Although she graduated from Alberta College of Art and design with a major in jewelry and metalsmithing, Amy said, “I saw my true passion was working with wood.” Upon graduation, she “bought a truck and some tools” and went to work full-time for the hand rail company.

Since then, she has also done contract work and installation, as well as furniture and design work. Now living in British Columbia, she’s employed at a high-end flooring company, where she does the stairs and custom mill work, while also building her own furniture on the side.

“My soul needs to be working with my hands,” Amy said, noting that her educational background continues to influence her in terms of how she approaches her work. “I’m working with my hands, putting things together,” she said. “My process is posing a design challenge and then coming up with a way to make that work.”

For instance, Amy said, she’s always been interested in multifunctional pieces. Back in art school, that manifested itself in her design of a bracelet that folded up into a pendant. In furniture, “I like it to have more than one purpose. I’ve always had a real interest in multifunctional furniture, things that transform or serve more than one purpose.”

One of her furniture pieces that fits that bill is the Change Table/Dresser she built for her first son. Starting with a dresser purchased on Craigslist, Amy built the accompanying changing table stand and connecting top – from hardwood flooring material that her condo owners at the time were storing in part of her storage space and gave her permission to use.

Such repurposing of material is another hallmark of Amy’s work. A bonus of her full-time job is getting to use some of the offcuts from jobs – but, “if you’ve got leftover wood, the design challenge is you only have pieces of a shorter length,” she said.

“Say we need a set of 30 box treads, all four feet long, and the boards are all six feet long. You’ve got a whole pile of two-foot offcuts.” Plus, since the wood is from flooring jobs, it’s often all prefinished in a certain color. Amy enjoys figuring out a way to work with materials like this.

She’s used offcuts to make a pattern on a coffee table, mitering all the pieces together to make them look like solid wood. “On a similar job, I had a lot of short pieces of solid wenge, but I didn’t have any long enough to do what I wanted, so I did a scarf joint and hid it so you didn’t see and it looked like one solid piece.”

Another college experience that continues to impact Amy’s work is the semester she spent as an exchange student at Australian National University in Canberra. For that semester, she switched her major to woodworking, and the program mainly focused on building a traditional ladderback wood chair, completely with hand tools.

The chair, Amy said, started out as a stump, and the students learned to build it using an axe, a spokeshave, a hand-cranked drill and a foot-powered lathe. “At the time, I was working at a job in the trades, and we were pushed to do everything so efficiently,” Amy said. “I thought it was so impractical; it felt like a step back. Now, later on in my career, I feel an appreciation for where the craft has come from. It was an incredible experience, building everything by hand.”

At this point in her career, Amy is interested in sharing her own experience with others – particularly women. “I’ve met many women at many different times in my life, who just has so much excitement about a woman in the trades, working with tools, so I started to think about teaching. Most women never thought about the possibility as something they could do.”

Having taught some apprentices in person, Amy is gearing up for online courses – she’s filming the setup of her shop – as well as hoping to offer some local, in-person, project-based workshops. Her Woodshop Girl website, where she currently offers a free download of a “Toolbox Guide,” will serve as the hub for these offerings.

“Once the momentum gets going, I want to give people a way they can understand things,” Amy said. “I’m living proof that it’s a realistic thing for a woman to find a decent living in the trades.”

The post Amy Savoie: Woodshop Girl Draws on Experience in the Trades appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

– Bill Wells
Olympia, Washington

The post Magnetic Featherboard Stop Block appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

If it’s too narrow, the jig binds on the fence. I prefer to make mine with the “B” piece overlapping “C” and butting against “A” instead. That way, I can slip a couple of playing cards next to the fence when I assemble the saddle to give it just the right amount of sliding clearance, and there’s no trial and error to get a spacer sized correctly.

– John Cusimano
Lansdale, Pennsylvania

The post Better Way to Make a Saddle Jig appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

With this new 18V LXT Sub-Compact tool duo, Makita is once again creating a new class of cordless tools with the most compact and lightest weights in the 18-volt tool category. The company is giving them an all-black trade dress to distinguish them from other similarly sized 12-volt Makita tools.

Makita’s 18V LXT Sub-Compact Brushless 1/2-in. Driver-Drill (model XFD11ZB) measures 6-3/8-in. long and weighs 2.8 lbs. with a 2.0 Ah battery attached. Its variable-speed drive has two ranges: 0 to 500 RPM and 0 to 1,700 RPM. The tool is designed for running drill and spade bits, fastening bits and moderately sized hole saws. A pair of LED lights under the chuck illuminate the work area.

The 18V LXT Sub-Compact Brushless Impact Driver (Model XDT15ZB) has two variable-speed ranges: 0 to 1,300 and 0 to 3,000 RPM. In low-speed range, it delivers up to 1,600 impacts per minute, or up to 3,900 impacts per minute in high-speed range. The tool develops up to 1,240 in. lbs. of torque for a full range of fastening applications. It also features a new Assist Mode (A-Mode) setting that helps eliminate screw cam-out by driving at a low speed until tightening begins, making it ideal for installing long fasteners. A 1/4-in. hex chuck makes it quick and easy to install fastening bits. The impact driver measures 5-5/16 in. from front to back and weighs 2.6 lbs. with a 2.0 Ah battery attached. Like the driver-drill, it is LED light equipped to help illuminate dark workspaces.

Both tools have purpose-built brushless motors that combine power and efficiency in a more compact size.

Makita is offering both 18V LXT Sub-Compact Brushless tools in a combo kit (item CX200RB) with a charger, two 18-volt LXT® 2.0 Ah batteries and a soft carry case for around $229. The driver-drill and impact driver are also available separately as bare tools, without a charger or battery, for about $119 each. Any Makita 18-volt LXT battery can be used to power these tools.

“Research on commercial and residential jobsites showed us that many contractors own both 12-volt and 18-volt tools, and if a job requires the power of a 12-volt tool, then they’ll definitely reach for the most compact tool first, says Carlos Quintana, Makita’s senior project manager for cordless tools. “18V LXT Sub-Compact Brushless tools give contractors the compact size of a 12-volt tool while remaining in the 18-volt battery platform, and they deliver the performance to cover most applications on the jobsite.”

The post Makita 18V LXT^® Sub-Compact Brushless Drivers appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

Tim Inman: On the inside of the cedar chest, I would use no finish. On the outside, use whatever finish you like. If you feel you do need something on the inside to make the surface more “snag-free,” try this: Dilute some shellac to about one part shellac and 3 or 4 parts alcohol. Apply this liberally to the cedar. One coat is the limit. Then, use a nice fine, sharp abrasive like 220 and sand the surface. The shellac is very brittle. It will sand off the surfaces quickly and leave a baby bottom-smooth surface. The area sanded through will be enough to let the cedar oils do their thing, but the shellac soaked down into the wood will keep it pretty and smooth.

Chris Marshall: I’d probably apply a coat of dewaxed shellac (Zinsser SealCoat is a good choice) to the outside of the chest before following with polyurethane, particularly if the cedar has any knots in it that might bleed resin. The shellac’s sealing properties will ensure that it won’t happen. On the other hand, the aromatic cedar lining inside does not need to be sealed, and leaving it bare is the traditional approach. When that distinctive cedar smell fades, just scuff-sand it lightly to rejuvenate the aroma.

The post Finishing a Cedar Chest? appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

-Peter Vincent

See the Gallery Below:

The post Cabinet and Table Collection appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.