounting to a dust extractor.
Dust Right Vortex – Includes easy to attach casters but does not include a mounting kit.

Winner: Dust Deputy

Build Quality

All of these units are plastic. Nothing really fancy about them, but there are some minor differences to consider.

Dust Right Vortex – Sturdy thick plastic with a twist-on lid. Only thing I don’t like about it is the crappy rigid plastic hose. This is the type of hose that will either kink or crack if stepped on. Since it also holds its shape, it will decrease mobility somewhat.

Mini CV06 – Initially seemed to have the highest build quality. The plastic cyclone was made from thicker plastic and the lower profile offers less of a chance of tipping. The lid is fantastic on this unit as it twists and threads onto the bucket. Once the threads are engaged, you have to pull a small lever to twist it back off. The kit included a high quality flexible connector hose too. Unfortunately, these positive aspects were overshadowed by the fact that the bucket collapsed under pressure. While this could be circumstantial or pure bad luck, it happened.

Dust Deputy – There really isn’t anything remarkable about the build quality. At the same time, there isn’t anything overly negative. The kit comes with nice flexible hose equal in quality to the Mini CV06. My one complaint about the Dust Deputy is the lid. The simple pop-on pop-off lid is very likely to detach at a very inconvenient time. But if one were to adopt the policy of never picking the unit up by the cyclone, this should never be an issue.

Winners: Dust Right Vortex & Dust Deputy

Performance

The performance test was very simple. I sanded a soft maple board with 80 grit paper for 5 minutes straight. I then made three cuts at the sliding compound miter saw. I figured this would be a decent mix of small and large dust. The sandpaper was changed between each test and I did my best to keep even pressure on the sander.

Dust Right Vortex – A moderate to heavy amount of fine dust found its way into the dust vac compartment.
Mini CV06 – A moderate amount of fine dust found its way into the dust vac compartment.
Dust Deputy – A minimal amount of dust found its way into the dust vac compartment.

Winner: Dust Deputy

Summary

To say I was surprised by these results would be an understatement. It isn’t often that the cheapest option in a tool test is also the best option. Both the Mini CV06 and the Dust Right Vortex will get the job done, but the combination of price, overall quality, and performance of the Dust Deputy make it the clear winner here.

The Hand Plane Trick

It should be said that the traditional way to handle a wide board would be to simply mill it 4-square with your hand planes. But this method is intended as a quicker, more beginner-friendly, hybrid alternative. It begins with planing one side of the board flat. By laying the board face down on a known flat surface (workbench, assembly table, tablesaw…), you can simply rock the piece back and forth to determine if any twist, cup, or bow exists. Mark the high spots with a pencil and begin planing them down. Keep testing your progress by flipping the piece over and checking for rocking. Eventually, you should end up with a reasonably flat and stable board. Once you are confident the one side is flat, you can simply send the board through the planer with the flat side down and then mill the edges using your preferred method.

Here’s a quick tip. The initial flat surface doesn’t need to be perfectly flat. If the board is slightly concave and it isn’t too long, it can still register perfectly during a pass through the planer. So for the sake of expedience, don’t shoot for dead flat. Shoot for even registration around the perimeter and if the center area is hollowed out ever so slightly, that’s ok.

The Jointer Trick

So your jointer is only 6″ side and your fancy board is 9″ wide. No problem. But before I go into detail here, note that this technique does require the removal of the jointer’s safety guard. Exercise the highest level of caution during this process and place the guard back on the jointer immediately after! Don’t make me come over there!

Once the guard is removed, you should have the ability to run an extra wide boards over the tables. Take one or two passes and flip the board over to see what you’re up against. If the board is badly twisted, it may take a few more passes. What you’re looking for is a little ridge. Only 6″ worth of the board’s width is making contact with the blades. So the overhanging area should appear as a raised portion of stock running the length of the board.

Now here’s the “trick”, and you have two options. First, you can simply double-stick tape a piece of flat sheetgood stock to the flat milled portion of your board. The sheetgood sled can be anything from plywood to MDF to particle board and should be at least the width of the flattened section and the length of the board. Once securely attached, you can flip the sandwich over and run it through the planer. The uneven raised portion of the board will now be raised above the planer table surface and won’t have any impact. The flat section of the board is now registering against the sled and since the sled is flat as well, we are able to achieve perfect flat registration as we pass the assembly through the planer. One the new face of the board is clean and flat, we can disassemble the sandwich and run the board through the planer one last time to remove the raised uneven portion.

The second option after the initial flattening is to remove the uneven raised portion using a hand plane. A few passes with a hand plane is all it takes to flush up the rest of the surface. Once flat, you can simple pass the piece through the planer with the clean and flat face down.

