Tip of the day for

Making Perfectly Round Wheels If you need a pair of wheels (or maybe even four), scribe circles on your stock and cut the wheels out on the band saw, staying just outside the lines. Drill a 1/4" hole at the center of each wheel, then slide the wheels onto a 1/4" threaded rod and tighten with nuts. Chuck the rod into your portable drill, clamp a wooden guide block onto the table of your disk sander and, with the drill in reverse, sand the wheels to their final size.

Expert Advice

Beginner woodworking projects
How to Make Custom Picture Frames
Introduction to Veneering
Refacing Your Cabinets with Veneer
Making Your Own Custom Cabinets
Crown Molding Tips
How to Get Started Pen Turning
Finding the Right Table Saw for your Shop

Woodworking 101

Setting up your workshop & getting started in woodworking
This is the best of our Forums plus some great ideas sent specially for this section! You find a diverse and thoughtful group of opinions and guidelines for getting started in woodworking. To get started click on one of the subject pages to the left. In some cases, we've added links or clarified terms, but essentially these are the suggestions from real woodworkers based on their real-life experience. If you don't see a topic that meets your needs, do a search in the Forums.

Designing Your Own
23rd in a series of articles by Barb Siddiqui

One of the first hurdles a new woodworker must get past is the fear of messing up a project, and one of the best ways to tackle that apprehension is to simply "think outside the box". Most beginners decide to start with something simple (but may not know which projects have simple joinery) and then set out on a search for preprinted plans to make such- and-such. In doing so, a beginner has set herself up for...

Click here for the complete article.

Click on the links below to see the previous articles by Barb Siddiqui.