The Secret to this Simple Wood Working Plan
are Your Woodworking Tools!
The hand tools Henry uses for this simple wood working plan. Most likely you already have most of the required tools to make a cow shaped step stool. Our friend Geppetto used a hand fret-saw to cut the shapes, perhaps because he had all the time to do it.
An electric Jig-saw is of course quicker and far more efficient, a band saw
is the next step and a CNC laser the ultimate.
You really need only one battery drill, a model with two mechanical speeds plus the electronic speed control is recommended. Henry has a 30 year old Panasonic drill, he rebuilt the 2 batteries 3 or 4 times and recently fitted a new chuck. (Hint; to remove the chuck on a battery drill, undo the screw inside the chuck. Yes, look down between the jaws. It is a left hand thread screw, so turn it clockwise to loosen). Do not forget a pair of safety glasses, and always use them because you'll find it difficult to do woodworking once you're blind. Good safety glasses with built in magnification are now available cheaply.
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You can never have too many clamps. The modern one hand clamps are a worthy investment. The fast grip bar clamp or spreaders in the picture are an amazing time saver. Once you have your own set, you will find many other uses for them. You will benefit from 4 clamps to successfully build your cow shaped step stool following our simple wood working plan.
The disc sander is another time-saving tool, it quickly removes ugly or rough saw marks from your cut wood shapes. If operated correctly, and our simple wood working plan do show you how, the disc sander will clean all your outgoing curved cuts ready for routing. A 9" disc sander with an 80 grit abrasive disc is ideal. For the ingoing curved shapes a drum sander is best. This can be a simple drill powered drum attachment to which you attach some abrasive paper or cloth, again an 80 grit is ideal. You can purchase an inexpensive disc and belt sander combination and use the front of the belt as a drum sander. Alternatively, you can build your own disc and drum sander, just like Henry did in the next picture.
Henry's homemade disc and drum sander on a 44 gallon drum stand. This combination, using two separate 1/2 hp wash-machine motors, has proven to be a robust and reliable machine. All that's missing is a guard on the disc sander. (I told you so, Henry).
Yes, a router is a dangerous machine, but with some healthy respect, it will enhance your wood working project and give it a superior finish. In the picture above is Henry's old Australian made Triton router bench, because of the metal table it is very noisy. A table made of wood does effectively absorb some of the noise. A 1000 Watt router is just right for this job.
Click the following link to see a picture of Henry's dream bench
router for the simple wood working plan.
It has a superb cutting bit height adjustment mechanism accessible from the top, and a solid wooden table.
Friendly warnings: always watch you fingers when operating a router, if you touch the rotating blade you get more than a cut, it makes a painful mess. Wear eye protection or better; a face shield, as small splinters will always fly out. Use ear-plugs or earmuffs to reduce the noise, you'll go deaf without it, just like Henry has.
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