Each week a new tip of the week is posted in the workshop slack channel.  During that week it is pinned to the channel, but it is unpinned when the next tip of the week is published.

Here is the complete archive of all of the tips of the day, sorted so the newest is at the top.

Tip of the Week 5/19/25: Sawdust and Shavings

It’s hard to do anything to shape or cut wood without producing sawdust or shavings.  It’s a necessary byproduct of the work we do.

We collect sawdust in a few places in the shop:

• The metal can under the cyclone
• The shop vacs
• Inside and under big tools because dust collection isn’t ever perfect
• On the air scrubber filters
• Inside the cyclone’s HEPA filters
• On top of everything in the shop

The first four are everyone’s responsibility all the time.  If you use a tool, you need to clean under it and inside it if that’s easy like on the bandsaws. 

The last two get handled during our periodic Air Quality Maintenance night (AQM).

If you clean off the air scrubber filters with a shop vac, then you would either be taking home sawdust and shavings from the cyclone can and or a shop vac.  Either way, you end up with sawdust to take home.  Ace provides plastic bags in the shop you can use for this.

Pure plywood sawdust should probably be landfilled as it contains a lot of glue.  But solid wood sawdust can be composted.  You need to put it into a brown paper bag, stapled shut, or a cardboard box with fold-locked top.  The compost collection services do not ever want loose sawdust in your compost bin.

Some people like using sawdust in their yards, but it should be used sparingly according to this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoLawns/comments/1e5o91k/is_sawdust_a_good_mulch/  Some people use it to grow mushrooms.

It can be mixed with paraffin to make fire starters or fire logs (don’t use plywood for this purpose).

It can also be used for cleaning up spills of liquids like oil or pet accidents.

Tip of the Week 5/12/25: Vibration and Clamping

Tools like a handheld router, jigsaw, multitool and even an electric drill are convenient, but you should clamp your work so it can’t move before using them. It is tempting to just hold a piece of wood in your hand and cut it, but that is dangerous and will yield poor results.

If your project is large enough not to move easily it might also be rigid enough not to vibrate much, but size isn’t sufficient: it must also be rigid enough and have sufficient mass to fight vibration.

The issue with handheld power tools is that they vibrate, and those vibrations are transferred to your workpiece. When it starts vibrating, it can cause a number of problems:

• The work can slide loose from its clamp(s)
• The work can rotate under a single clamp
• The quality of the cut is reduced if the wood is moving while being cut
• The vibration can cause you to lose control of the cut leading to an accident or blade breaking

Here are some tips about vibration and clamping your workpiece to help avoid these kinds of problems:

• Use two clamps to prevent the work from rotating under a single clamp
• Clamp the workpiece closer to where you will cut. The closer it is, the less vibration is transferred
• If your workpiece is curved or has a profile, cut a piece of wood with the same curve or profile to use as a clamping caul – something that transfers clamping pressure evenly across a non-flat surface
• Use less or no orbital motion on a jigsaw to reduce vibration
• Use higher speeds on a router to reduce vibration
• Cut more slowly (not a slower blade, slower moving of the tool so the cut takes longer to finish)

In general, excess vibration is your clue that the process isn’t working as well as it could. You’ll never eliminate all vibration, but taming it isn’t too hard with some simple steps like those above.

Tip of the Week 5/5/25: Sanding and Sanding Grit

I like to make small things because there’s less sanding.

Sanding is an inevitable part of any woodworking project that will receive a finish or be smooth and unlikely to give someone a splinter.

One typically uses a series of grits of increasing fineness. 100 grit means that each square inch has 100 grains in each direction, or 10,000 sanding grains. 80 grit has 1600 sanding grains per square inch. Each one is an individual abrasive bit.

Sanding grit, whether on paper or cloth, scratches the wood. That is the whole point. But, we don’t like scratches in general. So, we sand with a range of grits, each one finer than the one before, to remove the scratches caused by the one before. The scratches get smaller and smaller until you can’t see them anymore.

