[ Power saw whirring ] [ Mid-tempo music plays ] It's time for another episode of "The Woodsmith Shop."

I'm Phil, and on today's episode, we're making some tools.

I love making my own woodworking tools.

Not only are they great fun to do, but they also help me expand my woodworking skills.

They don't have to be complex, either.

For example, the project that I'm building in this episode is a beam compass, and it combines to turn into a layout tool that you can use to make curves, arcs, and circles in all sizes of workpiece.

And then to go a little bit more complicated, Logan's going to make a shooting board.

That's a hand plane accessory to help you trim and fine-tune work pieces.

There's a lot going on in this episode, so it's time to get started.

If you're ready to build along, the plans are at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

Let's build.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

And by... Kreg -- tools designed by woodworkers, for woodworkers.

Create what inspires you.

Additional funding provided by... ...Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ There are three components to the beam compass.

There is a fixed head on one end, a sliding adjustable head, and then the beam itself.

We're going to set the beam aside for now and concentrate on the more complex parts of the two head pieces here.

Now, the head has an aluminum piece at the bottom and a solid wood piece at the top to just play along with that whole wood and aluminum feel here.

For the aluminum, we're using anodized aluminum, which is just a way of saying that this aluminum has a coating on it that gives it a tougher, more scratch-resistant surface so that as you're sliding the heads along and adjusting them in place with the thumb screws, it's not going to get scratched up as easily.

We're going to start with the aluminum inner pieces here on a wide, long blank of aluminum.

I cut these pieces both for the fixed head and the adjustable head at a machinist vise using a hacksaw.

Just scribe in a line that you'll be able to follow and then make that cut.

From there, what I did is cut out the pattern from the plans that will help guide these next steps.

So there's the one for the fixed head, and here's the one for the adjustable head.

Then I took a piece of smaller aluminum and cut a few short lengths off of that one.

These little blocks are going to hold the aluminum thumb screws that are going to get added a little bit later.

So they're going to go down here and here, and then made some small hardwood pieces that match those in size.

These get glued in place to form the inner parts of the sandwich.

So far, so good.

The problem is, is that we have these little tiny pieces, and gluing and clamping those can be a real trick.

So what I'm going to do is use a few drops of instant glue on the piece, and then spray it with an accelerator.

That way, as soon as I touch it, in just a few seconds, it's going to hold, so it's even faster than instant.

I'll do that both for the metal block and the wood block.

And then to make sure that that spacing is right, I have a couple of hardboard spacers that I'll use just to set the gaps on that and make sure that the two pieces are parallel.

Once that's done, I can add the opposite piece on the top of it and complete our sandwich.

The instant bond is really only to hold our pieces together temporarily.

The long-term bond is going to be taken care of by aluminum rods that we're going to rivet into place.

In order to do that, I need to drill through the pattern in the places marked on it to create the holes for those rivets.

It's just a matter of taking it slow and using a little bit of oil to keep the bit from overheating.

I want to pause here for a little problem and solution issue.

What can happen as you're drilling is that the twisting force of the bit and the heat generated can pop those instant glue lines, and then you're left with separate pieces instead of multiple pieces.

That happened to me while I was drilling here, and what I ended up doing was taking some of those short pieces of aluminum that I'm going to use as rivets, and I pressed that through one of the holes, and that's going to serve as an index point.

Then I could clamp the pieces back together.

I put a little bit more glue in there and sprayed it and held it tight.

But now at least I have one anchor point.

And then I just drilled another hole, put in a aluminum rivet, and then worked your way through it that way.

If you can get through it without the glue popping, great.

If not, there is a way to keep going.

All right, what I did here is drop the last of the rivets in place that's going to secure it.

There's one more here that I need that's going to help hold a pencil in on this fixed head, but I'll put that in a little bit later.

What I want to talk now is about how to secure these rivets.

So I had a spacer underneath so that the rivet is exposed a little bit on the bottom side as well as the top side.

Now what we can do is use the round end of the ball peen hammer, and what we want to do is expand the rivets, mushroom them over a little bit.

It's called peening, and that will lock these pieces all together.

So I'm going to start on this side and then flip it over and do a little bit on the other side, and you'll be able to see how those rivets will change shape.

Next step here is to cut these to rough shape.

You have a couple of options for saws.

You can use just a regular coping saw.

The blade is tough enough to be able to cut the soft aluminum here, and it works pretty well.

If you don't have a coping saw, you can also use a hacksaw.

Even though the blade is relatively wide, you can cut a semi gentle curve in there.

Otherwise, just make a series of straight cuts.

