Where the teeth come out of the wood, you can get splinters. The faster the cut, the larger the teeth, the more perpendicular to the surface and the duller the teeth, the more splinters you will get.For a hand saw, the splinters are on the bottom of the wood. For a portable circular saw, the sp...
Reg Ellis, a student from the Woodworking Centre of Ontario, rightly took me to task for being a bit sloppy when I talked about saw tooth configrations in a recent Deck article. Then it occured to us at Home Builder that it might be a good idea to elaborate on saw teeth, given that most site wor...
Cutting ceramic tiles in half is relatively easy to do. Cutting a half inch off the edge of a tile is much more difficult.Al from Chilliwack, BC shared his tile cutting jig with us. Clamp two boards together with spacers the thickness of the tile to be cut. Score the tile. Slide the tile into...
For the same task, Japanese saws are smaller, require less energy to make the cut, waste less wood, can trim 1/16 of an inch off the end of a board and keep their sharpness longer because they are made of tempered steel. All of that is possible because the Japanese pull their saws and we push ou...
In this segment of my TV show I had a chance to show off what is probably my favourite new tool -- yes I really recommend this thing. It does not spin, it does not hammer and it does not move in orbits. It simply obsoletes left and right a very small amount. The secret is in the great variety...
We often use miter saws on the ground simply because when we make a cut one end of the board or the other is going to fall down, and falling from a table or a stand makes everything difficult if not dangerous to controll. Many of us carry little blocks just the height of the miter box table to s...
A standard drywall saw is a crude not very sharp saw that you punch through the wall and cut with. There are new drywall saws beginning to show up in stores that have the sharp Japanese style teeth that cut in both the push and pull directions and with a very sharp point to the saw. This Shark ...
When our camera was out in the renovation centre, one viewer posed the problem of having a cedar fence with the top foot rotten but the rest in good shape. Of course this was probably caused by a square top cut not being protected by a fence post cap. Look around and you will see that most fenc...
Keith from Thunder Bay, Ontario has a great tip to help get the bur off of the end of a machine bolt when you cut it with a hack saw.First thread a nut onto the bolt.Then cut the bolt to length.When you unscrew the nut, it will force the burr out.Then a light stroke with a file will take off the ...
You see a lot of TV advertising these days for what is called a rotary tool, this is like a small drill that takes all kinds of different bits with small 1/8th inch shanks.Very similar machines are made by Dremmel, Sears and Black & Decker. Are they really worthwhile.Yes.The key is the wide ...
