Woven Oak

  I make many projects from oak and so often have bits pieces and off cuts laying around.  Also I get an oak board with a serious twist or knot in it and instead of putting it in the fire, I save it for a future project.
  Recently I culled through my rejects pile and decided to make another trivet.  I made one like this last summer but it was a prototype so I didn't sand or finish it properly.  Eva decided that this was a good design and so early in the week I set the table saw up to rip some thin slices off my boards and arrived at this:

9 x 16 in woven oak trivet.

    The whole thing was glued and clamped in stages and then finished with amber shellac.  It certainly in not a difficult job, just on that requires patience since it takes about four sessions of glue and clamping to get it done.

  To do a job like this, I used my table saw with a Freud thin rip blade.  I have been very happy with these blades, I have two because I have to send them away for a week to get them sharpened.  I get the blades sharpened once a year and so far each blade has been sharpened twice, they had stood the test of time and cut miles of oak and elm.

Leveling Chair legs using the table saw

  I know that I rage against the dying of the night( and computers generally) and all that know me know that I will not go gentle into that good night.  But some time I have to eat  crow too, it is not as poetical but....it is real.  As much as the internet, and computers and cell phones make me crazy, often, just the moment before I throw the lap top out the second story window or drive three inch spikes through the key board something like this floats to the surface.

  The video shows such a cool and useful trick that I not only wish I had thought of it but fleetingly thought of claiming to have invented it.  Anyway, I make no such claim, I can claim only to have found it and be passing it on to you.

level legs using your table saw.

thin kerf rip blade, the one I've used for several years and had sharpened three or four times.