Wood and Weather
We all know that weather affects wood outdoors. Sometimes the effect is even desirable, as weather grays wood and makes it look old.
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Technology Challenges
If you were to add up all the technological stuff we have around our houses, it might be a bushel basket of wires and devices: the laptop computer, the mp3 player, the cell phone, the game system, the e-book reader; for a family, multiply by the number of family members because each person is likely to have this stuff. It would be nice to have one wireless device to take care of all our needs, however, there is a physical limitation.
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Field Guide to Large Power Tools: Saws
There are two basic types of large saws: miter and table. The miter saw consists of a large, often twelve inches, blade that you lower onto the wood you are cutting, making cross cuts (cuts across the grain). Sometimes these saws have tubes so you can slide the blade back and forth a short way. The table saw is a table with a blade (seven or ten inches) in the middle. You can rip a large piece of wood (saw with the grain), such as a sheet of plywood, the long way through a table saw.
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Selecting Small Power Tools
If you have used hand tools for any amount of time for drilling holes, driving screws, or hammering nails, then the first time you use a power tool for the same job, you will feel an incredible sense of possibility. Things don’t take near as long to do or require a large amount of human energy. You feel like you can do anything. Power tools also make routine tasks of building a smaller piece of the whole package, leaving more time for creativity.
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A Field Guide to Large Power Tools: Jointers and Planers
Both the jointer and the planer operate on the same principle: a series of knives on a roller pass over or under the surface of a piece of wood, taking off a tiny layer such as 1/32nd of an inch. Where they differ is in their purpose as well as the dimension of wood used in them.
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An Old Paint Job
If you have an item of furniture that needs to be painted because the wood is not beautiful enough for stain and polyurethane, then you might consider giving it an old paint job. Or perhaps you have just made your first woodworking project but you want it to look like it has been in the family for generations.
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Hanging Things on the Wall
When you decide to hang a picture or a hat rack on a wall, of course you want the item to stay on the wall and not come crashing down in the middle of the night, scaring the dog who then wakes all the neighbors with his barking. In order to hang something successfully, you need to take into account a number of factors.
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Electric Dryer Maintenance
Although many household appliances are complex, the electric dryer is actually fairly simple. It consists of a motor that spins the drum, a heat element, some controls, a way to get rid of damp air, and a lint filter. While you can occasionally have problems with the drum not spinning or the heating element going bad, most of the time a dryer problem is caused by lint clogging the drier itself or the air duct. This is easy to fix.
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Sticky Stuff
When it comes to mending things, you have a wide choice of glue and tape to help you out. Here are some of your options.
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Basic Tools
You can go very far in the world of light home maintenance with a hammer, a screw driver, and a pair of pliers. First, though, it is necessary to get tools of reasonable quality because bad tools are not just worthless but potentially dangerous.
Getting a “New” Kitchen Using “Elbow Grease”
When a new kitchen is installed, part of what makes it attractive is the fact that it is one hundred percent clean. Older kitchens have little semi-hidden pockets of crumbs, crud, and grease. When we attack the kitchen with our normal cleaning, we may miss these little places and yet they are visible enough to say “this is an old kitchen.”
