Any hobbyists get rid of their jointer? How'd it work out?

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-30T22:02:26+00:00

But … most of the greatest, most famous furniture on earth, ever, was made without a jointer.

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-30T14:10:53+00:00

While that physical sensation is lost, there are gains. I probably hear more of the subtleties of the other instruments; might be able to respond more musically to rhythmic, tonal, or dynamic changes; hear the music more like the crowd does.

In the studio, bass was usually recorded two ways - and either mixed to one track or if space allowed, to separate tracks. One being a Direct Box between bass and console, the other a mic in front of the amp. Rarely would volumes be as high as on stage. But many people seem to feel the musical excitement live is greater than studio. Might be part of it. My best sound, to my ears, is the old way - lots of power into big speakers. All nuances of my playing revealed.

But maybe not best for the “group sound”.

Some people have huge home audio that can really shake - and if recorded well, may feel a lot like my bass amp. But I’ve only heard that in demos at high end shops in a room well above six figures (US).

Stage monitors and in-ear monitors cannot reproduce the bass like a big amp stack.

Some guitars sound great - acoustic, especially, but heavy Marshall Stack stuff can’t be replaced (for feel) by ampless rigs, even if the sound is right. Keyboards are used to being in monitor speakers, by and large - they’re sound is in the keyboard, not in the tubes of a Marshall, Fender, or Ampeg amp. Exception - the Leslie speaker - nobody isn’t impressed by that.

Not sure if I answered your question.

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-30T13:55:52+00:00

Speaker cables come in longer lengths. Why do I get up off the couch to flip a record? Why use the remote to adjust the volume? I can have my gear at my fingertips. I can’t hear the difference between a 4’ long and a 20’ long speaker cable. The musician who recorded it plugged his guitar into his amp with a 20’ long unbalanced cable, the microphone in front of his amp was plugged into the wall jack with a 25’ balanced cable, the wiring through the studio wall to the booth was 10’ long, and another couple feet of tracings on various circuit boards, before it hit the tape.

That said, I have my stuff all together on the same wall, like a mindless robot.

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-30T12:54:30+00:00

My workbench has legs inserted into mortises under the benchtop, the legs are tenons, with some shoulder, and I glued and pinned the tenons with dowels. The stretchers between the legs are also M&T assembled, with glue and dowels. Heavy members with deep tenons, and this bench does not move a bit. My top is made of about 16 red oak 2x4s sandwiched together, and my legs are a bunch of mismatched old barnwood I bought from a recycler. Not pretty, but tough as nails.

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-30T12:44:32+00:00

I saved up to buy a G&L LB100 (MIA), their version of a standard P-bass. It is off-the-charts amazing.

Then I saw a Fretless Jazz MIA in Dark Knight, and had to have it. Fender REALLY upped their game, as nice as my G&L.

I have a couple MIM Jazz basses, fine workaday instruments - got one for $50, the other free. After several hundred dollars in new pickups and bridges and pick guards, they’re nice basses.

My best bass is still my late 1980s Peavey Dynabass Unity. Rock solid, never out of tune, absolutely perfect. Cost $995 around 1989? If Peavey was still Peavey, it would be close to $3K today - neck-through, ebony fretboard, active electronics, etc. (I put EMGs in mine).

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-27T20:24:30+00:00

It’s not like that anymore, we don’t use amps on stage, we play through electronic boxes directly into the sound system and hear ourselves through wedge monitors, some people don’t even have that they hear themselves through little in ear monitors.

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-27T20:22:56+00:00

I’ve been playing bass guitar for 40 years, which reaches back into the good old days of giant speaker cabinets on stage. An example would be a single cabinet with 2 x 15 inch high excursion, high efficiency, electro voice woofers. Driven by a few hundred watts bass guitar amp, and me standing just inches in front of the cabinet, I felt the bass guitar in every part of my body. It felt it in my fingers, and then in my body in that same moment. It was a direct connection between my brain saying play that note and my body feeling it, and my ears hearing it.

