I’ve seen a variety of sacrificial table saw fences for contractor table saws like my Bosch 4100. My main issue with all of them is that they either take too long to make or they cost too much. Or take up too much space on a saw that’s already limited in rip capacity.
An example of one that costs too much is any that involves Microjig Matchfit dovetail clamps. Today (March 18, 2025), they’re $45 for a pair. I love some of Microjig’s products, but $45 for a pair of clamps that’s just holding a sacrificial fence to my table saw fence is absurd. In general, my sacrificial fences stay in place until I need to replace them from wear or I need the special ones that are intentionally cut to accommodate blade-width edge cuts or using the dado set to cut rabbets. In other words, the clamping mechanism is semi-permanent; I am not loosening or tightening the clamps but once in a while. It’s also specific and fixed; it doesn’t need versatility. Finally, cutting dovetails takes way longer than other means. The cutting itself is quick, but I have to load the dovetail bit in the router, set its depth, clamp the work, etc.
An example of one that takes too long and uses too much space: parallel boards with space between for typical F or C clamps.
All that most of us want is a piece of scrap MDF held by fence clamps that only require one hole to be drilled per clamp. Fence clamps are less expensive than dovetail clamps; the Milescraft 7209 in a set of 4 is $23.99 today from Amazon. But there’s an even cheaper option if your fence isn’t too wide: Bessey TK-6 table clamps, which are $7.69 for a pair on Amazon as of right now. That’s what I’m using on my Bosch 4100. Drill a pair of 5/16″ holes in a piece of MDF and you’re ready to go.
I’ve been working on a bench for my kitchen. I have no mud room, and in fact the entrance from the garage dumps directly into the kitchen. There was originally no place to remove coat/boots/shoes/hat/gloves, and nowhere to store them. To get to the coat closet at the front door, you have to walk through the kitchen and family room. This is highly inconvenient.
Last month I finished two coat racks, one for the front entrance and one for the kitchen. Nothing special about them except the one by the front door is tall enough to hang my bicycle helmets without them banging on the wall. They’re solid oak, and hung on the wall with concealed French cleats. They both have a shelf above the hooks.
I created a small console table for the front foyer, mostly as a place to dump keys/wallet and to hold a wooden box on the bottom shelf for my cycling caps and cycling gloves which I use daily in season.
For the kitchen, I wanted a bench I could sit on when putting boots or shoes on or removing them. I also wanted it to be roughly dining chair seat height, so it can double as kitchen table seating when I have the extension inserts in the table (which will seat 10 but I only have 4 matching chairs and don’t really want more). And I also wanted a spot to stash my winter boots in the winter and my in-house shoes (Vans slip-ons). I have a 15″x20″ polypropylene boot tray I’d like it to accommodate.
I designed the bench in SketchUp, and I’m done with the main assembly part. The legs, stretchers, rails, top frame and cove moulding are all solid red oak, dyed with TransTint mahogany brown. The stiles are solid maple, with no dye or stain. The main horizontal surfaces are stone-look porcelain with a PEI IV rating, which are supported underneath by 3/4″ plywood (plus another 3/8″ of plywood in the case of the top piece). I like using porcelain for primary contact surfaces because it’s very durable, waterproof and man-made. It’s inexpensive versus real marble or granite, and rectified porcelain tiles tend to be very accurately sized perfect rectangles. And these days you can get them in almost any size you’d like. I have a wet tile saw (actually two, a typical sliding-tray saw and a handheld with a hose feed that I use for really big tiles, say 30″x60″ and bigger like I used for my desks). But in this case, I found 15″x30″ tiles on clearance at Menards that I like for this bench. And that was the right size to hold a typical boot tray on the bottom shelf.
The picture below is from final fitment. I hadn’t attached the top to the base yet, it’s just sitting on top of the base. The tiles aren’t adhered and grouted. And I haven’t completed the finish work (no polyurethane yet, just dewaxed shellac to prevent dye and glue migration). But everything fits perfectly, it sits flat on the floor (no rocking), and it’s rock solid which was important to me since I’ll bet sitting on it daily, dropping my backpack and groceries on it, etc.
The design doesn’t include a seat back, and that’s intentional. The bench can be repurposed as a coffee table.
I started creating some more door moulding last night. Namely the entablatures for the second floor doorways.
I should note that I love Ken O’Brien’s web site, thejoyofmoldings.com. I’ve used it for inspiration for many years. Check it out, it’s worth it!
I’m a hobbyist woodworker, hence I have enough tools to do a few things myself. I like creating moulding, and it’s relatively easy with a table saw, miter saw and router table with a reasonable router. Ken likes to use MDF, and I do too, because it’s inexpensive and easy to form. The downside is that it’s not terribly durable; it won’t survive dings as well as solid oak (not even close), or even poplar or aspen. I don’t generally worry about such dings, except from vacuums. For that reason, I tend to use red oak shoe moulding, even if I’m going to paint it and use MDF baseboard. But it depends; if it’s simple quarter-round or similar, it can be MDF since I can repair it with Rock Hard Water Putty or even joint compound.
