This sort of technology is never off ered on conventional table saws for home shops, much less portable track saws! That is, until now, with Festool’s revolutionary new TSV 60 KEB-F-Plus Plunge-cut Saw with Scoring Function.

Typical track saws, including Festool’s family of other models, all rely on a flexible, replaceable splinter guard fixed to the edge of the guide rail to minimize splintering. There’s also often an appendage surrounding the front of the blade on the saw. Initially, the blade trims the splinter guard system so it forms a zero-clearance interface with the blade. That works great until the saw makes enough cuts to create ragged edges in the splinter guard. Then, splintering begins to happen anyway.

Diamond Precision

On the new TSV 60 saw, a 12-7/32″-diameter scoring blade with a single diamond tooth spins clockwise, just ahead of the blade. It creates a clean, shallow kerf that prevents the primary blade from lifting wood fibers or fragile melamine when the teeth rise up and out of the cut. This way, the bottom face of what’s being cut is cut cleanly by the primary blade as usual, and so is the more challenging top face. Festool aims this scoring feature at the most splinter-and-chip-prone materials, including plywood, chipboard of various sorts, high-pressure laminate panels and specially veneered and plastic-coated panels.

Other Standard Features

Festool makes the scoring blade function both adjustable and able to be deactivated when needed, such as when making plunge cuts.

This saw also incorporates Festool’s proven dust collection provisions and unique KickbackStop feature, which electronically detects a kickback the instant it begins to occur and stops the motor within a fraction of a second.

The scoring blade unit is integral with the saw’s main blade housing, so tilting the tool for making bevel cuts up to 45 degrees will produce splinter-free cuts on par with those made at 0 degrees.

Festool’s EC-TEC motor with constant feedback circuitry powers the saw to ensure consistent power delivery and blade speed regardless of the cutting load. It plugs into a standard outlet with a 13-ft power cord.

The TSV-60’s 6-5/8″-diameter, 42-tooth blade will cut through material up to 2-3/8″ thick, with the saw set to 0 degrees of tilt. And blade change-outs are easy, thanks to Festool’s FastFix spindle stop, which is found on all of the company’s track saw models. The saw fits other Festool guide rails as well, including the FSK Cross Cutting Guide Rail.

Nova Neptune

Motor: EC-TEC, 115-volt

Primary Blade: 6-5/8″-diameter thin kerf, 42-tooth

Scoring Blade: 1-27/32″-diameter diamond tooth

Maximum Cutting Depth: 2-3/8″

Power Cord Length: 13.12 ft

Weight: 13.23 lbs

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Early in my woodworking hobby, I got caught up in the desire to start stockpiling wood — especially when it seemed like a great deal. At the time, Joe, my mailman, would drive by the house and see me in my garage, busily working away on something or other. He could hear the whine of my woodworking machines and put two and two together.

“Hey, I cut down a walnut tree a couple of years ago and had it sliced into boards,” he informed me one day. “Want to buy some?”

It was the siren call I really didn’t need to hear, but her alluring voice was just too sweet to resist. The next afternoon, I was in his backyard shuffling through a stack of grayed walnut boards. The board price was low — around $1.50. Before long I was tossing boards into my van with almost reckless abandon. I bought to my price limit.

But reality sunk in when I got home. I had purchased far more than I could fit in my crowded garage, and looking at each piece more carefully, the bows, twists, cups, splits and loose knots I had failed to notice in Joe’s backyard were suddenly obvious. What had I done?

My thrill of a great deal turned out to be a humbling experience. In the end, I made a fair number of smaller projects from that walnut, and much of it was decent quality. Some of it was even exceptional! I relished every board that revealed beautiful heartwood, and I gained a new appreciation of all the creamy sapwood on other pieces. I still have a little of that walnut left today after all these years. It serves as a reminder to keep my enthusiasm in check … and to only put on my plate what I can actually eat.

Have you ever heard the same siren call? Please share your story and any lessons you learned from it!

Chris Marshall, Woodworker’s Journal

Food-safe Finish Options

Rounding Gouge Heels

Dovetailed Printer Stand

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Preparing a Long Panel

There are only four parts on this stand’s Material List, so its modest lumber requirement provides a nice opportunity to try an exotic or figured wood you wouldn’t normally choose. I settled on a piece of swirly grained bubinga. Its irregular pattern and reddish color reminds me of marble more than wood!

