So, after plenty of head scratching, cussing, unbolting and rebolting, more cussing and then unbolting and rebolting again, I’ve come up with a set of instructions that made the second assembly go much faster. Your particular mobile tool base assembly may vary slightly, but hopefully this info will help make it somewhat easier.

Sort parts

As with any assembly project, it’s a good idea to sort all your parts, make sure you’ve got all the pieces and know where they’re going to go.

With my base, I had a number of different length bolts.

The small 5/8 and 6/8 ones are used to attach the frame pieces, and the six longer ones (2 each of three different lengths) are used for the wheel lifting assembly.

Corner brackets

Attach the corner brackets to your tool’s base. Most tool bases come with rubberized feet attached to a bolt. If yours doesn’t, choose a bolt that’s the appropriate size for your particular base, as the mobile tool base probably won’t come with these. For tools like a table saw where stability is pretty critical, it’s probably a good idea to mount your tool so the wheels are facing side to side, rather than back to front. You don’t want the table saw wheeling across the room while you’re cutting a sheet of plywood.

Side / frame assembly

Roughly place the side pieces so that you have as much length attached to the corner brackets as possible. Depending on the size of your particular tool base, you may get away with just using one long piece for each side. If not, make sure you’ve got good overlap for a strong connection. For the side where you’ll attach the wheel lifts, make sure you’ve got a good even mounting surface for the wheel brackets. You might get away with a single long side piece if you have a small tool base, but make sure you have a nice even mounting surface for attaching the wheel bracket bolts. I used a long and a short side piece for this side.

Finger tighten the side pieces so everything’s connected. This is probably also a good time to fit the rubber leveling brackets on to the sides of the tool base – in some cases you may need to use the longer bolts for these sections because you’ll be connecting the leveling bracket, the side piece and the corner bracket.

When you’re attaching the side pieces, the first two or three sides will probably be pretty easy. When you get to the last side, if you’re incredibly lucky, all the holes will align perfectly. (Go buy a lottery ticket – quickly!) However, in most cases the holes won’t align, and your lottery ticket won’t even get you a free play. This is where a long clamp comes in handy. (For assembling the frame, not for using on the person that sold you a non-winning lottery ticket…) Use the clamp to squeeze the sides together and pop in the bolts. If you don’t have a long clamp, a piece of rope with a wooden twist stake will probably do the job, although you might need an extra set of hands.

Wheel lifts

The next step is assembling the wheel lifts. This is certainly the trickiest part, but hopefully these instructions will make them easier to assemble and you won’t have to go through the “how the &*@$*# do these stupid pieces fit together” process. Once you figure it out, it’s pretty obvious. However, it took me a while to get there…

There are four parts to the wheel lift assembly. I have no idea what the pieces are actually called so I made up names for them:

• The wheel bracket that bolts to the side pieces/corner brackets
• The wheel tray
• The lifter arm
• The wheel

First, attach the wheel bracket to the side piece / corner bracket.

If this is also the last section of the sides that you’re joining, you may need to double up on the clamps.  Use a long clamp to squeeze everything together to help align the holes, and a short clamp to squeeze the wheel bracket if necessary.

Next, use the long black bolt to attach the wheel tray to the wheel bracket. (You might want to attach the wheel and lift lever to the wheel tray before you mount it to the bracket. The photos after this one show the bracket unattached from the frame, but only because it’s easier to see the detail.)

Attach the silver lift lever to the the wheel bracket with the medium black bolt.

The wheel tray slides into the wheel bracket. The orange arrow shows where the holes will align.

When the wheel assembly is all put together, this is what it will look like.

Finishing touches

By this point, you’re almost done. The last few things to do are:

• Attach the rubber leveling feet.
• Attach the rear wheels with the short black bolts.
• Tighten all the bolts, including the ones that attach the tool base to the mobile base.
• Adjust the height of the rubber leveling feet so that you’ve got a good solid base that doesn’t slide when the lifting wheels are up.
• Add any remaining 5/8 or 6/8 small bolts for extra strength.
• Last but not least, do a quick cleanup / tuneup / safety check of the tool you’ve just mounted to the base. (Because you probably won’t do it later.)

Here’s what the finished product looks like.

That memory stuck very well, and I’ve been lucky (so far) to have never experienced kickback.

If you’re going to use a tablesaw (or other big power tool) understand how to safely use the tool — especially these days, when there’s so much online info.

This idiot guy, however, demonstrates (numerous ways) how NOT to use a tablesaw…

For last year’s haunted cemetery display, I built two columns out of scrap plywood. To increase the spooky factor this year, I also added a flickering lantern box, also made out of scrap plywood and some cheap portfolio covers.