The lower the grit number, the deeper the scratches will be. Sometimes you don’t care about scratches, because you are still shaping the wood, so you can use a very low grit (60 or 80 grit). But, once you are trying to smooth out the project you will need to move to increasingly higher grits: 120, 180, 240. Depending on your project you might continue to 400, 800, 1200 or 2000 grit.

Hard and very hard woods sanded smooth with grits up to 2000 are shiny like glass or highly polished stone. Being this smooth is like a finish: it stays smooth for a long time if it is protected. But, it won’t stand up to water or abrasion as well. It doesn’t work well on woods that are physically soft or medium soft.

You can restore the vigor to sandpaper and sanding cloth by rubbing it with a crepe rubber block, which you’ll find near our oscillating spindle sander and our drum sander. It works great on all kinds of sanding grit, not just for those machines.

Sanding across the grain is more likely to create noticeable scratches that are hard to get rid of. So, a random orbit sander is very useful because it makes randomly swirly scratches which are short where they cross the grain.

A regular belt sander is too aggressive for fine woodworking in most cases. The oscillating spindle sander is much less likely to damage your project because it also mixes up the direction of sanding (it follows something like a sine wave instead of being random).

You can sand by hand, and sometimes you have to. For example, to sand a routed edge you might need to make a custom sanding block with a negative of the cut profile, and glue sandpaper to it. You might need to make one for each grit.

The drum sander is best used with the wood oriented so the drum doesn’t sand across the grain. For this reason you should carefully consider the orientation of wood in a glue-up so you don’t need to sand across the grain in the drum sander.

Tip of the Week 4/28/25: All About Stickers

• On the walls, doors and workbenches
• On tools, tool cases and tool accessories
• On shelves, drawers and bins

• Pink: for critical information
• Green: for instructions, identifying contents of drawers, identifying specific parts of a tool like locking knobs, and how-to information
• Blue: for helping you, the shop and other members with a small amount of effort
• White: for tool identity labels that show the asset number and a QR code leading to the wiki

• Things covered in shop basics, such as our shared role in keeping the shop clean and usable, which tools you can use without certification, and much more.
• Things covered in certification classes, such as what you must, can and cannot adjust on tools
• Where to find things in the shop that aren’t directly visible
• Knowledge a user of a tool should know from their own experience, or from reading the wiki or other learning. For example: unlocking an adjustment lock before making an adjustment, and locking it after the adjustment.
• Opportunities for you to help out with a small amount of effort

• You’ll find it on stickers with QR codes that lead to wiki pages about supplies.
• You’ll find it in our workshop closet, to help you find those supplies
• You’ll find it in other parts of Ace where workshop supplies are stored, such as the tall cabinet behind the door in the metal shop, and the supply shelves next to member storage on the other side of the metal shop.

Tip of the Week 4/21/25: Making Dados with a Router Table

A dado is a slot that doesn’t go completely through a piece of wood.  They’re useful when you want to connect a plywood edge to a plywood face. Drawer bottoms are often trapped inside a dado all around the inside of the drawer. 

A rabbet is a dado at the edge of the stock.  It’s useful as a technique for making box corners.  It is physically stronger than a butt joint because it has more surface area and the joint is in two intersecting planes.

Dados (including rabbets) can be narrow or wide, deep or shallow, flat or curved bottomed, depending on the kind of tool you use to make them.

While you can make all kinds of dados on the table saw, you can also make them with a router table. Using the router table is pretty straightforward and arguably much easier.  The router table doesn’t require certification but you can read about it in the wiki (https://wiki.acemakerspace.org/amt081/).

Using a router means you have access to a wider variety of shapes for the bottom of the dado: curves, V-shaped, and perfectly flat bottom.  And there are many different widths to choose from. 

One challenge with using a router for a dado is that both sides of the bit end up cutting wood.  You must maintain control of the wood by pressing it hard enough against the fence and the table while cutting any kind of dado.  Don’t be tempted to make deep passes: take only 1/8” or less per pass, and then raise the blade and repeat.  Cutting a dado is nothing at all like using a router bit with a bearing, where your only goal is to press the wood against the bearing.  Dados require more control.

