How cool is this table saw fence? The answer is in its name: Very Super Cool.

The Saw Stop cabinet saw that has been in my shop since 2005 is still a great machine but the Biesemeyer-style fence that came with it has never measured up in quality. The fence’s travel and locking mechanisms are very good but the fence face is simply not straight enough for the precision I demand and which the saw is otherwise fully capable of delivering.

The relatively flexible MDF-plastic laminate fence face is tightened against the painted metal fence body, which is not machined. This has frustrated my many attempts at shimming to create a true, flat fence.

True, the work piece bridges hollows to some extent but there are still inaccuracies and unpredictable effects at the beginning and end of the cut, depending on the length of the board. Bottom line, the results were wanting.

Enter the VerySuperCool fence. Its prime and great virtue is the incredibly flat and true one-piece, machined, aluminum extrusion fence, 40x80mm in section. Testing with my two-foot Starrett straightedge, both faces were flat everywhere within one thou. Amazingly, the faces are also parallel within one thou, which comes in handy for using the fence on either side of the blade, or for a jig that slides over the whole fence.

Now I can trust that when I ride a work piece with a nice straight edge against the fence, the cut edge will be just as nicely straight. What a relief.

The fence slides wonderfully smoothly and locks without creeping as the handle is tightened. The hairline cursor is easy to read accurately if you want to cut to an absolute dimension or repeat it.

The set up procedure is eminently logical. The maker walks you through the details with very understandable You Tube videos available via his website. The result is a fence parallel to the blade and square to the table that is adjusted to lock solidly.

The slots in the extrusion can be used with a variety of manufactured and shop-made add-ons, limited only by your ingenuity. Below is shown a simple end stop for cutoffs attached with bolts and T-nuts, using no clamps.

The VerySuperCools Tools fence was developed and is made in the USA by Allan Little. The personal attention and service I experienced were just what one would expect from a small independent company like this one.

This review is unsolicited and uncompensated. I write this sort of review for two reasons. First, I want to present my experience with beneficial excellent products that may be unfamiliar to my fellow woodworkers. Second, I am in awe of the work of inventive entrepreneurs like Allan Little, Mark Harrell, Ken Rizza, Tico Vogt, Kevin Glen-Drake, and Bob Zajicek, all of whom make products I have reviewed on this blog. I want to support them and urge you also do so. They help make the world go around and America great.

Last year, I wrote a series on this blog about the characteristics, performance, and practical applications of Nexabond, an excellent cyanoacrylate glue formulated specifically for woodworking.

Since then, the developer of the glue, Sirrus, Inc., has entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with DAP Products, Inc. The Nexabond 2500M (medium set time) formulation in now marketed as DAP RapidFuse Wood Adhesive. The product is no longer sold as “Nexabond.” The slow (“S”) and long (“L”) set Nexabond formulations, which were less useful and less popular, are no longer available.

DAP RapidFuse Wood Adhesive is sold in .85-ounce (about $6) and 4-ounce (about $10) bottles. It is widely available, including at Home Depot, Lowe’s, Ace Hardware, and True Value Hardware. The shelf life of Nexabond 2500M was pretty short in my experience with it – a year at best, and maybe even 8 months or so in a warm shop, as I recall.

DAP also markets RapidFuse All Purpose Adhesive, which, according to Sirrus, is also the Nexabond formulation. I do not know how or if the “All-Purpose” differs from the “Wood” version. The very same technical bulletin shows up on the DAP website for both products, and the listed applications are essentially the same. I suspect the two differ, for marketing, in name only. In that case, either could also be used in the shop as an all-purpose CA glue. Interestingly, Home Depot and Lowe’s currently sell the Wood version for 50¢ more than the All-Purpose in the .85-ounce sizes.

It is good news that the Nexabond formulation is once again available. It is a very useful glue for woodworking.

The previous post reminds me to catalog the Wall of Boards in my shop, as this may be a helpful reference for readers.

The most essential is the shooting board on the lower right. I cannot imagine working without at least a basic shooting board. Of course, it is used for long grain as well as end grain shooting. Go to this post for a few tips on shooting.

On the upper left is the least essential of the boards, but still quiet handy, the sanding shooting board, used with the Veritas Shooting Sander. It can save the day for small parts, thin pieces, and cantankerous wood.

Speaking of shooting boards, Tico Vogt’s Super Chute remains a staple in my shop. (It is stored on another wall.) I attached two cleats, shown in the second photo below, that allow it to be clamped in the tail vise of my workbench. This keeps the Super Chute super steady and allows me to put my weight behind the plane when needed.

By the way, the incline does matter. The skew reduces resistance in the cut, despite the assertions of some, and this is especially helpful when working endgrain. The ramp also results in wider distribution of wear on the blade edge, saving some trips to the sharpening bench.

The jig for trimming tenon shoulders is on the upper right, and the planing stop board is on the lower left.

For those in the early stages of learning woodworking (and we’re all in some stage of learning), using jigs such as these will be an empowering step up in your work.

Handplaning thin boards, those less than about 1/2″ thick for most species, sometimes produces surprising frustration. The solution to many problems is to consider what is happening on the underside of the work piece.

I usually plane such wood, for example, a thin drawer bottom, on a very flat planing board with front and side stops only about 7/32″ high, or on a nice flat section of my workbench against a low-profile planing stop that inserts directly into the bench. This avoids distortion from the pressure of bench dogs and gives me a better feel for how the plane is meeting the wood.

The handplane sole acts somewhat like the feed rollers in a thickness planing machine. It presses on the flexible board and forces it downward to close gaps under the board. This effect varies, sometimes unpredictably, with the length of the plane and the skew angle of planing.