Cut from one side, flip the piece over, and then cut in from the other side.

We're going to refine these shapes anyway.

I take a multifaceted approach to smoothing out the curves after cutting them, because frankly, I don't cut metal a lot, so the surfaces are a little rough.

One of the ways you can handle it is to be at that bench vise with some files.

The coarser the file you have, the better, because you can just keep taking strokes and remove a lot of material relatively quickly.

The other tool that you can use is an edge sander.

Now, I'm going to use the round part of the edge sander to take care of the curves on here, because that curve pretty closely matches the radius on the sander.

For the outside curves, I'll use the flat belt portion, and that way, I can just rock the piece back and forth.

Now, these pieces are relatively small.

We've already talked about that.

That's why I'm holding on to it with a wood hand screw clamp here.

Not only does it keep my fingers safely away, but I have a little bit more control as I'm working to finesse and fine tune those curves.

After smoothing out the shape of our two heads for the beam compass, the next step is to file and smooth the flat surfaces.

I'm going to use a pretty coarse file here.

The key when you're using it, is holding it as level as possible, concentrating on the rivets that are exposed.

You'll know when you get down to the surface here, because the rivets will file a lot easier, and then it'll become much tougher once you get to that anodized surface.

Aluminum thumb screws hold the heads to the beam of our compass.

On the one for the adjustable head, I need to put a center point into that thumb screw, because that's going to be the center point of scribing a circle.

The center point is going to be made up of a cutoff nail.

Now, I need to be able to drill a hole into the middle of this thumb screw.

Seems like it might be a little tricky to do, but here's the way to do it.

Start by drilling a hole that matches the stem size, or just a little bit smaller of the thumb screw.

Then I can twist the thumb screw into that hole.

Remove the bit, and then replace it with a bit that matches the diameter of the nail.

Now I can drill the hole right into the top of the thumb screw, knowing that it's going to be centered right on the money.

Time to wrap up the metalwork on our beam compass project.

Now, I took the two heads over to the drill press and drilled a pilot hole for the knurled knobs that are going to secure the heads to the beam.

What I want to do now is cut threads in that hole to match the knurled knob.

I have a tap that will cut the threads into the hole.

I'm going to just use a little bit of oil, and then as you thread the tap in, you want to apply just very light pressure downward, Trying your best to keep this as perpendicular as possible.

You'll run the tap in maybe a turn or so and then back it up just to avoid stripping out the threads or breaking the tap.

The last bit of work that we need to do on our head assemblies is to apply some wood veneer to the faces.

I'm using some birdseye maple here, but you can use really anything that you want.

The thing that I did before here, just to prep everything, is I sanded the edges up to 400 grit sandpaper, just to even out the file marks and the sanding marks.

And then I wiped everything down with some acetone.

That way, I kind of degreased the whole thing so that I get a good bond with the veneer.

Now, since we're gluing metal and wood together, I'm going to use a two-part epoxy.

I'll just mix up a little batch here, and then we don't need a lot.

So you want to spread a thin, even coat on both faces, and then you'll be able to stick the veneer pieces on them.

For clamping pressure, I'm going to use wood hand screws, because the large jaws are going to give me even clamping pressure across the entire assembly.

Trimming the wood veneers flush with the aluminum bodies for the head are actually pretty familiar steps.

I'm going to cut away as much of the waste as possible with a handsaw, and then it's down to some abrasive tools.

I'm gonna start with a rasp here to get as much of the wood removed as possible without contacting the aluminum.

The next step is to switch to something a little bit finer.

But instead of going with sandpaper, I'm going to use a half round file to be able to follow the curved shape and smooth flat surfaces.

The final step, once you have the edges and ends all taken care of, is to smooth out the faces.

And I've just stuck some adhesive-backed sandpaper to my workbench.

And then with just a few strokes, you can sand that as smooth and polished as you want.

Well, here's our beam compass all complete.

The last piece of the puzzle was the beam itself, which, in spite of the importance of the name sounding, was the easiest piece to make.

It's a piece of aluminum that's already cut to the right length, just from the source that we got it from.

The only thing I needed to do was, again, use some epoxy and apply a thin veneer of the hardwood to either side of it.

Once that was done, I filed a little bit of a "V" notch in the end of it, and that "V" notch is going to help grip the pencil in use.

So let's put this all together.

And there we have it.

It's a great looking tool, and one that you'll use to create all kinds of arcs and circles and other curved shapes on your work pieces.

And best of all, you know that you made it yourself, and makes the project even more special.

Now, like I said, you can add any kind of veneer or material that you want to and really change the look of the project.