Important Tips:

• For a stopped dado (one that doesn’t go all the way across or along the stock), be sure to use stop blocks to limit the motion of your stock and provide accurate and repeatable motion.
• For through dados don’t use stop blocks and be sure your stock can slide smoothly over the entire length of the dado.
• Always use the fence for safety and accuracy – no freehand dados ever
• Use a higher speed – the speed control is a slider on the back of the router near the bottom
• Don’t forget to unlock the raising mechanism before raising the router, and locking it afterward.  The locking knob only needs to be finger-snug to work.
• You don’t have to turn the router off and on when you change height.
• Use 1/2” shank router bits (not 1/4” shank router bits)
• You can make a wider dado by making two adjacent dados – the second and any further ones are easier because only one side of the bit cuts wood.  Always push into/against the cutting blade.
• If your stock is so long that you need rolling stands, either use them or consider using a handheld router and a piece of wood clamped on as a fence.

Tip of the Week 4/14/25: Positioning a Rolling Stand

When working with longer stock you’ll probably need to use one or two rolling stands.  You’ll find them by the cyclone switch in the back room.  If you need it for feeding wood into the tool, you probably also need it for where the wood comes out, unless there is already a table there.

To position them, follow two rules:

•     On the infeed side, it needs to be close enough to the tabletop so that at the moment the stock rolls off the stand onto the table the stock doesn’t fall backward off the table.
•     On the outfeed side, it needs to be far enough from the blade(s) that the wood can clear the blade and not fall off the table. 

In practice, the position is a bit less than 1/2 the length of your stock from the table or back of blade. 

Be sure the roller is parallel to the front of the tabletop and not at an angle, otherwise the wood will drift to the side.

Be sure the roller is raised enough to exactly meet the wood when it is flat on the table, so the wood doesn’t change its angle to the table when the roller is no longer touching it.  For example, if the roller is too high, the wood will “fall” onto the table when it comes off the roller.

The floors at Ace are not precisely flat, so moving a stand to a new position will almost always require an adjustment to the height of the roller.

I always test roller stand positions by sliding the stock all the way through its entire pathway while the tool is off, just to be sure it won’t fall at any point before or after the cut.

Tip of the Week 4/7/25: The Oscillating Belt Sander

The oscillating belt sander (https://wiki.acemakerspace.org/amt364/) is a great way to shape and smooth wood, especially curves and small pieces.

It can be configured to spin a sandpaper tube, or a belt.  When it is configured for a belt you can use the far-right side of the belt as if it was 1/2 of a sanding tube because it is round due to the roller on that end.

When using this tool, be sure to let the belt drag across the left side of your stock.  Rotate the stock to work the other end so it too drags across the left side.  The goal is to absolutely avoid an accident:  your stock can catch on the belt and be pushed violently left, out of your hands.  You must also not catch your finger on the belt pointing to the right because it can injure or break your finger. 

To make a round end, such as a half sphere at the end of a dowel, rotate the stock while it drags against the belt.  While rotating it, change the angle between the stock and the belt.  It needs to cover all the angles between 0º (parallel to the belt) and 90º (perpendicular to the belt).  If you are rotating the stock and covering all of these angles, it will end up as a half of a sphere, or an ovoid if you sand some angles more than others.  If you stop rotating the stock you will get flat spots.

This sander is a perfect complement to the bandsaw, whose cuts always need to be sanded smooth.  If you cut curves on the bandsaw, this sander can help you smooth any convex curve and any concave curve larger than the smallest sanding tube.  If you need to sand smaller curves than that, the Dremel tool is probably your best choice.

This is one of the few tools that you can safely work small pieces of wood on.  Since it can both smooth and shape, it’s a go-to tool for small projects.

The oscillating belt sander doesn’t require certification, but it is on the cyclone, so be sure to open its gate when you use it.  Also, when you’re done, please vacuum up sawdust on its table and on the workbench next to it.