Suppose now we are trying to smooth plane the surface of a drawer bottom or panel and the underside is a bit concave. (Here I do not mean an even-thickness board that is simply cupped a bit.) A finely set plane will miss areas on the topside that are over the concavities underneath.

This is especially annoying if you are trying to clean up a few spots of tearout and the plane keeps missing them. The tolerances involved are quite small because in these situations the plane is trying to take a very thin shaving, say .001″.

The solution is to be cognizant of the interaction of work piece and the work surface, and resort to good old shims. Sometimes I’ll use blue tape but more often just a few shavings stuffed under the board. or even some paper.

In fact, this little trick is handy even if the thin board is perfectly flat and you want to raise a small area to plane away a defect without having to plane down the whole surface just to hit the defect.

When using a shim, it usually is helpful to dog the board to keep the ends down and thus push up the shimmed area.

Note that if the work piece is of even thickness and just a bit cupped, this will usually not be an issue. The board will flatten against the bench as it is being planed, all areas will be hit with the plane, and the board will simply spring back to its cupped state when you are done planing. Within limits, that is not a problem because the panel will usually be easily coaxed into flatness by the frame or drawer grooves.

So, the real key in all of this is to not take your handplaning setup for granted but rather to be aware of the actual interaction between a finely set handplane blade, the plane sole, the work piece, and the work surface. With this awareness, it’s just a matter of common sense to diagnose and fix what otherwise could be vexing problems.

Wood
From trees,
Ideas
From a free mind,
Tools and a workshop
From our labor.

And hands to put these together
To make things.

Gratefulness builds happiness.

To make things
Ad majorem Dei gloriam.

This upgrade of the main lumber storage rack in my shop has worked out well. Manufactured by Slacan Industries, based in Canada, it is designed to hold underground cable but is sold to woodworkers by Woodcraft and Lee Valley as a lumber rack.

The formed-steel brackets, U-shaped in cross section, are available in 10″, 14″, and 18″ lengths. They freely insert at 1 1/2″ intervals into the rolled-steel channel wall straps, which come in 55″ and 24″ lengths.

The versatility of this rack is the main reason I chose it. The movable brackets of different lengths make it easy to adjust the rack as storage needs change. It is now easy to create room to store wood by category or to make a pile with spacers between boards.

This thing is mega beefy – all parts are made from 3/16″-thick steel. Fuhgeddaboudit: a single 18″ bracket is rated by Slacan to support a 300-pound load applied one inch from the outer end!

What you cannot forget about is properly installing the rack. I consulted a structural engineer to make sure the wall studs could safely hold the anticipated load of lumber in the way I would set up the rack.

I have limited room in my small shop so there are two 55″ straps spaced 16″ apart on studs, plus a 24″ strap for the upper two or three levels that are more heavily loaded. I attached the straps to the studs with Simpson StrongTie 1/2″ x 3 1/2″ structural screws (#SDS25312), using 1/8″-thick x 1 1/2″-diameter washers to bridge the large bracket-insertion cutouts; there are no dedicated mounting holes in the 55″ straps (and those on the 24″ straps are large).

The galvanized finish on the straps and brackets is rough. I used a bastard-cut mill file to quickly ease the top surfaces of the brackets and their connection tabs.

I bought the rack from Woodcraft on sale as a set, which had a few more parts than I needed but was still cheaper than buying individual parts. With more storage capacity, I now have to resist buying beautiful wood that I don’t need (yet).

So often I bring to mind the admonition from James Krenov in the Fine Art of Cabinetmaking, “Cross-cutting should always be preceded by careful thought.”

When divvying up rough stock for a project, it is those early crosscuts, often particularly the very first one, that so much determine the successful use of the wood, and in turn, the entire success of the project.

We tend to let our guard down at this early stage because the lumber is rough and the cuts are rough, so it seems like little could go wrong. We are not naturally in a precision frame of mind as when approaching joinery work. Moreover, it seems like there is so much wood now, maybe much more than needed.

But beware, these early breakdown crosscuts will in large part dictate the figure and color matching of the wood in the finished piece. After The Crosscut – the one that felled the tree – and the sawing and drying of the boards, these initial crosscuts in your shop are critical to the efficient use of your expensive wood.

As with most matters in woodworking, winging it is not often rewarding. So think it through with the measured drawings nearby, and tape measure and chalk in hand. Be alert. Look at the wood, study the figure and grain, find the defects. Make thoughtful decisions.

The eternal woodworking quest for a board stretcher remains unfulfilled, so I heed the advice of the master.

The rustic look of furniture featuring a live edge board currently has wide appeal, as it seems to draw a response even from those people who otherwise pay little attention to the intrinsic beauty of wood.

Here are two uncommon options for designing with live edge wood: let the natural “path” of the board’s live edge guide the whole structure of the piece or, similarly, determine the shape of just other components of the piece. The live edge can be followed loosely or closely.

In the small table above, the front rail in ash follows the general sweep of the live edge of the walnut top. As with other pieces, I carefully striped the bark and prepared the live edge to retain almost all of the organically interesting wavelets. Thus, the live edge follows the peaceful flow of the ash rail but also presents an exciting contrast in form.

The rail construction is a bent lamination. I worked out the angles and joinery in a full size drawing because they were trickier than I first imagined.

In the wall shelf below, I again preserved the undulations as well as the fine ripples in the curly big-leaf maple board. The pear drawer front is a rare specimen with exquisite flame-like heartwood. As seen in the second photo below, I matched its contour to the waves in the maple’s live edge.

The photos of this piece are a bit weak but the actual piece projects a distinctly “live” feel. I really let the wood “design” the piece.

These are just some ideas for working with live edge wood. Though they involve a lot more trouble in construction, the wood is inspiring and sustaining.