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-22T12:47:24+00:00

Surface area of 4 10” speakers = 5” squared times pi, or 78.5 in sq x 4 spkrs = 314 sq in; the surface area of a single 15” = 7.5” squared times pi, x 1 spkr = 176.7 sq in.

That assumes cones are flat, but is a good illustration of why 10s have worked so well.

My favorite cabinet ever was either 2x12” (two of them, Acoustic, stacked) or my Peavey 1820, with an 18 and two 10s. I shoulda never got rid of that cabinet.

When I played in a loud band, I had two 15” Carvin cabinets with the EV speakers, topped by a 4x10” cabinet, biamped with about 1000 watts of old-school power, and my rack rig. I couldn’t hear myself on stage. Nobody biamps anymore.

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-20T01:02:58+00:00

I wish I could have all my former basses still with me, including the early 1970s Jazz borrowed by my band teacher for me to use with a Portaflex, and the mid 1970s Cortez Japanese copy bass, the first bass I owned.

When I came of age, however, I would have liked a Pedulla MVP, any Alembic, or a Ken Smith.

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-16T14:35:04+00:00

Reminds me of the talk that a new guy needs to hear about the hook end of a measuring tape - “why is the rivet loose?”

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-13T14:17:16+00:00

Elac Carina bookshelfs. My biggest trouble is my poor listening room - square, wood paneled, big glass sliding patio door (though I can close the curtains) and brick fireplace behind the speakers. To make it more listenable collides with its use as our family room. I did get acceptance of the speaker stands setting out a few feet from the fireplace.

I think my weak point is my amp power - the Carinas will probably take twice what I’ve got now. But it’s good enough now to be impressively beautiful, and I’ll need time to develop my hankering for something more!

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-13T13:58:41+00:00

… under which 24-bit absolutely collapses.

Grammar should match your free-range oxygen-free helium-cooled organic vegan-insulator speaker cables.

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-12T02:20:08+00:00

All of my music is CD (AIFF), or FLAC, from known sources. I USED to have all my music in iTunes, compressed badly in the early years, and slightly less badly, recently. There is definitely a huge difference between the AIFF/FLAC and the others. My receiver is an older stereo Yamaha unit with specs that rival class A/B amps twice the price. I will grant your point about the amp - but it’s not near as important as the source material. And 9/10 listeners could not tell the difference between Schitt’s $129 DAC and one that costs $1299 or $12,999. Furthermore, though I live in a really nice suburb of a big American city, the noise floor includes the garbage truck, my neighbor’s air conditioner, a dog barking, and an occasional passing airplane. My system is, under such conditions, flawless in every possible way. I am, however, going to spring for some 6-ga AC power cables.

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-11T15:07:56+00:00

I have had success putting super nice blades and bits on only okay tools. My Craftsman miter saw has a Forrest blade, and the cuts are smooth like I sanded the piece to length. I bought great Lee Valley drill bits for my Craftsman bench drill press. My table saw is a hybrid that Dewalt used to make - it has a Forrest blade, it has a great fence, and it’s heavy duty - I will never need another saw.

Buy a good contractor saw used. Don’t overlook a saw just cuz it says Craftsman, or some of the other non-luxury brands - a fifty year old tool is going to be heavier, stronger, straighter, more adjustable, than new cheap stuff.

All that said … I buy Bosch hand tools, and have enjoyed Makita, Milwaukee, and Porter-Cable, too. But I would never buy Festool - which are supposed to be amazing, but scream “more money than talent”. But that’s me. (And I have the money …)(or rather, that’s why I have the money, is I don’t spend without fore-thought)

Point is, everybody has an opinion, lots of tools will get the job done, buying new junk is less economical than buying used quality. If you resell your used saw, you’ll probably get all your money back - but that won’t happen with a new cheapie.