Tip of the Week 4/1/25: The Crafty Library

Ace has a growing library of books and periodicals about woodworking and other crafts you can do at Ace.

You’ll find the main library in Clean-Fab (above the workshop) between the 3D printers and the Electronics area.   There is also a library of textile-related books and periodicals in Co-working

In the main library in Clean-Fab right now you can find:

• 89 books about woodworking projects, techniques and tools, including:

• The entire Time/Life “The Art of Woodworking” series (12 spiral bound books)
• Most of the “Fine Woodworking On” series of books (13 paperback large format books)
• A book on Japanese Joinery
• *THE* book on Identifying Wood, by Bruce Hoadley
• Books on making games, musical instruments, shelves and much more.
• Books dedicated to specific tools like the bandsaw, table saw and others.

• 54 issues of Wordsmith, and 29 issues of Shop Notes, all of which contain measured drawings and step-by-step build instructions

The internet mostly doesn’t contain this content.  There are books from as early as the 1920s.

You can use these books while you are on site at Ace, in any room.  Yes, you can take them with you into the workshop or Co-working, but please take care of them and put them back when you are done for the day.

For learning, research and non-commercial purposes you may be able to take photos of pages for reference or reading while at home under the terms of Fair Use (https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/).  Please do not take library items themselves home with you.

Of everything in the library, probably the most directly useful items are the measured drawings in the Woodsmith and Shop Notes periodicals. 

A measured drawing not only shows the sizes and amount of wood you will need, but sometimes also how to lay pieces out efficiently, and with the correct grain direction.  They list the hardware and fasteners needed and other material details.  And, they provide instructions, tips and warnings to guide you toward success.  They are intended for beginners and intermediate woodworkers looking for accessible projects.

What would you like to find in the Crafty Library?  You can check on-line to see if it is already there: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12A6ofsjagc3sP5XueK1nrkwNN-eoECdMIntPE2IUxLA/edit?usp=sharing

Read more on the wiki here:

https://wiki.acemakerspace.org/craftylibrary/

Tip of the Week 3/24/25: You can learn a lot about woodworking on YouTube

About the only things you won’t find on YouTube are Ace’s policies for using tools and the workspaces.  But you can learn all about woodworking techniques, tools, and special projects like musical instruments, toys, furniture as well as finishing and much more!

Here’s a list of some of my favorites.  Please reply in a thread with your favorites and I’ll put together a list of everyone’s recommendations.

General Woodworking

https://www.youtube.com/@TheSwedishMaker

https://www.youtube.com/@StumpyNubs

https://www.youtube.com/@acutabove_woodworkings

https://www.youtube.com/@Lincolnstww

https://www.youtube.com/@WorkshopCompanion

https://www.youtube.com/@WoodworkersJournal

Tool & material tests & reviews

https://www.youtube.com/@PatrickSullivan

https://www.youtube.com/@731Woodworks

Wood Lathe

https://www.youtube.com/@AndyPhillipWoodturning

Musical Instruments

https://www.youtube.com/@NicolasBras

Some Great Videos

Here are some great videos that cover essential knowledge about woodworking.

The Workshop Companion’s entire “Woodworking Knowhow” playlist:

• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx7nYfZqLp-GT5denQCLWLq2eLUS7IosZ

Lincoln Street Woodworks on wood joints:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-yshl-Im68

Stump Nubs on the oscillating multitool:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUnRJbS-Qk4

Patrick Sullivan on glue strength:

• End Grain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7HxBa9WVis
• Miters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-cCCdwEhg4
• Biscuits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G2Z5iUN4gw

Tip of the Week 3/17/25: One set of tips for Table saw users, one set for the Track saw users

Table Saw Tip

If you remove the splitter and safety guard, for example for a dado cut or to use a sled or other jig, use the plastic keeper so you don’t need to move the nuts very far to tighten them up.  Tightening them keeps them from moving, which makes it easier to get back in alignment when you put the splitter and safety guard back.

You’ll find the keeper resting across the two bolts that hold the splitter in place, just on the left side.  If it’s missing, please either use /asset or let me know and I’ll print another.

