Homemade Router Lift Alternative to Kreg & JessEm- Woodworking with Stumpy Nubs 25

it's long sleeve weather again but I'm going to save you 300 bucks on a waterlift and we'll chisel away some of the confusion surrounding chisels this week I'm Blue Collar [Music] woodworking [Music] the great particle board buildoff is in full swing at the Stumpy Nubs workshop and it's already becoming an epic battle of woodworking Titans those guys over there think they're God's gift to woodworking just because they have fancy doodads like blade guards and dust masks so when they poo poo to pile a particle board well there was no way I was going to let them get away with it I was going to prove that there is a place in every workshop for inexpensive materials not everything has to be made out of mahogany and Rosewood especially around this place so the challenge was on and I was ready to meet it since the first sheet came off the press in the post World War II German Woodworkers have had a LoveHate relationship with particle board lowcost furniture makers love its stability and the impact on their bottom lines but woodworking purists despised its tendency to dull tools and a resistance to traditional joinery techniques in the Battle of perceptions the purists have emerged Victorious despite the addition of laminates and veneers particle board is generally viewed as a material for those who can't afford real wood back in the 50s particle board was more expensive than solid wood I mean if you had particle board cabinets you showed those suckers off to your friends they'd think you're like Lawrence Welk or something because you could afford the best of the best my parents couldn't afford particle board or socks love it or hate it particle board has changed the way furniture is made companies like AA have designed entire lines of furniture around the strengths and weaknesses of this versatile material and with millions of pieces sold industrywide chances are you have a fair amount of particle board in your house no I wouldn't say it's my first choice of materials unless it's for a project for somebody I don't particularly like I mean my wife's cabinets aren't particle board but the ones I made for old man rabasa down the street particle board cabinets with duct tape hinges look if you're going to compare particle board to solid wood yeah it's junk but half the stuff we own is junk isn't it so unless you're going to throw out everything you have that came from Walmart it's time to get down off your high horse and admit particle board has its place and that was the whole point of this contest with the bunion Brothers they'd rather throw the stuff away than have anybody find out that they use something so terrible like particle board a lot of woodw workers can't afford Baltic Birch or things like that on their projects so I wanted to prove that they can make something useful and nice out of particle board without having to be ashamed in the morning as you know I can't make any Project without making some jig to go with it this time I was making these moldings to go on the edges of the particle board and I thought this would be a lot easier with a rotor lift but if you SE what they charge for these things it's obscene the router does all the work it's the quarterback of the whole system so why does the thing that just makes it go up and down cost two or three times as much it's like Michael Vic sure his dog trainers are important but it's the quarterback that gets the big paycheck I don't know I've never been good at football metaphors but I've always been good at making jigs so I decided to try my hand at a router lift a router lift is a simple enough mechanism it has some sort of Crank to raise and lower the router from above the table and a smooth tracking mechanism to keep everything aligned commercial models are precisely machined which accounts for at least a portion of the high costs Stumpy solution is A7 set of ballbearing drawer slides look I read the message boards I know that some people say that sawdust will fall up the bearings in these drawer slides baloney I use them for all sorts of Jigs and they stay smooth and accurate in my experience I've never had any problems with dust collection I don't know maybe if you've got sawdust just piling up on top of them you'd have a problem but that sounds more like a dust collection problem than a drawer slide problem besides I plan on building dust collection right into this rotor lift that's something the commercial versions don't have you'll [Music] see so the other day I was browsing through my local woodworking store like I do all the time and right before they threw me out for drinking too much of the free coffee I saw a rack that had this little doodad on it now I recognize the name of course incra because they make those table sof fences that everybody wants but are so expensive they're expensive because they're accurate and that's because they have this patented technology of interlocking teeth that keeps things really really accurate and your measur repeatable if you move away and then want to come back to the exact same one well they applied that technology to this marking gauge and I picked one up it's just two pieces of plastic but don't let it fool you it's got those teeth on it and ruler marks so when you set your distance it's going to lock in exactly on the ruler marks to the thousandth of an inch much more accurate that you can do just by eyesight once you tighten it down then you can use it to Mark the distance from an ed Ed you can turn it sideways and use it to Mark the center line of a work piece you can use it as a height gauge for table saws or routers really it's got all kinds of uses there are a couple downsides to it though for one thing I would have liked to see the the ruler marks on it a different color they're kind of hard to see sometimes and also those teeth make it a little hard to adjust unless you really loosen up the nut so if you can get past those it is a good tool to have and at 18 bucks I don't know it seems a little expensive to me for a couple pieces of plastic but uh I'm glad I bought one find everybody's favorite fat little woodworker on Facebook Twitter and YouTube and read his hilarious weekly woodworking blog at Stumpy nbs.com the bun brothers were just here I had to have Randy lay on top of the particle Bo project Parts just to keep them out of their view I mean I know what they're doing they're trying to find out what length of drywall screws I'm using if they can't figure out particle board Joiner on their own that's their problem the weakness of any particle board project is a joinery traditional joints like the mortise and Tenon do little to add strength but understanding the strengths and the weaknesses of the material can go a long way toward making your project a success so if you're going to take the plunge and use some particle board in a project there are five rules that you have to follow and these are non-negotiable first of all avoid long unsupported spans spans of over 24 in especially if there's weight on them will sag so either do it shorter use solid wood or laminate two layers together second screw and glue particle board holds together well with glue but every joint should still be reinforced by screws with coarse threads number three pre-drill and