Whatever species you choose, rip and crosscut enough 3/4″-thick stock to glue up a panel measuring 16″ wide by 48″ long. Joint and plane the boards carefully to minimize the glue seams as much as possible, then glue and clamp them up. When the joints dry and the panel comes out of the clamps, plane, scrape or sand any uneven glue seams flat, and sand the panel up to 120-grit.

The reason for beginning with a single panel is so you can harvest the individual workpieces from it to harmonize the grain pattern. Square up the ends of the panel. Then, starting from one end, mark an 8″ length for one side panel, a 16-1/2″-long piece next to it for the top panel and another 8″ piece after that for the other side panel. Crosscut the parts to rough size. What’s left of the panel is the shelf. Trim it to 15-1/2″ wide and 15″ long. Finish up this step by trimming the sides to 7-1/2″ long and the top to its final length of 16″.

Starting with Tails

There’s no shame in cutting through dovetails with a router and a dovetail jig, if you’d rather do that. But I like the ability to create narrower pins than my dovetail jig will allow and the freedom to space the pattern as I choose — two big advantages of cutting dovetails by hand.

If you like the look of the dovetail pattern shown on the facing page and in the Drawings, we’ll start by laying out the tails on the two side panels. Grab a sharp marking gauge and scribe a baseline for the tails all the way around the top ends of both side panels. Set these scribe lines about 1/32″ wider than the thickness of the top panel (this way, the tops of the tails will protrude slightly above the top panel when the joints are assembled).

Now lay out the center points of the pins every 2″ across the tops of the sides. This spacing will create a half socket on both ends of the side panels and six pin sockets in between. I did this by first clamping both side panels together with their ends and edges aligned and their “show” faces pointing outward. That way, I could mark the center points on one board and extend the layout lines across to the other board so the sockets would align perfectly.

The tops of the pin sockets are 1/4″ wide, so mark those next on both sides of each center line. I then set the angles of the tails to 1:6 (about 10 degrees). It makes the bottoms of the pin sockets 1/2″ wide. Use a fine-lead mechanical pencil and either a bevel gauge or a dovetail saddle square to draw the tail shapes down to the baselines on both side panels. Unclamp the side panels and complete the tail layouts on their inner faces, too. Do yourself a favor right now, and mark the pin sockets with black Xs to avoid confusion later. These are the waste areas to remove.

You’re now ready to saw the tails down to the baselines with a dovetail saw, following your angled layout lines. Many will cut these freehand. But if you’re less than confident that you can saw squarely and accurately, there’s another option that makes the process very easy. A number of years ago, I tried out a clever and simple aluminum jig, designed by British woodworker David Barron, that guides the saw blade while making the tail and pin cuts. Rare-earth magnets hold the saw blade at the correct angle while you saw to minimize angle-cutting errors. You can learn more about it at Barron’s website, and on his YouTube videos.

To use the jig, position its angled face toward you and rest the portion of the jig below the magnet on the tail board’s top edge. Carefully align one or the other angled edge of the jig with a tail line, hold or clamp the jig securely and set the saw blade against the jig’s magnetic face. Then start the saw cut with a long, gentle stroke and proceed to cut down to the baseline. Repeat this for every tail layout line on both side panels.

Now remove the waste in the pin socket areas, marked with Xs. To do this, some woodworkers chop all the waste out with just a chisel. I prefer to saw the waste out with a fretsaw first, leaving just a bit of waste at the bottom of each pin socket. Then, I chop and pare the rest of the waste away with the blade registered at the baseline. I work carefully in from one face until about half the waste is removed. When I make these chopping cuts, I tip the handle of my chisel about a degree or two closer to me so I’m slightly undercutting the bottoms of the sockets. When half the waste is removed from all the sockets, I flip the panel over so I can remove the remaining waste by chopping in from the other face. Doing this prevents the chisel from chipping the bottom outer edges of the sockets.

When the sockets are cleaned out, make sure their baselines are flat through the thickness of the side panels. This will enable the pins to slide into them squarely when the joints are assembled. Check the baselines with the blade of a square extended through the sockets; it should rest evenly across them on the baselines. Pare away any remaining waste that prevents this from happening.