Track Saw Tips

The track saw (wiki page: https://wiki.acemakerspace.org/amt222/) is a great alternative to the Tablesaw for rips in all kinds of wood up to 2” thick.  It needs no certification. It cuts all the way through your workpiece, so you need to arrange for a gap under it so you don’t cut into our workbench.  Here’s some tips for easier use and better results.

• If you’re cutting off an edge, the sheet can hang over the edge of the workbench and you can cut over empty space (but don’t hit the vise on either side, please).
• If you’re cutting in the middle, you only need 1/2” to  3/4” gap – just make sure the depth of cut doesn’t go beyond the gap.  If you don’t need the full width of the sheet, you can cut 2” wide strips off the side of your sheet and use them as long supports under your main sheet.  You can cut them in half and take the strips home with you for future use.  At only 4’ they should be easy to transport.  See tip above for a simple way to cut strips off the edge.
• Use blue tape on both sides of the wood and cut through the middle of it for the cleanest possible cut.

Tip of the Week 3/10/25: Where to get tools and materials nearby Ace

MacBeath Hardwood, 930 Ashby Ave, Berkeley

(510) 843-4390

Hardwood, Tools, Finishes, Cabinet Hardware, Drawer slides, Blades

Ace members get a 10% discount on all purchases

Ace Makerspace

Plywood Sheets, Bamboo Plywood, Drum Sander Grit, Dust Masks

These are all on-site and are for sale to members only:

• 36”x56”x5mm Birch Plywood: https://www.acemakerspace.org/product/5mmbirchplywood/
• 4×8’ x 3/4” Bamboo Plywood Sheets: https://www.acemakerspace.org/product/plyboo-sheets/
• All other products available in the honor bar in coworking

Truitt & White, 642 Hearst Ave, Berkeley

(510) 841-0511

Redwood, Douglas fir, MDF, Plywood and other composites, Common Hardwoods, fasteners, tools, blades and construction supplies.

Ponderosa Millworks, 2210 Union St, Oakland

(510) 250-9656

Milled slabs of various species: https://ponderosamillworks.com/

Z and E Slabs, 1417 4th St Berkeley, CA 94710

(510) 559-6900

Hardwood slabs

Peroba, 112 Ohio Ave, Unit 1, Richmond

(415) 993-9055

Reclaimed wood and live edge wood

https://www.perobareclaimed.com/

Ashby Lumber, 824 Ashby Ave
Across 6th street from Urban Ore and MacBeath Hardwood

(510) 843-4832

Like Home Depot, but smaller and better organized

Urban Ore, 900 Murray Street, Berkeley

(510) 841-7283

Across the street from MacBeath Hardwood

Used furniture, tools, materials, doors, drawer slides, some of everything

https://urbanore.com/

Tip of the Week 3/3/25: You have a right to make mistakes

A mistake is when you cut a piece of wood the wrong length, or at the wrong angle, or plan a project in a way that cannot be assembled, etc.  An accident is when a tool does something unwanted and potentially dangerous.

Mistakes can happen for lots of reasons, and it’s useful to think about why to help avoid them in the future.  But regardless of why, they bring a new set of choices.  You could start over, or you might be able to modify your design, or add more wood, or use a different size for a part not already made, fill a gap with epoxy, etc.   You might not have faced these choices before, but they are often an opportunity to try something new or different.

Mistakes are deviations in your path, but they can still lead to a nice result when you adapt.  Your project doesn’t know what you intended. The needed change might be on your shoulders.

Ace has a culture of respecting everyone’s right to do their work they way they want, so long as they follow our social contracts about sharing the shop and using tools safely.  We don’t “maker-splain” each other.  That means even though one can think of other ways to do something better than the way someone else has chosen, we don’t offer that unless it is asked for.

If something doesn’t look safe, please say “That doesn’t look safe to me.”  That isn’t maker-splaining.  That is looking out for each other’s safety.

We learn from mistakes.  We grow from mistakes.  We thrive on the directions they take us as they challenge us to break out of our habits.  Mistakes lead to inventions and unexpected creativity and beauty.  Please don’t take those things away from anyone else at Ace.