If you're ready to make one for yourself, the plans are at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

So, the base of our shooting board is going to be made out of 1 inch and 1/2 thick Baltic birch plywood.

Now, that's not readily available.

So what we're going to do is we are going to sandwich two layers of 3/4-inch birch together.

And I'm gonna cut these here at the table saw, and I'm gonna cut them two different sizes.

The first I'm going to cut at exactly our finished size.

And then the other layer, I'm going to cut slightly oversized, just by about 1/8 inch or so.

That's going to give me room so when I glue them together, I can overhang it from the finished size piece just a little bit.

I'm going to start with the larger piece down on a couple of standoffs so I can get clamps under them.

And then I'm going to start applying glue, and I'm going to get good, even coverage using a notched spreader.

We'll just spread that glue out and get it covering the whole area.

Then we're going to start by applying clamps on one end, and then we'll kind of work it down towards the far end, squeezing out any air so we don't get any pockets in the middle by just clamping the perimeter.

Okay.

Now, after the glue has dried, I went ahead and ran the router along the edge of this thing to flush it all up.

Let's start off with some layout.

So I'm just going to lay out all these holes.

I'm going to lay out the rabbets.

And especially with those holes, I'm going to mark the diameters that each of those gets drilled.

That way, when I'm drilling these at the drill press, I don't get confused and accidentally drill the wrong size hole in the wrong location.

Alright, now that I have the layout done, I have a blank full of chicken scratches, but they all mean something.

So, I have several 3/4 inch holes that are going to be for steel rods, and we'll tackle those in a little bit.

But first, what I've done is I've loaded up a little bit smaller bit, because I have a 7/16 hole that gets a counterbore on the bottom side for a "T" nut.

Now, the "T" nut recess happens to be 3/4 inch just like these other holes.

So what I'm going to do first is I'm going to use this little twist bit and punch that hole clear through.

That's going to transfer my layout line from the top to a centered hole on the bottom.

Then I can go ahead and install that 3/4-inch Forstner bit and make that shallow counterbore.

And I'm just going to check the depth with the "T" nut to make sure that it's going to seat fully once I drive it home.

Then with that same 3/4-inch Forstner bit, I'll go ahead and drill these three other holes on the top side.

And those are stopped.

They're not clear through.

So I'll go ahead and set my depth stop to make sure I stop the hole at the right depth.

And then finally, we'll drill that 7/16 inch hole through that first counterbore that we made.

Now, the last thing to do before we cut this base to shape is going to be to cut rabbets for the low friction plastic.

Now, I've laid out this area here where the rabbet's going to go.

We have two different thicknesses of this low friction plastic.

We have this narrower, thicker piece that's going to be the outside edges of this shoot.

And then on the inside, we have this wider, thinner section.

So we're going to cut these rabbets in a couple of passes, not only in the width but also in two different setups for the depth.

The first will be sized for this 1/2-inch thick piece of thicker plastic.

And then we'll go back and remove the center for this wider, thinner piece.

Okay.

As you can see, that low friction plastic fits in place nicely in those rabbets.

And once I've finished this, these will be attached with countersunk screws.

This outside one will be attached loosely.

That way, we can slide it in and out and snug it up against the hand plane.

And before we came back here to the bench, I went ahead and cut this base to shape.

Now, you could leave it rectangular, but I think adding those curves on this back side and this small cutout in the front really helps reduce some weight.

And you're gonna be lifting this on and off your bench.

Those shapes are easily cut out at the band saw using a narrow blade.

So, let's talk about these pins.

Now, these pins are just pieces of 3/4-inch steel.

These two pins will go in these outer holes.

And those get these threaded knobs.

cross-threaded through them.

And this is so we can fine tune the angle of the fence in relation to this shoot.

Now, steel comes in big blanks like this.

And this is easy to cut to length with a hacksaw in a vise.

But now we have to figure out how to drill and tap this accurately.

And to do that, we're going to use a block with a 3/4-inch hole in it.

And I've cut a kerf down it.

This is going to allow me to put a clamp across here and keep this in place while we're at the drill press.

Speaking of the drill press, we're going to be drilling a 13/64 hole right through the center of this.

And then we're going to run this 1/4-20 tap through there to cut the threads.

Okay, there we go.

With a tap ran down that hole, we've went ahead and cut threads in there, so now these will thread in.

With these two posts ready to go, they can get installed in place.

Now, the key here is to make sure that these are going to be in line with where our fence is going to sit.

So what I'm going to do is leave these threaded knobs installed, and we want this one to be in line with the shoot over here.