Carefully saw off the tiny half-pin socket waste from the back corners of the side panels and the longer front wastepiece. I did this at the band saw with each side workpiece registered against a rip fence and the blade cutting just to the waste side of the baseline.

Shaping the Pins

With the tails now cut to shape, rip the top panel to its final 14″ width. Clamp it to the edge of your bench with an end facing up, and lay the correct side panel over it on your benchtop.

Align the edges of both panels, and adjust the tail board carefully so its baseline is aligned with the inside face of the top panel. Clamp the tail board in place. Carefully transfer the angled tail pattern onto the end of the top panel to mark for the pins.

Use a sharp, thin-bladed marking or pocketknife to incise these lines into the top panel’s end grain. Then flip the top panel so its other end is up and repeat the pin-scribing process using the other tail board.

Grab your marking gauge, again set 1/32″ deeper than the thickness of the side panels, to scribe baselines across the faces and ends of the top panel. Then draw straight lines down from the knifed lines on the end grain to the baselines to complete the pin shapes. Mark the large tail socket waste areas with Xs.

Go ahead and saw straight down to the baselines to cut the angled faces of the pins. Again, my Barron jig helped me guide these cuts easily by flipping its orientation around for the pin cuts. Aim as accurately as you can to literally split these layout lines with the saw blade — it will help to minimize the amount of paring you’ll have to do next.

Saw or chop out the large waste pieces in the tail socket areas. Effectively, the process is the same as when cutting out the pin socket areas, but there’s just more waste to remove. Use wider chisels to help speed the process along, and work carefully when you’re chiseling up to the baselines to keep them straight and evenly aligned with one another.

Now, fit the corner joints together, one joint at a time. If you’ve cut carefully, the pins and tails should engage one another snugly, right from the start. If they don’t, you’ve got some paring to do to improve the fit.

The goal here is to pare away as little material as possible so the joints will close without creating gaps between the pins and tails. But, if you remove too little, the panels could crack when tapping the joints together. Pare only from the angled, inside faces of the pins, leaving the tails alone. Work slowly and carefully until the joints fit together.

Installing the Shelf

The dovetails are the hardest part of this project, so it’s downhill from here! Chuck a 3/8″ straight or spiral bit in your router table, and raise it to 1/4″ cutting height so we can plow a groove on the inside face of each side panel for the shelf’s stub tenons. Set and lock the router table’s fence 31-1/16″ away from the back of the bit. Identify the cutting limits of the bit by drawing a pair of long vertical lines on the router table fence to mark the bit’s position. This way, you’ll know where to begin and end these groove cuts accurately — they stop 3/4″ from the front ends of the side panels.

Mark the outside faces of the side panels so you can stop the groove cuts accurately. (We’ll be routing these panels with their bottom flat edges against the fence.) Go ahead and plow grooves, then square up their rounded ends with a chisel. When that’s done, cut a 3/8″-thick stub tenon on each end of the shelf. I did this step at the table saw with a wide dado blade buried partially in a sacrificial fence. Trim the front corners off the tenons, shortening their width to 15-1/4″.

Dry-assemble the sides, top and shelf to make sure the dovetail joints close fully with the shelf in place and the sides are square to the top.

Adding Curves and Finishing Up

Disassemble the project so you can use double-sided tape to stick the side panels together in a stack with their inside faces touching. Mark one side panel for the large arch that forms the stand’s 2″-wide “feet” on the bottom edge. I made the apex of this arch 2″ and used a large French curve to create the shape. Draw the smaller curve from the front half pin socket down to the front edge of the side panel 4-1/4″ up from the front foot. Saw these curves into the ganged side panels at the band saw. Then sand the curves smooth and fair.

Give all the stand’s parts a final sanding before assembling them. Spread glue on just the dovetails, and clamp up the project with the shelf dry-fitted in place. This way, you can remove the shelf after the glue dries to prefinish it and the interior surfaces of the project next. My bubinga certainly needed no stain, so I simply sprayed it with three coats of aerosol satin lacquer. Once that was done, I flattened the protruding dovetail joints, glued the shelf into its grooves and sprayed the outer surfaces of the project.

Allow a week for the finish to cure, then this office machine stand is ready for use. And you’ll have another hand-cut dovetailed project under your belt!