The right to make mistakes also makes it easier to ask for advice from others, because you don’t have to follow that advice, or take more of it than you want.  You can say “Ok, thank you.  That’s enough for now.” Or a variation.  Asking for advice is never an invitation for someone to control your project or your choices while making it.

——

No woodworking procedure requires an accident.  If something cannot be done safely you should find another way to do it.  That might mean starting over with a bigger piece of wood and cutting off your finished piece at or near the end of the process of making it.  Or it might mean you need to use a different tool or technique to be safe.  Or even a different design.

Tip of the Week 2/24/25: Don’t Use Dull Blades

A sharp blade makes woodworking easier, safer and more productive.

I sometimes say there are two kinds of woodworking tools in the shop: chisels and hammers, and everything that isn’t a chisel is a hammer.  Sandpaper is many tiny hammers and no chisels at all.  A file is an array of tiny chisels.   Power tools generally move chisels very fast and with great precision.

What isn’t as obvious is that as a chisel loses sharpness, it becomes a hammer by degrees.   That means every blade on every tool becomes a hammer as it dulls.

Dull blades abrade the surface to some degree, which increases heat and can lead to burning of your stock.  Excessive heat can also soften the steel at the edge, which causes it to dull even faster.  The softening doesn’t ever go away: the softened steel would have to be removed or the blade or bit discarded.

You can tell if a blade is sharp by lightly dragging a finger across the blade – not along the edge because that would slice your finger.  Drag it gently across the edge.  If your fingerprints feel “sticky” the blade is sharp.  If not, the blade is dull.  Be careful as you do this and use only very light pressure, but this works for all kinds of blades of all sizes.

You should test every blade before you use it.  If a blade has many teeth (bandsaw, tablesaw, etc.), you can test a few and visually examine some more for a representative sample.   Once you begin to use it, it might become too hot to test this way, especially if it isn’t sharp.

We share almost all our blades with each other, except that a few people have their own table saw blades (because they already know sharper is better), and some people have their own chisels.

Team shop tries to keep the tool blades sharp, but if you find one isn’t you should tell us by using the /asset AMT### command in the workshop channel to let us know which tool’s blade isn’t sharp enough anymore.

Our workshop has a few rules to help keep our blades sharp for everyone:

• Avoid woods with a lot of pitch in them, or else clean the blades and table with acetone when you are finished, and then wax the table.
• No glue ups in the planer! 
• Only solid wood ever in the planer, no plywood, etc.
• Always check the upper and lower guide blocks on the big bandsaw. before use – the blade should be mostly between the blue blocks.
• No curves may be cut on the big bandsaw, ever, for any purpose.
• Always de-tension the big bandsaw when you are done using it.

Tip of the Week 2/16/25: Tools have limits you must respect

All tools have limits such as maximum depth of cut, maximum angle of cut, maximum blade height, etc.

The risk to you and your project increase as you approach these limits.  Sometimes the risk increases dramatically well before you are anywhere close to the limit.

If cutting a piece of plywood feels normal on a table saw, cutting a 5” thick piece of oak is definitely not going to feel normal.  You will have to modify your technique a lot by going much slower.  If you don’t, the process will fail either by tripping the circuit breaker, lighting the oak on fire, or destroying the blade, or some combination of the those and other less pleasant results.

For the bandsaw, any table angle is a bad idea as gravity causes the stock to wander resulting in cutting mistakes.  The limit being 45º is simply more bad; the only non-bad angle is 0º.

The jointer can be set to very large depths of cut, but that is for making rabbets, and not for jointing wood.  It is generally better to make rabbets with a router instead, so only the first 1/32” of adjustment is actually valuable for jointing.  And, within that range, 1/40” is probably the best choice for most woods, and anything less than 1/64” probably will bounce the wood and not joint it.  There is a very narrow useful range for jointing within a very large range from 0 to 1/2”.