Here’s last year’s column. It’s a simple hollow 1/2″ plywood box mounted to a plywood base. To give it some depth, I also added 1/8″ plywood strips to the edges and used the same strips to create a cross on three sides. Dry brushing with a lighter grey helps age the column.

To make the lantern box, make a simple box out of plywood and cut out crosses on three sides. Make sure the box also has a base so you can screw it to the bottom column. Drilling holes at the end point of each cross will make it easier to cut out the crosses. You don’t need to spend much time sanding everything smooth, as you want a “rough” look. You could also have all four sides with crosses, but for these ones, I have an 8′ board on the back of the column that will be supports for a cemetery sign.

Make a simple removable lid for the box. This ensures it’s easy to put in a blinking light or a flashlight.  For obvious reasons, don’t use a real candle… Beveling the edges of the lid adds a little more to the details without getting too fancy. You could also bevel the top piece, or add a finial or knob. I left these ones plain so I could add a skull at some point.

Give the box a quick coat of dark grey paint. The paint for these props was courtesy of the Walmart mis-tint section. $2 for a gallon of paint! Don’t worry about giving it more than one coat, because you want the finished box to have an old, faded weathered look.

Dry brush the box with a lighter grey paint and screw it down onto the main column.

Using some cheap clear red portfolio covers I picked up from a discount bargain bin ($0.33 each) I cut out small pieces and stapled them to the inside of the box.  For my light source, I used a cheap bicycle LED light with a strobe effect to give the appearance of a flickering candle.

Paint the 8′ boards that are attached to the back of the columns. For depth, you can also use some of the same 1/8″ plywood strips to create a “feature frame” that in this case, features a lovely (foam) femur. The only thing left to add is some dry brushing on the boards.

Next, I need to create the cemetery sign that will be supported by these two columns.

However, if you don’t need a sign, you could build any number of these – two work well for an entrance, but you could also make several of them to line a driveway.  Instead of lantern boxes, you could also just create the bottom column parts and mount carved pumpkins on the top.

Happy haunting.

Kintaro Yazawa is a woodworker in Japan. The furniture he builds is both functional and beautiful, but it’s the detail he puts into his joinery that makes his furniture a work of art.

Visit Kintaro’s website to see some of his work.

Ready? Here we go.

• Step 1: Take a nail, turn it upside down
• Step 2: Tap the nail’s pointy end with your hammer

That’s it… Exciting, hey?  You might, however, be pretty surprised at the difference that little trick makes.

Why does it work so well?  With the slightly flattened end, the nail tears through the wood’s fibers rather then forcing them apart.

You can flatten each nail as you use them or, if you have kids, give them a whole box and a little hammer — hours of endless fun. Really.

Woodpixel lets you design (and constantly redesign) a 10×10 pixel, 6 colour icon masterpiece to hang on your wall.

Check it out at www.woodpixel.com

The box is made of walnut, and the lid/boad is made of Australian lacewood.

The other difference is that intarisia lets you create depth — more of a 3D puzzle than a traditional 2D one.

I do most of my intarsia work using cedar. It’s a nice soft wood that’s easy to work and it takes stain easily. Some people also use different types of wood, resulting in amazing multi-coloured, multi-grained works of art. Adding shaped stone, plastic, metal or anything else can add to the look (and the time!)

Here are a few of the ones I’ve created.

“The Tooth”
This was a gift I made for my wife. It’s cedar, stained and woodburned, and is one of my favourites.

“The Bunny”
Cedar and stained. This was one of the harder ones I’ve done, simply because of the fur.

“The Girl”
Most of the intarsia pieces I make are stained. This was a test one that was painted.  Althought I liked it, I still prefer stained ones that show the wood grain.

“The Balloon”
This one certainly had the most pieces! This was made as a wedding gift for friends that were both into hot air ballooning.

So, needless to say, I hummed and hawed about buying a pocket hole jig for close to a year. When I finally bought one, I wished I hadn’t waited so long.

I looked at several different pocket hole jigs, and decided on Kreg Tool’s K2000 model.

This model comes complete with everything you need to very easily and very quickly do pocket hole joinery.

This was the first time I’d ever attempted pocket hole joints, so to have the jig set up, and a cabinet face frame assembled in less than half an hour was very impressive.

Granted, pocket hole joinery is never going to replace the aesthetics of perfect dovetails or even finger / box joints, but for a solid, “behind the scenes” joint, it’s tough to beat.

And, while you don’t necessarily NEED a jig to create pocket holes, the Kreg K2000 lets you create the holes and joints extremely quickly and accurately. (And I need all the help I can get with the accuracy…)