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

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Are you a member of a woodworking guild? There’s one in my city, but I haven’t gotten involved with it yet. I probably should, especially after learning about a special guild in Greenville, South Carolina.

If you’re a subscriber to the print magazine, you’ve probably read our April “Shop Talk” article about the Greenville Woodworkers Guild. To say that it’s a unique organization is an understatement. These folks share a 20,000-square-ft shop space that would be the envy of any technical college! Highly organized, their mission involves three tenets: educating members, educating the public about woodworking as an art and charitable works. They take all three commitments very seriously. And for $150 per year, plus initial shop training, members have full access to the facilities with all its amenities. But even better, they have the opportunity to share in woodworking as a community activity.

How has being a member of a woodworking guild benefitted your hobby and your life as a woodworker? I’d love to hear about it, and I’m sure fellow readers would, too! Maybe that would give me the nudge to attend the next guild meeting where I live and expand my horizons.

If you’re a subscriber and haven’t read the “Shop Talk” article yet, please do! (If you’re not a subscriber, you can pick up a copy of the April issue at Rockler stores or at www.rockler.com.)

Chris Marshall, Woodworker’s Journal

Nova Neptune Lathe

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I’ve used a table saw regularly for more than 30 years, and thankfully, I’ve never been injured by accidental contact with the blade. It only takes a split second to become seriously injured if a finger or hand tangles with a spinning blade. Conventional table saws are fundamental to woodworking, but there’s an implicit danger to using them.

Last November, the Consumer Products Safety Commission proposed a rule under the Consumer Product Safety Act to issue a safety standard addressing blade-contact injuries on table saws. The rule would require all table saws to “limit the depth of cut to no more than 3.5 mm” when a test probe, acting as a surrogate for a human finger, contacts the spinning blade at a rate of 1 meter per second.

What would that mean for new saws? Well, they’d need to come equipped with active skin-sensing technology that prevents catastrophic blade-related accidents from happening.

SawStop CEO Matt Howard said, “Opponents of the proposed rulemaking have identified this patent as their key obstacle to offering safer saws. We invest heavily in safety innovation, and our patents have real value. Even so, we will not allow this patent to be an obstacle to a safer future. To that end, SawStop is prepared to dedicate this ‘840 patent to the public upon the effective date of a rule requiring active injury mitigation technology on all table saws.”

Surely, this news will stir things up, but I hope we all can agree that a safer table saw — in whatever form that might take — stands to enrich the experience of woodworking by taking one more danger out of the equation.

You can read SawStop’s February press release on the matter by clicking here.

Chris Marshall, Woodworker’s Journal

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Last October, Rockler announced its #TryThatChallenge, encouraging participants to tackle a new project using tools, methods or products they’ve never tried before. It was a smashing success! The three prizewinners are Kyle Hagerty, from Atlanta, in first place with his Twisted Side Table; James Waugh III, in second place for an ultra-modern Bent Lamination Office Chair; and Lia Parker, third-place winner, constructed a Carved Hand Chair you have to see to believe.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out all the contest entries — and please do! — you can see them here.

Woodworking is one of those hobbies that offers a lifetime of new techniques, designs, materials and wood species to try! And expanding our boundaries as craftspeople is where personal growth happens. If your woodworking feels as though it’s getting a little stale, ask yourself when the last time was that you tried something entirely new. I’ll bet that turns things around in no time.

Congratulations #TryThatChallenge winners and all others who participated! Keep up the great work.

Chris Marshall, Woodworker’s Journal

March/April 2024 What’s in Store

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When Rob Johnstone announced his retirement from Woodworker’s Journal last fall, MANY of you wrote in to share well wishes. Some of your comments were tinged with sadness, as though your favorite woodworking buddy was suddenly moving out of state. Totally understandable. Rob’s editorials and woodworking expertise enriched both the Weekly and our print magazine for many years. His good-natured humor, occasional poetic license and self-effacing honesty about the ups and downs of home woodworking were always worth the read. (I should know — I’ve read every one of them.)

For those who wonder what’s up with that guy these days, I have good news. Rob recently launched a website where you can follow all his woodworking exploits! In fact, he’s embarking on a Nakashima-inspired coffee table this month. Because, retired or not, you can’t keep that woodworker down!

I hope you’ll check out his new site, bookmark it and leave a supportive comment when the inspiration hits. I’m sure he’ll love to hear from you!