counter sync drilling a proper sized pilot hole is critical and counter syncing heads will allow you to cover them with finish and it'll keep that tapered end from splitting your particle board number four trim and paint unless you're going to veneer you have to paint particle board you can't just slap some stain on this and plan on using wood trim anywhere an edge is going to be visible cuz the edges don't look good painted and number five don't move it particle board Furniture's main weakness is moving it around so try to make something that's going to be stationary like built-in cabinets keeping these rules in mind right from the start will help you to determine from the design process what project to make from your particle board and it will help you to avoid a project that people are going to laugh at when it falls [Music] apart there are a few Tools around the shop that Randy is just not allowed to use obviously the table saw since the blade looking incident but also my good chisels I say good chisels because I also have some not so good chisels and some bad chisels all are important for different reasons first the bad chisels these came from Harbor Freight they cost like a buck each I never sharpen these things they're the ones I keep around if I want to really just bang on something or I want to lend them to a neighbor I just grind the chips out when they get them in the blades no honing that's it I also have a set of Stanley fat Max chisels these things are actually pretty good quality the steel is nice it holds a nice Edge and there's a shank that runs all the way to the end that you can really bang on so I use these if I have to do some mortising into some really hard wood that's going to damage some of the finer chisels then there's the really nice chisels and I don't even keep them out because I like to have them around just to say I have something that Randy can't use of course there's some other specialty chisels that some people like to have me for example I really like to have a set of short chisels around these things are really nice I always keep them razor sharp and they work great for pairing or uh for some really detailed hand work if you do a lot of dovetailing by hand you're going to want a set of dovetail chisels maybe one or two that are really thin and have steep bevels on the side so you can get in between those Tails maybe you do morticing you want a good heavy duty instead of mortising chisels the point is there's lots of different chisels and you have to tailor your collection to what you're most likely to use and don't think you have to buy a full set of each my dovetail chisels I only have a couple different sizes that I use the most my mortising chisels I only have three different sizes because those are really the only ones that I need if you do that then you're going to save a lot of money and you can use that extra money to buy more good tools that you don't let your shot friends touch build it goio this where we are now well the particle board project is coming along great we've got the carcasses all up and ready to paint I'm pretty excited about it because this is saving me a fortune compared to what it would cost to make this out of good quality Plywood And once the trim is up you're not going to be able to tell the difference unless you're a woodworker which I suppose most of you are but the average person that comes into the office they're not going to know it's particle board especially once I use this new paint sprayer that I got like six months ago been really excited to use haven't had a chance yet it's going to look nice but then I got to get trim along the edges and to make those I have to get this router lift finish but I can't do that in the condition that this shop is in so I'm going to have to take a break and do some cleaning I'd have Randy do it but he's just going to mess it up nine out of 10 one arm men will tell you that a messy shop is dangerous while it's an edible that clutter will accumulate through the course of a project it's important to stop from time to time and tidy things up put away tools you aren't using discard wood scraps make sure there's nothing on the floor to trip over it only takes a couple couple of minutes and it could save your life router lift's done well is done is I can show you because it's got to be mounted in a table for you to be able to see how it moves up and down but guess what I made it out of particle board I'm getting some serious mileage out of this stuff actually the critical parts are made out of good plywood or solid wood because it's going to see a lot of movement of course during you up and down but some of it I use some particle board scraps and since I use scraps and just a little bit of Hardware this thing cost me practically nothing and it still moves up and down just as smoothly as the commercial versions and you can adjust from the top of the table it's kind of hard to see it on camera but there's a little nut here that's just below the surface of your rotor plate and I use a little ratchet that I bought at Harbor Freight for like $6 I keep a 3/4 in socket on it and and that's what I use to raise and lowerer and then I can set it underneath the table when I'm done you can change the bits from the top you don't have to get underneath and the best part is there's a 4in dust collection port in the back that will pull enough air hopefully to suck any of the dust that gets below the table and it's divided so that it also pulls air across the motor which will keep my rotor cool the commercial versions I haven't seen one that has this and I don't know why I mean it wasn't that big a deal to do want to impress your friends then just go to Stumpy nbs.com and click on the tab that says Stumpy store there you'll find plans for many of the projects you see on bluecollar Woodworking and you can help support the show now I'm thinking about a new router table fence but I got to really work on that trim for the particle board project so that'll have to be for another time well it's been another long day at this stumping UPS Workshop but we've learned a few things first there's no need to be afraid of particle board I mean sure it's kind of junk but it can be used to make some good stuff and very few people that use it get cancer so don't be afraid to use it in some of your projects in your Workshop we also learned that the bun Brothers bunch of jerks will do anything to get an edge in this particle board contest so I've got Randy going through the workshop right now spreading dog poo all over the floor so if they try to sneak in tonight they're going to be in for a surprise course we've also learned that if you promise Randy a sandwich he'll touch dog poo I'm going to file that one away for future use but before we close down for the night I I want to thank Jeff from Minneapolis or jl7 as he goes on Lumberjacks for this nice piece of Bird's Eye Maple that he sent me I'm going to make something nice out of it for Mrs Stumpy and then we'll all be able to sit back and have a cold one cuz you burned it my [Applause] friend yeah

Channel: Stumpy Nubs

Views: 166,417

Keywords: Incra, Kreg, Jessem, router lift, particle board, stumpy nubs, blue collar woodworking

Id: 1wSk4pmtvfA

Length: 17min 4sec (1024 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 31 2012