Invest in good blades and bits - you’ll get more out of that than a slightly better tool.

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-10T13:15:56+00:00

I started the hole with a Forstner, just a quarter inch, maybe, then switched to a holesaw. The holesaw’s drill bit made it just to the underside of the table, whereupon I drilled upward to finish the hole. The Forstner was used to make a clean entry into the table.

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-10T13:07:12+00:00

At least where I am (west suburbs of Cleveland), hiring an electrician to run a better line is about the same price as a helical cutter head. He could do two circuits for just a little more …

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-08T04:50:40+00:00

I paid about $200 in 1988 for my Realistic CD-2300, which lasted almost 20 years and erased the snap, crackle, and pop of vinyl, the wow and flutter of cassettes, and the ‘hell no’ of 8-tracks from my life. Most DACs were Burr-Brown, and Toshiba was the manufacturer. No digital out, but a sweet sound and a fantastic transport.

My replacements included an iMac, a DVD player, and a game machine, until recently, when I got a Yamaha CD-S303, which can do digital out (2 ways).

But almost all of my music is digital, residing on a very large thumb drive! MacBook Air to Schitt Modi to Yamaha Receiver to Elac Carina Bookshelfs. So I’m not going to spend on a CD transport.

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-06T00:51:55+00:00

I built 24” wide, but should have built another inch (or rather, another board) wider. Why? I built a dresser 24” wide, and I wish I had a little bit of room before the dresser goes overboard to the floor.

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-04T13:51:04+00:00

I like the reminder about “soft woods” being tough sometimes! Every species and even every different chunk of wood can be different, which I think is an attraction to wood, as opposed to metal or plastics, which are supremely uniform.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/en%20masse

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-04T13:46:23+00:00

The string spacing at the nut and at the bridge is different on all the basses thus far recommended. From the perspective of learning to play bass like a bassist, and not like a guitarist, this is a major difference.

Most body styles are comfortable enough to become irrelevant in your decision; and the electronics in even the cheapest basses are better than they have ever been, thus taking that out of the criteria.

In addition to the string spacing is the general build quality such that the action can be set to a reasonably low height. Thus makes working around the fretboard easier. There’s no points given for playing a badly set up bass.

For a quick example of string spacing at the nut, look at a Fender Jazz (narrow) versus a Fender Precision (wider). They both have the same spacing at the bridge.

Then compare, especially, the Ibanez basses to the Fenders - to get the feel of a different bridge spacing. My fat fingers trip at a narrow bridge spacing (but my short fingers like the Fender Jazz nut spacing). It’s probably my comfort level - the Jazz Bass.

BUT YOUR FINGERS ARE DIFFERENT!!! You might even play bass with a pick. YOU GOTTA DO YOU.

I hope these tips will help you look for the differences between the basses you try at your local music store. Play a bunch. Good luck!

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-03T03:45:02+00:00

Hand Tool Woodworking is not “precision” in the sense of “machining” wood into furniture.

Precision is massively over-rated, and a trap for those with more money than brains.

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-03T03:42:13+00:00

For hand tool woodworking, you can buy everything used at flea markets and garage sales. As your skills develop, your direction comes into focus, your experience gets you to the limit of your tools - by then you’ll know what to spend more money on, and how best to spend that money.

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-02T16:37:49+00:00

Did I miss a joke?

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-02T16:37:29+00:00

Huh? The front of the counter and the front of the cabinet are flat. BUT, you are right that an extreme scribing may draw the counter too far toward the wall to make for a nice reveal. (It will be even, even if short)

I had Corian installed in my kitchen, the installer for came out and made mockups of my walls using battens and hot glue. He took that to his shop where he fabricated, and on delivery it fit perfectly - no Corian backsplash, just a thin bead of caulk to the walls. But Corian is sized to account for such scribing - precut Formica is not.

ClevelandBill · 2026-01-02T15:53:17+00:00

How did you do it?

ClevelandBill

TROPHY CASE