B. Brinkley

I did not like the idea of construction adhesive either. I used plain ole Titebond yellow glue in the lift construction with no issues. The threaded rod is what gives this lift such a smooth machined like adjustment. The router sits in a lift carriage and a large bearing rides in a diagonal slot to carry the load. It's a great design that allows fine adjustment while still being quick to raise or lower with just a few turns of the wheel. If you look at the top left hand side of the lift you can see a slight gap between the plywood blocks. This is part of the brake assembly that clamps the carriage in place. Truthfully, I rarely use it except when I am using a large bit with a lot of torque. Most of the time I do not lock the lift and it never creeps or changes settings anyway because of the lift mechanism design. When it is locked and the blocks squeeze tightly together, nothing is going to move that sucker.

I built my lift directly from the plans offered at ibuildit.ca He has several youtube videos explaining it. The plans were dead on accurate and I built it in one day with no issues. It just works very well. It has almost a vernier feel to it for smooth micro adjustments and a very secure height lock. The router is very rigid with no slop. What attracted me to it was the way the lift was designed to work, and the fact that the height is adjustable from a side crank with no top crank. There are some shoddy amateur designs out there, but being a former engineer I could tell that John took his time to think this design through and thoroughly test it before he offered it to the public. His other plans are just as well designed and I also built his Biesemeyer fence that works a treat also. I have no connection with this guy, just a very satisfied customer. Pics for your amusement

Gee-Dub that is an excellent idea that I had not considered. It would be fairly easy to align the slats using a captured spline as you have shown. That would help eliminate my worries about splitting of the glued up panels as each slat can move independently to each other using that method. Thanks folks for the great advice!

Thank you everyone for the advice. I am leaning on cutting the chamfers on the router table before glue up. I will also cut the biscuits before chamfering as it will be easier to register the biscuit cutter on a square surface. The panel pieces will be edge glued and then the whole panel will float in the rail and stile frame with no glue as usual. That's a good tip about wrapping the cauls in tape. Thanks! Anybody have any ideas how much I should allow for expansion? There will three of these panels side by side with a stile in between each panel.

There is a great amount of collective wisdom in this group and I would very much appreciate some advice. I am constructing a king size bed headboard and foot board. Each will have 3 glued-up panels floating inside standard rail and stile frames. My question is should I cut the bevels for the v-grooves before glue up, or make a solid panel and then cut the grooves? My dilemma is if I cut the chamfers to make the grooves before glue up I fear that I will have problems keeping the panels flat while clamping even if I used cauls etc. If I glue up the panels and cut the v-grooves afterward using a router, I fear slipping as I am terrible with a hand held router even using a fence and one small slip and the panel is ruined. The panels will be seen from both sides so that is the reason for the v-grooves on both the front and back of the panel. Another question ; The panels are 20" tall and will be somewhere around 26 to 30" wide. How much expansion and contraction should I allow for in width when cutting the dados in the rails and styles? There will be a total of three panels side by side with stiles in between each. Lastly if someone needs to know the panels will be made from 3/4" pecan and the frame and styles will be made from some very old antique yellow pine. I have included a rough sketch to explain the layout. Thanks in advance folks!

Thanks everyone for the helpful suggestions! Those hinges look nice but are a little too wide at 1/2". I am wanting to cut my stiles about 1/2" wide so I would think I need a hinge no wider than 1/4" wide. I want to make the case fit my IPad as small and close fitting as possible without too much bulk in the overall design. I plan on planning the outside edges into a kinda oval shape to match the edge of the IPad case design.

I am going to build a wooden case for my Ipad. I am looking at hardware first and what I need are hinges like these but that will open 180 deg. and hopefully have some friction to keep the lid open much like a typical laptop hinge. I want the hinges to be brass or brass plated, and I need to be able to route a groove to set the hinge flush to the surface. I am not having much luck finding anything suitable, so any pointers would be very much appreciated! Lastly, any tips as to how I can route that inset using a router would be helpful also. (I do have a router table.) Thanks everyone! Bud

Coop I have not really used much in the way of hardwoods lately. I have a big pile of 200 year old heart pine that I am working off of at the moment. It's hard as nails and very tight grained. Came from a very old dairy barn locally. I am blessed to have acreage so I can cut my own oak etc. I plan on making some furniture for our home from the pine as it matches our old German style of house here on our ranch.

I am near Huntsville, TX. Houston is swallowing us up unfortunately.

One trick we boat builder's use is to place a small chunk of end grain is a small saucer of rubbing alcohol. If it is Red oak it will immediately suck up the alcohol through the grain and by capillary action seep out the topside of the piece. White oak is much more tight and will not do that so readily. Try it, it's kinda fun to watch./

Mark I built a Bowers Flybaby many years ago. I have very few photos and none digitized. I loved that plane and wished I still had it. I doubt if I would fit in it nowadays as my girth and weight has increased somewhat!

Mat the router table is built into my 4x8 Paulk assembly table. It has dog holes in it to clamp stuff like face frames for cabinets etc. It's a torsion box design and he did a nice job of designing it for what it is used for. There is way to much resonant bounce though for chisel work though. I do the hand tool work on my main bench which has nearly zero bounce. My main bench top is two layers of 3/4 MDF laminated together and then another piece of 1/2" birch ply is used for the top surface for a total thickness of 2". I have oak trim strips around the edges of the plywood for edge protection. The plywood is screwed down with #10 x 1 1/4" silicon bronze flathead screws around the perimeter so that it can be easily replaced. I use my benches hard so when it gets ratty over time I can just pop in a new sheet when needed. It has a workman type of finish using BLO and beeswax for stain protection. (mostly anyway )

Richard I have used it today to file a few saws. The vise is moveable up and down in the Moxon style vise to whatever height I need. So far I have not found any noticeable vibration while filing. I made it tall enough to stand while I am working on the saws.

Since my retirement, I have been spending more time in my shop this year. Here are some photos of my shop and bench. "Benchzilla" has given me about 10 years of faithful service so far. I built it using M&T frames and raised panel construction and it weighs about 300lbs. It is just over 4x8 ft. as I also use it as an out-feed table. It has it's own electrical circuit and a dedicated panel with hidden outlets under the ledges. It also has a small built-in air compressor to run my brad guns. Still, I am gradually gravitating back towards an emphasis on hand tools. I have built boats and airplanes in here as well as some furniture of which I still have much to learn.

Hello all. First post here although I have been lurking for some time. This morning I built a saw vise out of some pine I had laying around. It works nicely.