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One of my hollow-chisel mortising bits broke, and a couple of them are bent.  They're the stock chisels that came with my budget-level benchtop mortiser, so I never really had much faith in them. I bought the sharpening cones and hones, but they clog all the time, heat up too much, and dull rather quickly.  Time to upgrade! Image source: Leevalley.com 1/4" and 3/8" Lee Valley Premium

Here are all the parts for the table base - all marked up and ready for joinery. Leg Guide Rail Cleat Apron I like using hand tools, but there are some steps I prefer to use power tools for. 16 mortises go a lot faster with a hollow-chisel mortiser 8 stopped grooves in the legs for the corbels are efficiently done with a straight bit and a router table 8 peg holes end up a

For anyone unfamiliar with what a flip top table does, check out this video.  Take your time.  I'll wait. M'kay?  Good. So I went to the Stickley showroom and took some photos of how they put their table together.  I'll leave those photos here, just for the sake of being thorough, but the one to pay attention to is the view from underneath the table. This is the important photo, at least for

I really do not enjoy lock miters.  There's no room for error.  You get one chance to get that shape right and if you mess up, you can't just run it through the router again. So these aren't perfect, but they're close enough. After the glue dried, some legs had an open seam.  There's a trick to solving this problem. Step 1: Stare at unsightly open seam with disdain. Step 2: Take your

I accidentally ordered more wood than I needed, so I ended up with more cauls than I planned for.  Whoops. (4) Pairs of 48" (4) Pairs of 36" (4) Pairs of 24" That should do. Here's a quick explanation of how they work.  You put an F-style clamp on each end with the cambers facing each other.  By clamping the far end until the wood touches, you'll be flattening out the curves in