And then this guy is going to be at approximately a 45-degree angle to that.

So now what we're going to do is just scuff up the bottom with a little bit of sandpaper.

That's going to give the epoxy a good bite.

There we go.

And now we'll just go ahead and mix up some two-part epoxy.

Put these in place and let them cure overnight.

And now we're ready to set this base aside and work on this fence.

So to make that arch slat, we're going to use a router trammel.

This is just going to be an auxiliary base, just hardboard in this instance.

And we're going to use a screw as a pivot point.

The router will be attached to this with double sided tape.

And I've pre-drilled the start and stop holes in this blank.

With this screw installed, this base is going to pivot in the proper arc, and then we'll just go ahead and lower that router bit a little bit by a little bit as we make passes.

So now what we have to do is create the recess for the sliding fence.

And to do that, we're going to use a hardboard template.

And we'll hold it over this with double sided tape.

And then follow the template and cut this recess out.

I'll probably just go around the outside and then come in with a chisel to remove most of the waste and then flatten it out as much as I can with this router bit.

Now, the drill press yielded a series of holes.

Let's run quick through the ones we drilled.

First one was this larger hole for this pivot pin, and this will be epoxied into this fence in a little bit, probably after I spray lacquer on everything.

The next holes were to define this curve.

Just gives us a smooth transition between these two straight ears and this curved area.

After I drilled those holes, I cut this out at the band saw.

And I did that in two passes, one with the fence set to make these straight cuts, and then, sliding the fence out of the way, I was able to cut this curve.

And I just smoothed it out with some sandpaper.

And the final hole we drilled was this counterbore in this recessed area.

This counterbore, as you can see, has a "T" nut installed in it.

And this is so we can attach the fence.

Now, let's talk about that fence for a second.

We can kind of see how this sits on the base.

And now we want something to back up our workpiece while we are shooting it.

And to do that, we're going to use a block installed in this area.

A threaded knob will install into that "T" nut that we've just seen.

And that allows us to adjust this in and out.

And that's important for a couple reasons.

When we spin this thing to 45 degrees, we're going to want to slide it a little bit further forward to make sure that it backs up our piece so we don't get chip out on the backside.

The other benefit is that as this end gets worn away, as we are working on parts, we can just keep scooting it closer and closer.

This is going to be attached onto this block using a couple of small wood screws.

That way, when inevitably this thing gets short enough that I can't slide it any further, I just pop the screws out and replace it.

And the one thing that I do like to make sure I do with a fence like this on a shooting board, is I want to make it out of some type of hard wood that is going to be harder, more or less, than what I am using for work pieces.

So something like white oak or this is a great application for an exotic wood, as well.

Now, the final thing I want to point out is that I drilled two additional holes in these wings, and these are for little cup magnets.

And those are kind of a press fit.

So I'm not going to stick it in there just yet.

I'll wait till I apply a finish.

But what those are for is to snap on to these threaded knobs that we installed in those posts.

That allows you to fine tune the position of this fence and back it off.

And the magnetic cup will pull the fence back with this threaded knob as you remove it.

So, over the last couple of days, I added a couple of layers of lacquer to this shooting board to go ahead and protect it during use.

And I attached that plastic track in this shoot and did the final assembly.

So all that's left now is to test it out and make any fine adjustments that are necessary.

Now, in use, a shooting board is super simple.

Your workpiece goes up against the fence, and as you're using it, you're going to slowly feed it in to the plane to keep it tight up against the sole of the plane.

The plane simply sits in the track, and then you just make the plane go back and forward, making fine cuts on the end grain.

One of the big benefits of shop-made tools is how it can unlock capabilities in the tools that you already have.

We saw that with the shooting board that Logan made.

It turns an ordinary hand plane into a precision tool for fine tuning project work pieces.

Shop-made tools are a great way for creative expression, too.

Take the beam compass that I made earlier in the episode.

On this one, I used birdseye maple veneer to dress it up and give it a great look.

If you're ready to build your own shop-made tools, the plans are at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

And then it's time to join us back here for another great project build on "The Woodsmith Shop."

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Everything in today's show comes from the newly expanded Woodsmith Guild Edition with shop projects, plans, tips, and techniques.

To get a free preview issue of the Woodsmith Guild Edition and a free Woodsmith book, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

In addition, past seasons of "The Woodsmith Shop" are available on DVD, or you can watch them online from your computer, tablet, or mobile device.

For more information, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

And by... Kreg -- tools designed by woodworkers, for woodworkers.

Create what inspires you.

Additional funding provided by... ...Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