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It didn't smell particularly strongly even before I planed it. Afterwards, it smells like wood to me. Maybe I was just lucky with whatever the coating is.

I'm not sure what I planned to make today, but it certainly wasn't this... Today I made some bookmarks: There's a bit of a back story to these (although it's probably not very interesting!) A year or two ago when we were emptying out my father-in-law's house & sheds, we came across four...

I use the same one. It's very good and I prefer it over my fancier marking knives.

When I was looking around, I generally found that most available socket head cap screws were either stainless or high tensile. Stainless tends to be a bit soft in my experience and I wanted the socket head to last a long time so I went with high tensile. I'm not aware of anywhere you can get a...

It also pays to keep an eye on prices for a while before you buy. I tend to watch things on a few different sites (including uk.camelcamelcamel.com as well as some more normal ones) for a while so I know what the normal price is. That way you're much less likely to get sucked in by special...

For FFX, it's worth keeping an eye on the ebay general special offers. They periodically do "20% off from selected sellers" and the selected sellers often include FFX. The FFX ebay prices are higher than on the FFX website, but with the 20% off it's often the cheapest way. FFX seem to have...

I did much the same thing as you're trying to do (I have the same router). If you don't have a die I'd be happy to thread a bolt for you. This is what mine ended up looking like: It gets a bit shabby over such a long length, but it does the job perfectly. In place: I've since used the...

I'd never tried making a box before and I figured it would be good to have a go and use the project as an opportunity to practise hand tool woodworkery. No designs were involved in the making of this box: I just made it up as I went along in a rather haphazard way! Everything was...

It seems okay to me at the moment. If I write "color" [sic] it complains, but if I write colour it doesn't. It might be to do with the language you've got set up in your web browser. What web browser are you using?

I've got a 1250 W, 3600 litres/minute vacuum cleaner (one of these). I have very, very little space in my workshop so I made myself a dust bucket rather than buying one of the bins. This also has the advantage of it being solid and therefore unlikely to compress. It's made out of MDF (the...

Smart idea. That's a similar idea to how they build grain silos:

I'd be interested in this too. I've read lots of things saying you should avoid "woods with a lot of tannin, like oak", but I've been unable to find a source that explains how much tannin different woods have, so I didn't find that especially helpful (apart from that I should avoid oak!). I...

Awww, thanks!

Made myself an oak (ridiculous I know, but it's what I've got) back-to-front overdesigned bench hook: The right-hand end is use with backless Japanese (pull) saws - either in the slot, which is the width of my Japanese saw's kerf or on the end (which has magnets glued into it to keep the saw...

Eh?

My SWAG† would be that it's a combination of its tendency to tarnish and the fact it's an absolute pig to machine. I think brass is also stronger and a lot of people like the brass colour more. † Scientific Wild Ar*e Guess

Just went out and measured them - one is 320 mm and one is 270 mm. I'd err towards the longer length if I were you (and 400 mm would be better). If it were me ordering something specially, I'd get a couple of 500 mm bars and if they became too cumbersome then a hacksaw would soon sort that out...

It's largely up to you to be honest. The longer they are, the further you can have the fence from the router. The shorter they are, the more restrictive it is. My scientific wild ar*e guess would be that my 8 mm bars are about 300 mm to 400 mm long, but I can measure them if you like. Mine...

Metric? Chance would be a fine thing 😭 . I work entirely in metric, but very, very few books seem to share my belief that the 19th century is best left behind... Anyway, I really like the Taunton's Illustrated Guide to Box Making (Taunton's Complete Illustrated Guide to Box Making (Complete...

I've got both the little Makita trimmer and the big Makita router. The big router came with the large parallel guide you've linked to above. As you've said, it won't fit the trimmer directly, but two 8 mm steel bars is all you need to attach it to the trimmer's plunge base. The parallel guide...