Anyway, my usual entablature at my current home is pretty simple. I start with 3/4″ thick MDF stock, and cut and route two pieces to make the cornice. The top one gets a classical ogie profile, the bottom gets a cove. Yes, I could buy cove moulding, but I find it easier and much nicer-looking to not make separate mitered returns. Here’s a picture of my cornice stack-up, upside down and fresh from the router table. Note that I made this one from finished MDF (intended for shelving) I had on hand instead of the usual primed MDF, hence the thickness to the existing white finish.
I don’t bother to sand at this point, in part because I don’t enjoy sanding bare MDF (it’s not very effective to do so). Instead, I go straight to priming the bare MDF with Zinsser B-I-N, which is shellac with white pigment.
I love Zinsser B-I-N and shellac in general for this purpose. It is a joy to sand, and since it dries incredibly fast, you can start sanding in about 15 minutes (sometimes less) with zero clogging of the sandpaper. I sand lightly with 220 grit, usually the 3M flexible paper (‘Pro Grade Precision Ultra’). Note that shellac sticks to just about everything, and is hence compatible with any paint. I always have Zinsser SealCoat (clear, dewaxed shellac) and Zinsser B-I-N on hand because it’s always part of my finishing process for interior pieces.
With some light sanding, I wind up with something like the photo below, which also has my frieze piece in the stack. The frieze is a single piece of 3/4″ x 3.5″ MDF with a bead routed about 1/2″ from what will be the bottom. Sometimes I create this in 2 pieces and use a bullnose bit to create a piece that’s larger than the frieze (known as ‘necking’), but the bead cut is faster and easier while still adding a nice detail. I’m creating these for 2nd floor hallway doors (three), so I’m OK without necking.
Assembly-wise, I glue and nail (18 gauge pneumatic nailer) the cove piece to the frieze, then glue and nail (again 18 gauge or pin nails) the ogie piece to the cove piece. Installing on the wall is just a matter of nailing through the frieze.
What I like about doing my entablatures in this manner: there are no miter joints to line up, and no miter joints that might separate from temperature and humidity changes. I’ve had entablatures in my home built this way for many years, and none of them have changed in any visible way. They look perfect forever.
I completed some end tables for the window seat. Same basic construction as the window seat: solid oak and dowel joinery. The tops have plywood support for the porcelain inserts. The feet are delrin, bolted on with countersunk 5/16″ stainless steel bolts going into threaded inserts in the legs.
Each end table can be latched to the window seat with draw latches that are installed on the underside of the top. When latched, they are VERY stable, basically making the window seat and end tables one large contiguous surface.
I am still waiting for more brown CableDrops from blueLounge, but the intent is to have a Lightning cable and USB-C cable readily accessible at each end of the bench. These run to chargers on the wall beneath the end tables. Right now I only have 20W chargers there, good for tablets or phones. If ever needed, I can swap in beefier chargers for laptops.
I still haven’t ordered a cushion for the window seat.
I put together a storage rack for my woodworking clamps from scrap 3/4″ plywood. I haven’t decided where it’s going to live, but I sized it to fit in a spot in the garage. It’s 3′ wide and 4′ tall, so my longer clamps will hang off the end. I do know that I’ll hang it with a French cleat so I can move it easily if desired.
I’ve seen many racks that wind up with quite a bit of wasted space, or that stick out too far from the wall. But the one from Timber Biscuit Woodworking on YouTube is good inspiration, and I mostly based mine on it.
The basic idea for parallel clamps is just a slotted board that is somehow mounted to the wall. But you wind up with a lot of underutilized space (all of the gaps between the clamp bars). The Timber Biscuit idea is better, because it allows that space to be utilized for F-style clamps and quick clamps. He just added a second slotted board. It keeps the parallel clamp bars parallel, but more importantly, lets you utilize the space between the parallel clamps to store more clamps. He doubled the number of slots in this lower piece because he has many F-style clamps, but I didn’t find that necessary. In part because I don’t use F-style clamps very often, preferring quick clamps for small stuff (plus most of my F-style clamps suck).
My execution, with a small number of my clamps hung. It was in the house because it’s frigid in the garage and I was getting ready to wipe some finish on it just to seal it.
Another advantage to having two slotted boards: if they’re reasonably secure, you can also store pipe clamps as long as you don’t overdo the clamping pressure. Just make sure to leave plenty of room to use the screw handle on the pipe clamp. I have a shelf at the top of my rack that’s 9″ above the weigh-bearing slotted board, which easily accommodates the pipe clamp screw handle.