The planer can accept wood as thin as 1/8”; however, if the planer catches raised grain or a knot, such thin wood can also explode and damage the planer.  Just because it can go that thin doesn’t mean it is equally safe.   Thinned wood often warps unexpectedly, increasingly so as it gets thinner.

Small pieces of wood are the most dangerous when used in large power tools.  Don’t do it.  Don’t bring small pieces of wood to big power tools. Use a smaller tool.  Big wood: big tool.  Small wood: small tool.  Any procedure that requires you to hold a small piece near a dangerous blade is unacceptably dangerous. 

You can always make a jig that secures your smallish work piece and then manipulate the jig with your hands, slide the jig along a fence, etc.  The table saw sled is an example of one such jig: you can clamp a smallish piece of wood to the back of it and cut it on the table saw.

I like making small things because they take less wood and less sanding, but where possible to do the work on larger stock and make it small as the last step, where the small piece is really an off-cut and I am not holding it as it is produced: I’m holding the bigger piece from which it was cut.

Tip of the Week 2/3/25: Calibration is a Myth

Most people expect fences and tables to be 90ºs to the blade(s) or exactly parallel, but you can only be sure if you have personally checked it before you use it. 

Tools like the table saw, jointer, bandsaw and drill press all come with an expectation that they are squared and calibrated.  But, the table saw blade angle is commonly changed for beveled cuts, so it is notoriously not vertical.  And, when people use it for dados they sometimes do not put the splitter/safety cover assembly back in alignment with the blade, which could leave the machine unusable or unsafe to use!

About once per month at Workshop Care Night we check and adjust the alignment of some of the tools.   That doesn’t last any longer than the first time someone changes it – hours or days.  Then all bets are off.

How to do it

If you adjust the angle of a fence or blade it is crucial that you put it back to the way people will be assuming it is configured.  Here’s how:

• For the table saw and jointer and bandsaw: you can use a machined 90º angle on a carpenter’s square, or other bona-fide measuring device to square the fence to the outfeed table.

• For the table saw and bandsaw you can cut across a scrap of wood and rotate one half by 180º along their mutual axis – the two freshly cut ends will be touching.  If the cut was exactly vertical the result will be a straight piece of wood.  If it has an angle, it is twice the alignment error.

• Please don’t adjust the drill press table angle.  Clamp your wood at an angle instead.

• The compound miter saw has locking stops at the normal calibration points, so it is easy to leave the blade vertical and squared to the fence.
• The router table doesn’t need to be calibrated, because it is always adjusted for each use.

Tip of the Week 1/27/25: Dust Management While Working

Here are two things you can do to reduce the amount of dangerous suspended sawdust in the air while working in the shop.

1. Capturing sawdust at the source isn’t just smart woodworking, it’s Ace’s policy. Use a shop vac with a suitable fitting when sanding with any machine to capture dust at the source.  The fittings are in a white plastic bucket under the bench on the panel-saw side.  They go with the flexible hose coming out of the blue dust separator connected to the shop vac under the router.
2. Vacuum off the blue Jet Air Scrubber filter in the room you’re working in (at least).  If it isn’t blue, it definitely needs to be vacuumed, because it is preventing air from getting into the air scrubber!
   
3. Use the crepe rubber block (near the drum sander) to clear sawdust from sandpaper or sanding cloth to extend its life and make it more effective, which reduces the time spent sanding.

Tip of the Week 1/21/25: Tips of the Week

This week’s tip of the week is about our new workshop “Tip of the Week” program.  Once per week there will be a pinned post to the workshop channel about an issue or a tool. 

These will each contain information that team shop wants you to have to help you and the shop.  Sometimes it will be to clear up ambiguity, or to announce a change in policy or procedures, or a new tool, etc.  We will never use the tip of the week to shame someone.  If you were not following or breaking a policy in the past and you learn better from one of our tips, then yay! It doesn’t mean the tip was aimed at you personally.

You can reply to any tip of the week in a new thread to ask questions, get more information, push back on a policy, ask for examples, etc.  We’re a volunteer organization so your input as a member matters a lot!