Chris Marshall, Woodworker’s Journal

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All of this stuff has needed organization for some time, and with this gluing supplies caddy, I think I have the solution. On top it’s amply sized to hold all the glue options, plus a quart of mineral spirits for checking for glue splotches and a small pail and sponge for cleaning up squeeze-out. Underneath, there’s a drawer for storing a bunch of glue brushes, a putty knife and my new Rockler glue bottle caps. The drawer is divided and slides out from either the front or back of the caddy to make it easier to find what I need. It’s held closed with pairs of rare-earth magnets to keep it from sliding open when I carry the caddy from where I’ll keep it to the bench for use. If your gluing supplies could use tidying up too, that’s a good excuse to commit some energy and a bit of lumber to this project on a Saturday morning sometime soon.

Building the Carcass

Get this build underway by gluing up panels for the carcass sides from 3/4″ stock, as needed. Rip and crosscut them to final size, according to the Material List. Then cut a pair of workpieces for the carcass front and back to size.

The front, back and side panels connect with 1/2″ box joints. I made them on the router table with Rockler’s box joint jig and a 1/2″-dia. upcut spiral bit. But, you could also make them on the table saw with a 1/2″-wide dado blade and a shop-made jig. Raise the bit or blade to 3/4″ so the pins and slots of the joints will enable the workpieces to mesh completely together. Start the joints with a pin at the top edges of the front and back pieces, and machine the pattern across the full width of these two parts. Then use them as spacers to mill a mating joint on the top edges of both side panels. Here, there should be a slot that starts the pattern. Mill four slots and three pins only.

Next, install a 1/4″ straight or spiral bit in your router table so you can plow 1/4″-deep grooves on the inside faces of the front, back and sides for the caddy’s top deck. Adjust your router table’s fence so these grooves align with the bottom edge of the bottom pin on the front and back panels. Plow them the full length of the workpieces.

Use the same router table setup to plow grooves for the deck on the side panels. This time, however, mark the cutting limits of the router bit on the fence so you can start and stop these groove cuts 1/2″ in from the front and back ends of the side panels in order to hide them when the carcass is assembled. Square up the ends of the grooves with a chisel.

Now you can cut a 1/4″-thick deck panel to size — I used MDF for mine. Prepare a 3/4″-thick bottom panel, too. Then go ahead and dry-assemble the six carcass parts you’ve made up to this point to ensure that the box joints close properly with the deck and bottom panel in place. If they do, sand the inside faces of the front, back, side and bottom panels up to 180-grit.

How you’ll install the bottom panel in the carcass is entirely up to you. I decided to use biscuit joints and machined four evenly spaced #20 biscuit slots into the adjacent surfaces of the bottom and side panels for this purpose.

As you can see, the drawer can be opened from either end of the caddy. And since this project is intended to be carried where it’s needed, it’s a good idea to provide some provision for a drawer “catch.” Four 3/8″-dia. rare-earth magnets can accomplish this purpose nicely! We’ll embed two magnets in the top face of the bottom panel and do the same in the bottom edges of the drawer’s front and back pieces. This way, when the drawer is closed, the pairs of magnets will attract one another and hold the drawer in place. I used a 3/8″-dia. Forstner bit to drill shallow holes for the magnets in the inside face of the bottom panel and then glued the magnets into place with quick-setting two-part epoxy. Make sure the top faces of the magnets are flush with the panel’s face.

Next, spread glue over the pins and slots of the four box joints and into the biscuit slots, and clamp the carcass together with the deck, bottom panel and biscuits in place. When the glue cures, rip and crosscut two strips of 1/4″-thick scrap to create drawer guides. Glue and clamp them to the bottom of the deck inside the drawer “tunnel,” with their long outer edges flush against the carcass sides.

Adding the Handle

Cut a blank for the handle to size, as outlined in the Material List. If you’re building your caddy from solid lumber as I did, make sure to orient the grain direction so the long grain will be parallel to the handle’s top grip (the grain should run horizontally when the handle is in place on the caddy). Lay out the handle’s shape, using the Handle Drawing as a guide.

Now step over to your band saw to cut out the handle, or use a handheld jigsaw. Sand the cut edges and faces of the handle smooth. Then ease the sharp edges of the portion of the handle that will extend above the carcass with a router and 1/8″-radius roundover bit. Or break these edges with sandpaper.