It also accommodates the Bessey clamps with their standoffs where I usually have them (between the jaws).
For anyone wondering about the important dimensions… the slotted boards are 3″ wide. The slots are 3/8″ wide and 2″ deep, spaced 2″ center-to-center. I glued and nailed (18-gauge nails) the triangular supports to the slotted boards. I then drilled a lot of pocket holes on the underside of the slotted boards. I then glued and screwed the slotted board assemblies to the backing plywood. The top slotted board has a lot of triangle supports since it might be supporting a lot of weight, while the bottom slotted board only has 4 triangle supports to leave more room for quick clamps. Realistically, with the glue and many pocket hole screws, the bottom slotted board probably doesn’t need any supports, but I wanted some in cases I want to hang short parallel clamps there. That’s the other advantage of the two tiers: if you have a bunch of 12″ parallel clamps, you can store more parallel clamps.
Here’s the rack mounted on the basement wall with a French cleat, with some of my clamps stored on it.
I bought a wastebasket that caught my eye at The Container Store while I was there for bamboo drawer organizers. I took a picture of it while I was in the parking lot.
I knew I would need to use bags with it, but when I got home and put a bag in it, I felt it looked like ass. I wanted to hide the bag inside, and also hide the bag flap around the rim. So I lined the inside with some scrap 1/4″ oak plywood I had on hand, and made a drop-on collar out of solid oak to hold the bag in place and hide the flap.
The recess was intentional, so I could create a lid. I wanted a flat lid so that the wastebasket could be used as a tiny table (say for holding a book or my iPad when I doze off on the new window seat). I went with solid 3/4″ oak I had on hand (leftovers from one of the rolling drawer cabinets). I used finger holes instead of a handle, to keep it flat.
After stain and polyurethane, I wound up with this.
In hindsight, I could’ve just built the whole thing from oak scraps I have. But the store-bought wastebasket was the inspiration, and I’m very happy with the result.
I recently installed the 3U fan panel in the window seat. It’s powered via a Kasa smart plug, so I can turn it on/off via HomeKit (usually using Siri). It’s quiet, but does a nice job. However, it came with ball bearing fans which I know will get loud over time. I’ll replace them with Noctua fans when they get loud enough to be annoying.
I also built and installed a wide wood drawer on 100 lb. drawer slides. I’m using it to store office miscellany. It has built-in finger-jointed dividers, but I also added some bamboo organizers from The Container Store.
I still need to order a cushion from rofielty.com. In the meantime I’m working on end tables to butt against the window seat.
I recently realized that I never posted pictures of the completed under-desk rack.
Hiding under the desks, where it normally lives.
I guess I never posted about what’s going on in this rack. There are two ethernet switches, a Ubiquiti US24 and a Ubiquity 16XG. They’re connected via a pair of 10G fiber connections with LACP. The 16XG is also connected to the 16XG in the basement via a pair of 10G fiber connections with LACP. I use the copper 10G connections in the 16XG in the under-desk rack for Mac Studios and a Threadripper 3960X Linux workstation in my office. I use the US24 for CalDigit docks (for wired laptop connectivity), Raspberry Pis, etc. There’s a patch panel for each switch that passes through to parallel patch panels in the rear. This lets me keep the cabling in the front super-clean (just short patch cables).
There’s a Middle Atlantic 3U fan panel in the rear, exhausting air. There’s an ancient Best Power UPS in the bottom that just keeps on working (with battery replacements every 3 or 4 years). There’s a Furman PDU in the top with pull-out LED lights.
It’s on casters, and can be rolled out easily to gain some work space (more than shown here). The top insert is porcelain, the same as the rolling drawer cabinets.
There is a lot of ventilation in the front door. The front window is scratch-resistant polycarbonate, but the door box is vented on all 4 sides. There are two layers of stainless steel mesh in the vents. One is coarse for strength, the other is fine to keep pet hair and dust bunnies out. The inspiration here came from a pie cooling cabinet in an old bakery I used to visit. The air flow in this cabinet is front-to-back, for the components and the CloudPlate.
This was mostly a duplicate of a similar cabinet I had already built. And I already had built the shell, but not the top or the base. It’s taller than the first, to allow for some shelf space. I finished it recently. No in-progress pictures or even nice pictures. 🙂 But it has 21U of rack space. 19U is consumed with old Middle Atlantic TD drawers. 1U is consumed by an old rack mount PDU. The drawers are much deeper front-to-back than the PDU. Hence 1U below the PDU is a blank, which allows space for wall warts to be plugged into the PDU. The shelves are on shelf pins, so it’s easy to get to the outlets on the PDU by pulling out the lower shelf. Having the PDU here let me mount my Lutron and Hue hubs on the wall next to the Unifi in-wall HD WiFi access point. The access point is powered via PoE, but the Lutron and Hue hubs use wall warts. The Hue hub lets me control the Hue table lamps and the Hue bulbs in the floor lamps in the den via HomeKit. The Lutron hub lets me control the recessed lighting via HomeKit. I have Lutron stuff elsewhere in the house, and all of it currently uses this hub for HomeKit control (usually via Siri).