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The Drawbored Mortise & Tenon

A drawbored mortise & tenon joint is similar to the pegged version, only the hole in the tenon is slightly offset so that when the peg is driven home, it pulls the tenon further into the mortise. Most of the time, a joint with this much mechanical strength really doesn’t even require glue! But being the “belt and suspenders” kind of guy that I am, I like to use glue anyway.

This technique can be used on anything from door frames to workbenches. I’m using the drawboring technique on all of my mortise & tenon joints on my Roubo workbench. I want this sucker to be bullet-proof!

How to Drawbore

To drawbore, you need to have a finished mortise and tenon that is already cut and ready to go. Drill two holes through the mortise piece, making sure you go deep enough to penetrate the material on the other side of the mortise.

Dry assemble the joint and use a brad point bit to locate and transfer the hole centers in the tenon. Disassemble the joint and for better visibility, use a pencil to darken the marks in the cheek of the tenon.

Measure and mark the offset (the offset should be located closer to the shoulder of the tenon). How much offset depends on the wood and the application. A softer wood and a more demanding application might require a 1/8″ offset. A small door frame made from a dense exotic hardwood might require only 1/32″. But I would say on average, 1/16″ offset is probably a safe bet. Drill holes in the tenon at the new offset marks.

Homemade Dowel Pins

You can use commercial dowel stock for the pins but I find it much more fun to use a dowel plate to create my own. The advantage here is that you can use any species you have in your shop! Once the pins are cut to length, use a chisel or utility knife to sharpen one end to a blunt point. If you don’t do this, the pin will never be able to maneuver around the offset and you could very well break the pin or the tenon.

Hammer it Home!

Hammering the pins in place does take a little more effort than you are probably used to but keep at it. When the pin contacts the offset hole you will actually notice it starts tilting slightly. Once you reach the stock on the other side of the tenon, the pin straightens out again and bottoms out. Simply let the glue dry (if you used glue), and then use a flush trim saw to trim the excess pin stock.

I recommend practicing this technique a few times before trying it on an important project. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be drawboring mortise & tenon joints till the cows come home. I don’t own any cows so I’m guessing that’s going to be a really long time for me.

Before learning to tap threads in wood, I thought it would be helpful to review other types of mechanical fasteners and why they might not be as good as a bolt in a threaded hole.

Nails

Nails are pretty much a brute-force way of holding things together. The nail is driven into the wood, splitting and compressing fibers the whole way. Over time, natural forces cause the wood around the nail to compress even further eventually leading to joint failure.

Screws

A step up from a nail is the screw. When you rotate the screw into the wood, it pulls itself in and threads itself into the fibers. The good thing about screws is they are removable, but over the course of years the cut threads become wider and wider and the screw will eventually loosen up.

Threaded Bolts

This is the star of our show today. Once the threads are cut into the wood, you can pretty much remove and replace the bolt as many times as you want and it really doesn’t do any damage to the wood. This is because the bolts threads are sized perfectly to fit into the threads that are cut into the wood. So this is perfect for applications where you may need to loosen and tighten components on a routine basis.

Tapping Threads

All you need to make a threaded hole is a drill bit and a tap. The drill has to be a very specific size and and you can typically find drills and taps in matched sets such as this one. If you need help matching up your bolt, drill, and tap, refer to the handy charts on this page.

Here’s how the system works. The drill bit is used to create the perfect size hole. The tap is then driven into the hole cutting the threads on its way down. You have to be very careful not to strip the threads during this part of the process but in a dense hardwood like maple, you should have no trouble at all. While you might be tempted to use a traditional T-handled wrench for this, I found it much easier to use a power drill at a very slow speed.

Tee Nuts

One alternative that we can’t forget to mention here is the Tee Nut. These little threaded inserts accomplish the same thing as the threaded bolt technique only instead of actually cutting threads, we simply insert a threaded insert into a hole. They are very easy to use but unfortunately, the way they connect to a workpiece leaves a little to be desired. Over time, the small teeth that go into the wood fibers can break or the wood itself can compress, causing the Tee Nut to lose its grip. So while they can get the job done, I don’t really see them as a good long-term solution.

I made two Shaker Tables a couple years ago and unfortunately I never got around to making the knob for the cherry version. My mom lost patience with me and purchased a commercial knob. The very least I could do was install it for her.

So here’s a quick review of how I like to install drawer knobs in finished drawers. The key is to use our old shop favorite blue tape, a brad point bit, and a backer block. You’ll end up with nice clean holes and a perfect installation!

Update
Well that’ll teach me! I was in the middle of filming the Roubo workbench build when my mom came in and said, “put this knob on the drawer please!”. So I figured I may as well film it as a Mini. Not having my brain fully in the moment, I forgot about the old trick of simply running a straight edge from corner to corner to find the center point. I was really too focused on the concept of getting a clean hole. I also misspoke when I stated one of the measurements. My apologies for the errors.

Did you know you can join the Guild and get immediate access to over 5 hours of video content and detailed plans for this Shaker Table?
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