You would shit if you saw my dad's wood shop. I'm talking professional grade everything. He built the cabinets for our kitchen a few years ago. He is always out there fiddling around. And he is a perfectionist in everything he does.

What kind of wood did he use for your cabinets?

My Dad built his in two different houses out of Mahogany and Mahogany plywood. They looked as good or better than what you could buy.

Do you have any of the woodworking interest like your Dad?

Yeah, just a matter of deciding which is easier for my space. I don't have a great workspace set up in my garage yet.

With the dowel jog, it gives you a few tools to make the doweling process more precise than simply measuring a line across the boards? Or at least that's my take on it.

My dad is a believer in old-fashioned solutions, but he also has the benefit of a 4,000 sq foot shop. So he's never had to take these steps, lol.


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Oak. They look amazing.

I do, but haven't messed around with any of it since I was in school and living at home. His shop then took up their 2 car garage.

Now they live out in the country and he has his shop in an outbuilding. Everything is immaculate in there.

I still have the cutting board and walnut bowl I made in high school.

My father is top notch when it comes to woodworking. He usually builds out of oak. He's built me a coffee table, TV stand, changing table, crib, DVD stand. You name it and he's probably built it. His woodworking skills are incredible.

The TV stand weighs a ton. It's solid oak with nice glass for the cabinet faces. The crib could be used for several generations of our family.

Fair 'nuff.

For a professional, the investment is worthwhile. But for most of the folks 'round these parts, it seems unlikely.

Here are a couple of projects that my dad has done the past few years. Oh, he built the grandfather clock in the background many years ago.

Attachment 115520Attachment 115521

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Yes, I draw a line across the boards to center the jig pointer. It works great on the cedar since it is relatively soft, but there is absolutely no margin for error on the white oak I am working with since it is so hard.

On a five board panel (4 inch boards) you end up drilling 24 holes for the dowels if you use sets of 3 like I have been doing.

Wow, that IS some beautiful work of your Dads.

I am envious that he keeps his shop immaculate as mine is always a mess with sawdust everywhere. I open the big door an blow it out a lot, but it still gets everywhere.

He has a full vacuum system in there so there is minimal sawdust to deal with.

When we were kids living at home, he had a similar system. It was called the "me and my brother clean the garage" system. I especially hated cleaning that damn thing after he'd been running the thickness planer. That thing spit out sawdust EVERYWHERE.

A full vacuum system would be the shit!

My planer is one of the few things I have a big shop vac hooked to and it needs emptied often, but there is still spilliage.

Have a small shop vac hooked to the router table, but my saws all make a lot of dust, and the jointer makes chips that go everywhere.

kccrows input in this thread about blade depth on the table saw is going to help some I think. I tried that this morning and it was a big improvement.

Did your Dad only do this as a hobby, or was he doing it professionally as well?

What your Dad did with that oak is not easy and it looks professional.

I am building a book case out of oak right now and it is much more difficult to work with than the cedar.

It's always just been a hobby. Mostly just doing stuff for family and friends for the cost of materials on the big stuff.

I'll try to remember to get some pics of his shop next time I'm out there.

Ever look into the ol' Harbor Freight 2 stage conversion?

You'll be about $500 into it when all is said and done, but with the 2 horse HF collector, a dust deputy cyclone (the full sized one), a Winn Environmental Cartridge filter and some sewer pipe, you'll have all the parts you need to engineer a rig that will run with the $1,500 JET models. We tested the static pressure and draw through several ports and it was comparable.

Get a couple of hanging air filters with the HEPA filters for about $300 total if you're willing to go with a WEN instead of a JET (mine are fine) and for $800-$900 and a weekend worth of labor, you'll notice a massive difference.

You'll still need to do some sweeping here and there and may need to redesign the shop layout to prioritize draw over workflow, but it's light years better.

That's for the advice on the blade height. I use the old 'rule of thumb' there and generally don't see much spray but I'll have to lower it a bit and give it a shot. That makes perfect sense.

Sadly, my basement flooded so everything that was down there is sitting in my shop at the moment. Gotta wait until next week when the new floor goes in and I can get all that shit back out of there. It'll be nice to have the shop back after being out of commission for a couple months...

Hmmm, that is interesting information, and food for thought, thanks. Last year I stopped at a church sale that had this HUGE industrial shop vacuum dust collection system for $100 and I just thought it was too big for the space I have allocated for my woodwork shop.

Probably a bad decision.

No prob, nothing ever hurts to try as long as its safe. :D

To piggyback off of DJ's suggestion for the guys with the dust issue and want to consider a small dust collector. It's a world better than a shop vac and small ones aren't "bank busters."

Something like one of these will do and both are under $500:

http://cdn2.grizzly.com/pics/jpeg500...b90e514d12.jpg

http://cdn2.grizzly.com/pics/jpeg500...3699d5bcb0.jpg