Shop Tips
Looking Back: The Era of Manmade Machines
A generation of woodworkers overcame the high cost of machinery by building their own
A look back at some of the fascinating shopmade machinery throughout the history of Fine Woodworking, from wooden tablesaws to bandsaws, planers, and more.
Read the original articles that inspired our contributors:
(available for a limited time)
| • Shopmade Bandsaw | • Mortising Machine |
| • Wooden Jointer | • Shop-Built Thickness Sander |
| • A Wooden Tablesaw | • Shopmade Scroll Saw |
| • Shopmade Lathes |
Fine Woodworking Recommended Products
Stanley Powerlock 16-ft. tape measure
With its smooth lock, tough case, compact size, and excellent accuracy, this Stanley tape is perfect for workshop use.
Festool Cleantec CT 26 E HEPA Dust Extractor
The clear winner here is Festool’s CT 48 Dust Extractor. It has amazing capacity relative to its size, and unmatched suction power. It packs in a number of subtle but very helpful design touches, like a clever foot brake and easy hose and cord storage.
Grizzly G0495X Industrial Helical Cutterhead 8-in. Jointer
Regardless of the board’s grain, this jointer produced excellent results. Its fence was totally flat, worked smoothly, and locked well, staying in place even after jointing multiple edges. Getting the fence to 90° was very easy, but the 90° stop was a little tricky to set and the fence did not go back to square when using it. For those who would use it, there is also a digital depth-of-cut scale.
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