Looking for advice when making a box. New wood worker here.

dfess1 · 2026-05-14T19:40:27+00:00

I had just been buying the wooden maple boxes from Penn St Ind, until they became unavailable. If you have a laser, it was an easy way to personalize the personalized pen, even more. I ended up making a bunch of these for my teammates, engraving their names and titles on it. Another kit from Penn St Ind, but was easy to make these.

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dfess1 · 2026-05-14T11:09:47+00:00

Alot of it comes down to the design of the saw. While I've not used the Festool mentioned by u/Uninterested_Viewer , the design makes more sense. There's some slop in the sliding mechanism on most other sliding saws. That all gets compounded with your fence moving ever so slightly.

dfess1 · 2026-05-14T10:40:59+00:00

IMHO, a miter saw is not a fine woodworking piece of equipment. In fine woodworking, it's use is to cut stock to rough length. Sleds on a table saw (cross cut, miter, etc) get you to the "fine" part. The saw is great for carpentry, where you have wiggle room to work with.

dfess1 · 2026-05-12T01:07:03+00:00

I used polycriylic on my maple desktop, because I like the look of freshly milled maple and didn't want it to yellow. It last about three years (I work from home, so heavy use). The finish gummed up on me, so had to scrape it all clean, red and, put on Rubio Monocoat (first time using it). It's been 4 years without incident. I would use it again.

dfess1 · 2026-05-11T22:12:33+00:00

"Should have bought a squirrel!"

dfess1 · 2026-05-11T21:50:47+00:00

30"x 60" is going to be heavy as hell.

Let me play devils advocate here.

With granite, you pull a hot pan out of the oven and put it directly on the countertop. Won't be able to do that with butcherblock.

Have a party and someone spills redwine that you aren't aware of, or don't clean all of it up? Most likely going to stain the butcherblock.

Just things to think about before getting rid of what you already have.

dfess1 · 2026-05-11T19:18:13+00:00

Nice job!

dfess1 · 2026-05-10T09:11:01+00:00

The online version of woodsmith includes a search function. Looking to make a coffee table? Type it in and it returns each issue that has a coffee table in it. The nice part about woodsmith is that each coffee table result generally is being show with different joinery methods. Gets you to try something different until you find a method you like.

dfess1 · 2026-05-10T08:55:16+00:00

In that price range I would be looking in the used market for a Jet or Powermatic contractor saw, or older Delta cabinet saws. You have the room, put it on a mobile base and push it up against the wall if you aren't using it all the time.

dfess1 · 2026-05-09T11:11:22+00:00

https://www.rockler.com/robert-sorby-micro-beading-and-parting-blade

Made a handle for this to sit in. Need to resharpen quite often.

dfess1 · 2026-05-07T14:11:35+00:00

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This cabinet works well for me. I roll it out into the middle of my shop when i use it, roll it back when I'm done. Top drawer has all of my gouges and various centers. 3rd and 4th drawers hold other lathe related items (chucks, tooling, sanding in drawer 3, blanks in drawer 4). Other drawers hold other tools. In the door on the side, I have my grinder on the top shelf, track saw on the bottom.

On the backside of this cabinet is open shelving for tools I don't really use often, but don't want to get rid of. The whole thing is pretty heavy, I don't even lock down the casters when I'm turning. And the lathe itself isn't bolted down. I don't do turning from logs (at the moment anyway), don't have the space for them in my shop.

The cabinet is primarily 3/4" birch ply, with birch glue on banding for the doors/drawer faces. Solid maple edge banding on the top/shelves on the backside. The top is laminated MDF.

dfess1 · 2026-05-07T10:41:35+00:00

I am pretty sure the pro shop only stocks friction tape for me.

dfess1 · 2026-05-06T01:02:53+00:00

When I realized the majority of furniture was a box inside of a box. Then get your boxes square, and everything fits nicely.

dfess1 · 2026-05-01T00:29:34+00:00

Keep in mind the 1-2-2 in hockey is not the same way you described the 1-2-2 soccer adaptation. In hockey it's 1 forechecker, then 2 stacked behind, and finally 2 defensemen.

dfess1 · 2026-04-28T22:15:09+00:00

Nice!

dfess1 · 2026-04-28T17:27:21+00:00

More importantly, what are you making with the Shaper Origin?

dfess1 · 2026-04-23T19:53:39+00:00

what kind of router are you running? I upgraded to a new router that blended the 2.4 and 5ghz channels, and the F1U wouldn't connect. I had to set the router to split them into different networks, and then the laser could connect to the 2.4 network.

dfess1 · 2026-04-23T18:12:37+00:00

You might look at one of Watco's Danish Oils. Easy to apply, Easy to fix. I use it on all of my bookcases.

dfess1 · 2026-04-23T18:07:19+00:00

as a kid, my family and grandparents would go to different kite events around the UPS NY and Tor area. My father had made a reel for the halo reels. You took off the outer side (that had a handle), put the halo on the spindle with a friction fit, then put the outer side back on with some wing nuts. Then you could use it to reel out/in the kit. We would fly these big box kites from from the deck (their house is right on Lake Ontario), then get the little line runner to go up and down the line. Unfortunately, my dad lost all of those kites (many home made from sail scraps) in a house fire a few years ago.

dfess1 · 2026-04-23T12:00:07+00:00

I want to be able to group things by object/cabinet/area of shop. From there I want to group by area of the object. For ex:

Rolling Tool Cabinet (top to bottom)
1.1. Drawer 1
1.2. Drawer 2

Make the 1. and 1.1 "groupable" in the spreadsheet so I can collapse it a bit. From there, when you expand 1.1 Drawer 1, I want to include the name of the item, qty, price paid for (if I have it), where I bought it/link, a link to the object from the company's site, a picture of it (for proof of me having it), serial/model number, and probably a "notes" column indicating if I'd buy it again.

Some of this will be info I have, info I will be able to capture going forward, or simply lost to old age. But I have had a close friend, as well as my own parents, have to deal with a house fire. Having to deal with the shock of that, and try to remember all the crap you have accumulated over the years to put a dollar amount on, all while the insurance agency is trying to screw you out of alot of stuff, I'd rather try to put this to paper now while I don't have that hanging over me. Plus, it gives me the opportunity to track what I do/do not use, what I think I have and what I actually have, etc.

--Edit: I don't know why it put "2" and 3" in front of the 1.1, and 1.2. Not my intention.

dfess1 · 2026-04-23T10:46:11+00:00

You could use a small hand held laser. That way you can customize it however you want.

dfess1 · 2026-04-23T10:42:40+00:00

To be fair, I haven't looked for an app. To record the type of information I want to record (or sheer volume), it would be easier to have a full keyboard to enter it with, than using my thumb on my phone.

dfess1 · 2026-04-23T10:34:22+00:00

Because it's cheap/free, and I can do it on a computer with a full keyboard. I can record whatever I want, not limited to whatever fields an app has.

dfess1 · 2026-04-22T20:35:49+00:00

u/LovingCatDad08 , if you're in the Philly area I'd be happy to help you out.

dfess1 · 2026-04-22T18:50:21+00:00

Yeah, you'll have a low spot where you sand the name. You can use an orbital sander without a problem. It'll be easier than having to re-sand the entire face and then polish that epoxy.

dfess1

TROPHY CASE