Hello out there! I have not heard from anyone so this could be a very short-lived column. Got a woodworking tip? A comment on anything (except sex and politics)? A question? Here is the place.

Toy Workshop

Bill Henzel reports that following the donation of the toys made at the last workshop, he has received a thank you letter letter from RCH. These are the folks who do recreation, education, vocational rehabilitation and respite care for people with disabilities. Also a thank you card from the Holy Family Day Home with the following poem. "WHAT YOU DID WAS SO NICE, WE MAY NEVER STOP SMILING." Or is that a haiku?

Flag Display Case Workshop

Gene Wagg, Carl Johnson and myself converged on Bill's shop on January 26. We were able to make 4 of the bodies out of Walnut. It was tricky to get the miters just right for the two 22½ degree and one 45 degree corners. But the experts Bill, Carl and Gene figured it out. Mark gave moral support. Now the plywood back and the glass has to be fitted and a finish put on the case. We will need another workshop to do this. With the experts that we have, we should enter the Woodworkers Olympics!

Shop Tips

This is not my idea but an idea developed by Todd Rogalia of Wahpeton, ND.

If you have to make a number of drawers of different depths, you could first cut the drawers to width and then set up again to cut the dado for the door bottoms. Todd came up with a one step method.

First, stack the dado set to the thickness of the drawer bottom material. Next, make a ¼" hardboard spacer and bore a 5/8" arbor hole in the center of it. This spacer determines the distance between the bottom of the drawer side and the dado for the drawer bottom material. (If the distance is different than the ¼" described just use a wood thickness for whatever spacer thickness you want.) Then sandwich the spacer between the dado set and your 10" blade and slip it onto the saw arbor. Make sure that the dado is between the fence and the 10" blade. Use the dado to set the depth of cut for the dado. Since the 10" blade is much higher, it will cut off the end of the drawer side to the correct drawer height. If some drawer sides are of a different height just move your fence to cut the correct height. The distance between the drawer bottom dado and the drawer bottom will always be the same.

Want a pointed cap on a 4 x 4?

First rip a ¾" plywood backboard to the same width as the cap blank. Using the blank as a pattern, determine the center point on the backboard. Then drill a 5/32" shank hole through it and attach a blank to the backboard.

Set your mitersaw to cut a 15-degree angle clamp the backboard to the fence. Make the first cut. Then rotate the blank and repeat for cuts 2 and 3.

For the last cut, support the cap from beneath with the first wedge that was cut off.