Center for Furniture Craftsmanship

If you want to make components that are the same size and shape repeatedly, pattern routing is an excellent skill to have in your arsenal. With pattern routing you create a template out of plywood that is used to cut identical components. Pattern routing skills can improve your woodworking creatively as well as technically.

A knife hinge is a contemporary hinge that comes in two formats; an L-shaped hinge and a straight hinge, which have different purposes and results. An L-shaped hinge allows a door to be inset and swing out and around a carcase side or leg. A straight hinge is for an overlay door where the door is covering the carcase frame, the hinge sits on the side and allows the door to swing out and away, which is used when there will be a drawer to pull beyond the door.

A rub collar or template guide is a bushing that attaches to the base plate of a router to ride against a template to cut out patterns. There are kits of guide bushings with standard sizes, but sometimes there is a need for an odd sized template guide to route a gap that is not a standard size. This video instructs you on how to make your own rub collar template guide using basic tools.

Like a regular bridle joint, a mitered bridle joint has a lot of long grain to long grain glue strength, but it has an attractive miter where the grain wraps around. This could be used on a door frame or the top of a jewelry box when a smoother aesthetic is desired. A mitered bridle joint has more steps to cut than a regular bridle joint, but this video breaks it down simply.

The band saw is an essential machine to have in the workshop. It's a machine that can do many tasks that other machines can't. One of those tasks is resawing. Resawing is basically cutting large stock down, generally in its longer length but, the band saw is also capable of cutting stock into shorter widths to dissect boards into parts that can be used for smaller components and furniture. Additionally, the band saw is the one machine in your shop that can resaw veneer.

A frame miter is just like it sounds; cutting miters on wood that will become a picture frame or door frame. This is different from a carcase miter, which is generating a box through mitering, and a different cutting process. There are multiple methods of cutting frame miters, such as using a miter fence on a table saw or using a chop saw. This video introduces a specific shop made jig to cut perfect miters.

A bridle joint is a very strong joint that has a lot of long grain to long grain glue surface and is a great option when working with smaller sized components, such as a jewelry box lid or a small cabinet door where a regular mortise and tenon might have too small a shoulder area.

A tapered leg is a popular design technique used in many types of furniture including desks, tables, dressers, and chairs. This technique gives furniture an elegant and refined look and is commonly seen in Shaker and Country style furniture. Tapers are relatively easy and can be cut in a variety of ways. This video will walk you through how to cut taper legs using a table saw or bandsaw.