Cut a divider for the upper area of the caddy to size from 3/4″ material. It should fit snugly between the side walls of the carcass. Center the front end of the handle on the length of the divider, and fasten the parts together by driving #8 x 2″ countersunk screws through the divider and into the handle.

Slide the handle assembly into place on the caddy. Drive more countersunk screws through the sides and back of the caddy to secure the divider and back end of the handle. Cover the exposed screwheads, if you wish, with matching wood plugs. Trim the plugs flush and sand them smooth.

Assembling the Drawer

Joint and plane enough 1/2″ stock to make the drawer’s front, back, sides and drawer divider. Cut the parts to size. We’ll assemble the drawer with box joints to mimic those on the caddy. Set up your box joint-making system again, only this time, adjust the cutter height to 1/2″. I arranged the pattern so the drawer faces would have pins on their top and bottom edges. Mill all four corner joints.

Just as before with the carcass, dry-fit the corner joints. If all looks good, plow a 1/4″ x 1/4″ groove for the drawer’s bottom panel into the inside faces of all four parts. Locate these grooves 1/2″ up from the bottom edges of drawer workpieces. That placement enables you to rout the grooves along the full length of the drawer front and back. Stop the grooves 1/4″ in from the ends of the drawer sides so they won’t show.

I decided to install the drawer divider with dadoes rather than simply nail or screw it to the sides, because sometimes a rogue nail will go sideways when driven into such thin material. I used a 1/2″-wide dado blade set 1/8″ above the table to plow dadoes all the way across the width of the drawer sides for the divider panel. I located these dadoes 8-1/4″ from the same ends of the drawer sides.

After you cut a 1/4″-thick bottom panel and a divider to size, fit all the drawer parts together without glue to make sure the joints close correctly. If they do, sand the inside faces of the parts up to 180-grit. Then glue and clamp the drawer together. Make sure the corners remain square under clamping pressure; the diagonal corner-to-corner measurements of the drawer should match.

Once the glue dries, mark and drill a centered hole into the bottom faces of the drawer front and back for the other pair of magnets. Epoxy them into place, but before you do that, make sure to orient them so their polarity will attract the magnets in the carcass bottom instead of repel them.

Finishing Up

Finish-sand the outer surfaces of the caddy and drawer, and break all sharp edges either with sandpaper or a 1/8″ roundover bit. Then measure and mark a center point on the outer faces of the drawer front and back, and bore a 3/16″-dia. hole through each for a machine screw to attach the drawer knobs.

Apply finish to your new caddy. I wiped on several coats of Rockler’s Sam Maloof Poly/Oil Finish — it’s an amber-toned oil/varnish blend — to make the most of the grain pattern and color of my caddy’s southern yellow pine.

When the topcoat cures, install the two drawer knobs and fill this handy shop project up with your collection of glues and applicators. I attached a hook to the back of the handle for hanging Rockler’s 5″ Glue Roller and mounted a Glue Bottle Dock to the front with a couple of machine screws.

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

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Several weeks ago, I asked to hear about your woodworking heroes. Three of you replied with wonderful examples! Please be sure to read them in today’s Feedback section.

A fourth reader simply offered this: “Norm Abram. Need I say more?”

How many of us over the age of 40 were influenced by “The New Yankee Workshop” show on PBS? I’ll venture to guess nearly all of us of that vintage eagerly tuned in on Saturday mornings for that glorious half-hour program. I rarely missed it. Norm had a shop that was the envy of every home woodworker on a budget. He used fantastic lumber to build a wide range of projects using methods that seemed both doable and fun. The show set a new standard for DIY woodworking education and gave so many of us the push we needed to venture into this fine craft.

I think it was Norm’s unassuming, welcoming demeanor that did it for me. He seemed like that father/uncle/buddy with the skills and gentle temperament to teach but without the ego to need to be recognized for it. I was hooked — both on his woodworking and how the show convinced me that building a project is really telling a story. And that influence, plus several lucky opportunities, is why I’ve had the great fortune to spend the past 23 years of my career building projects and telling their stories.

He was the shop teacher of a class that devoted viewers would never dream of skipping. Norm Abram a hero? For me, absolutely.

Chris Marshall, Woodworker’s Journal

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