Sounds like a downward spiral. Quit teaching it, you have less of a teacher pool. :(

This is in a rural area, too. I can't believe they couldn't find somebody to come in for a couple hours a day.

We ran all kinds of things... Dimension stiles and rails for the cabinet industry, S4S boards for big box, dimension components for furniture industry, flooring etc.

At the gang rip, you have an arbor, say 31", with multiple blades set to cut a variety of widths at the same time. You try to rip such that more defects go into narrower pieces to increase yield. You might be ripping a 1x6 for box store and a 1-5/8 rail blank for a cabinet at the same time. They just get processed at different automated crosscuts down the chain line and kick out to conveyors going to different molders.

Combined ripping, of course, depended on species though. We ran alot of hard maple for cabinets, which we didn't run for S4S. We ran alot of birch for furniture that was 6/4 and 8/4 instead of 4/4, so not much overlap there either. When it came to running red oak and cherry we had alot of overlap there. We'd usually split the hard maple out to flooring and dimension cabinet. Soft maple would be box store boards, cutting boards, and trim.

Wide panels get glued (16" and 20" mainly). We could glue some for the wider S4S boards too (1x8+).

Eventually you end up with an overabundance of shorts and those get finger jointed to make longer sticks for paint grade trims.

You're welcome. Just build it to fit your dimensions. I did a quick google and a saw a couple that were pretty good. I think there was one from Kreg where he builds a 20" sled.

That is sad. They want the young people to all become "computer programmers."

Thanks for the kind compliment. The pic is just the frame. I will say the finished product exceed my expectations. I am my own worst critic. Thus when I think they turned out nice...prolly is.

I will try and find the finished pics.

Keep your blade sharp/clean (clean is usually the biggest culprit) and use a splitter/riving knife and you'll be in similar shape.

The biggest problem with a table saw is kickback. If you have a well dialed in splitter, kickback should be damn near impossible, especially if you build a cross cut sled. Keep your table top waxed so you don't have to muscle anything through, don't forget to set your featherboards and it couldn't hurt to put some board buddies on your fence. If you do all that, you've gotta be pretty damn reckless to catch a digit on a table saw. And for all that stuff you'll be out about $100.00. So with the money you save there, you can get yourself a cabinet grade 3 HP, 220 table saw with more cutting power than most of what you can get from Saw Stop for a reasonable price.

As for the Radial Arm Saw; the only thing I've done on one of those that I don't do on my compound miter saw is dado cuts, but with my table saw I don't need to worry about that. Ultimately there are times you're going to want a table saw for long rip cuts either way and if you're doing anything remotely serious, you'll need both a table saw and a slider of some sort.

I prefer the ease of use of the compound miter saw so with that and a table saw, a radial arm is just completely redundant.

This is unbelievably good advice.

You'll never realize how difficult you were making things for yourself until you start doing proper milling with a jointer/planer. Its simple; run a board over a jointer until you get a nice flat 'wide' side (some people say run it with the smile up, others say smile down. Personally I tend to go with the 'frown' shape because it avoids rocking, you just need to be smart and not put too much pressure on it to end up working a curve into it.

Then you put your newly flat side against the fence and run it through to joint an edge. Then with a flat edge and flat surface, run it through a planer to get the wide surface. Finally you run it through the table saw to true up the other edge.

To have every one of your boards the exact same thickness and perfectly square with true corners makes everything you make a million times easier. Your corners come together right, you have to do far less sanding. It's just amazing.

First time I did it I realized I'd never go back to trusting a lumber-yard again. It's a miracle worker.

Really good stuff here on the table saw.

The riving knife will keep the exiting pieces from hitting the back of the saw blade and creating shrapnel.

I think the other half the equation is more about proper blade and rake of the blade for material cut and setting blade height properly.

If you have to push hard to get the board through, then you probably have the blade set too low and you're at major risk for kickback (straight into your guts or nuts). If it's super easy with a bunch of tear out on the bottom face, then you probably have the blade set too high. You should never have a blade on a table saw sticking up way above the top face. Not only is it going to tear the shit out of the bottom face, you have a huge safety risk.

A popular rule of thumb (ironic I know hahaha) is to set the blade so that the gullets clear the top face, then make adjustments from there on test strips. I've found that it isn't necessarily the gullets that you want to be sure clear. If you set a tooth at its highest point (top dead center) and ensure that the carbide clears, then that's usually enough. If the gullets clear then you end up with sawdust all over the place. Tablesaws are built to have material exit on the downstroke.

All great advice.

I was fortunate enough to inherit the 6" cast iron jointer my Dad bought new back in 63 and bought a new DeWalt 12 1/2 inch planer.

Had to flip the blades on the planer last week, wow what a difference. New set ordered to have on hand.

All this joining and planing talk is making me jealous. Someday...

I'm getting ready to do a fun little project for wifey... turning a small library file card catalog cabinet (three drawers high, six drawers wide) into a console table for her.

Need to build a new frame (current one is ugly, and she wants a nice pretty wood top). Since she wants it stained, I'm going to be using 1x birch and joining two pieces together (the width needs to be 16", which annoying means I can't use 1x8s for it).

I'll end up with a nice pretty end grain and think I've decided I'm going to dowel, glue, and Keegan join the top.

I'm pretty excited about it despite the challenges of pulling it off without a full-fledged wood shop.

What I'd give for a biscuit joiner...


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I have now glued up 46 cedar chest panels using this fairly cheap system. Seems to work fine.

https://www.grainger.com/product/3KKV2?cm_mmc=PPC:+Google+PLA&s_kwcid=AL!2966!3!166588663882!!!g!82166337117!&ef_id=Wfs2WQAAAGBwdFbn: 20171128142303:s&kwid=productads-adid^166588663882-device^c-plaid^82166337117-sku^3KKV2-adType^PLA

Kreg's pocket hole jig can be pretty damn handy and a versatile substitute for a biscuit joiner. Granted, it won't help for panels but really, just using good bar clamps placed correctly (and being patient; don't try to put too many pieces together at once) will make a good panel.

Yeah, that's what I meant. Autocorrect didn't like "Kreg."

I only need to do one, two piece join for the top. Shouldn't be too bad.

I do all of those things. I literally make hundreds if not thousands of cuts a day. The law of averages will almost always catch up since I am not a weekend warrior making a napkin holder for my wife.

The dowel jig I linked will do both Duncan and it is inexpensive.