I bought most of my Middle Atlantic drawers about 25 years ago. The price has nearly tripled since that time, so I’m glad I bought so many of them way back when. They were originally in two of my server racks and a pair of MDV-R12 cabinets. I’ve been repurposing them for years. They’re durable, they happily hold more weight than I’ll ever need to put in them, I can reconfigure as desired, and they look good to me. This cabinet has two 5U drawers with locks, a 4U drawer, a 3U drawer and a 2U drawer.
Below is the other cabinet that I mostly duplicated. This one was finished in July 2022 while I was still working on the floor (hadn’t finished the shoe moulding). It’s now on the opposite side of the French doors.
Both of these cabinets are on casters, so I can move them as needed. Both are solid oak with porcelain inserts in the top that are intentionally just taller than the wood frame. So when I slide something a bit off the porcelain, it doesn’t scar the wood frame.
I’ve been working on a bench for the home office. I wanted something big enough for a short person like me to be able to lie down on (say while waiting for a make -j4 buildworld to finish on FreeBSD on slow hardware), and strong enough to outlive me and a now young oak tree to replace the wood I used.
I also wanted a little bit more drawer space. As is my penchant, I’m using Middle Atlantic TD rack mount drawers (all of my office furniture is sized to accommodate 19″ rack mounted gear). However, the bench spans the only HVAC register in the room (in the floor), and the combination of the position of the register and the width of the window bay meant that I could only put drawers in one side. For now I’m only occupying 5U of the 8U rack space, because I suspect I’m going to want a 3U fan panel to assist the HVAC when summer arrives.
The bench will be getting a cushion, of course. It is solid oak, with the base constructed of 4×4 legs and 2×4 stretchers. The top is 1 3/8″ thick oak butcher block (a workbench top), which I framed with 1×2 oak. It’s 61.5″ wide and 25.5″ deep. The height was dictated by the window sill; I didn’t want to block access to the handle in the lower window sash.
The feet are 1″ thick Delrin, bolted to the bottom of the oak legs via countersunk 5/16″-18 stainless countersunk bolts that thread into threaded inserts installed in the oak. I rough cut the Delrin, then mill the countersinks on the drill press. I then mark for the inserts in the oak.
I then drill the holes for the inserts and install them.
I then bolt the foot to the leg.
I then use a flush cutting bit on my trim router to make the feet match the leg, then run a roundover bit on the edges. Delrin/acetal machines like butter, even with woodworking tools. I use 1″ thick Delrin/acetal for heavy furniture feet, since it allows me to countersink the 5/16″-18 bolt heads more than 1/4″ (zero chance of the bolt heads contacting a floor for the next 75 years), while still having a lot of Delrin/acetal grabbed by the bolts. It’s not cheap, but it is fantastic for this application. If this were going on a wood floor I’d round over the countersink edges, but it’s going to live on porcelain so there’s no need. When I first used these kind of feet on the desks, I used 4 bolts. But 2 is plenty.
I have more than once considered UHMW instead, mostly for the cost saving. But it doesn’t machine quite as nicely, and it’s also not terribly dimensionally stable over temperature and humidity. Of course, neither is wood, but oak sealed with shellac and polyurethane doesn’t move much. And importantly, all of the weight is sitting on the feet. I don’t want them to squish over time. My desks are REALLY heavy, but the feet have held up beautifully. Honestly, if your design affords it, I can heartily recommended Delrin/acetal for feet. But even if you don’t use Delrin/acetal… replaceable feet are awesome. Here they’re on square oak 4x4s, but Delrin/acetal is also easy to lathe if your leg ends are round.
The top also has threaded inserts in the bottom, and the base pieces bolt to the top via countersunk 5/16″-18 bolts through the stretchers from underneath. The next picture shows one of the bolts (washer not shown) threaded into one of the inserts, and an insert installed into the bottom of the top.
The next picture shows the deeply countersunk holes in one of the top stretchers (the bench is upside down here). This is from before I glued and doweled the base pieces together.
The left part of the base is doweled and glued (Titebond III) together, as is the right leg assembly. It looked like this after assembly.
The bench is heavy even without the drawers (I’d guess about 75 pounds), but the Delrin feet allow the bench to glide easily on the porcelain floor when desired.
I am one of those people that likes really solid bench seating and bedding. Something that doesn’t flex or squeak, at all. And doesn’t move unintentionally but can be moved easily as needed. And can be disassembled/reassembled should it need to be carted up/down stairs. And fits the intended space exactly.
