Furniture, jigs, and shop projects in wood.
Tool ·
Kerf spacing, depth and count for a radius (with the deflection test), bent laminations with ply thickness from each species' strength and stiffness, springback and form compensation, steam bending times and the tightest radius with and without a strap, and arcs from chord and rise for laying out forms — all drawn to scale.
Tool ·
A searchable reference of 100+ hardwoods, softwoods and sheet goods — Janka hardness, density, radial, tangential and volumetric shrinkage, decay resistance, workability, gluing and finishing notes, health cautions, CITES and IUCN status, uses and substitutes — with a picker that ranks species for what you are making and a side-by-side comparison.
Tool ·
Segmented turning from a vessel profile — rings by height, segments per ring, mitre angle, segment lengths and widths, strip length with kerf, a staggered brick pattern, feature rings, ring plans, a side view and a printable cut list — plus lathe speed by diameter, stave construction angles for straight and tapered vessels, and turning blanks from a log.
Tool ·
Check a DXF before it goes to the laser or router — units and inch/mm mix-ups, open contours with their gap sizes, duplicate and overlapping lines, tiny segments, splines and ellipses, text that is not exploded, blocks, layers and colours, and features too small for the bit or kerf — then fix what can be fixed and export a clean R12 DXF or SVG.
Tool ·
Every GRBL $-setting for an X-Carve (500/750/1000 mm, X-Carve Pro), a Shapeoko or a generic GRBL router, computed and explained, compared with your controller's $$ and written back one at a time — plus calibration: steps/mm, squaring, tram, switches, touch plate, spoilboard surfacing and bit feeds.
Tool ·
Plan a tiled floor or wall to scale — straight, ½ or ⅓ offset, herringbone or diagonal — with the layout shifted to avoid slivers, every cut size, the starting lines to snap, tiles and boxes, thinset and grout; plus drywall sheets chosen for the fewest butt joints with screws, mud and tape, paint by surface and coat, and plank or sheet flooring.
Tool ·
Roof pitch ↔ angle ↔ rise/run; common, hip, valley and jack rafters with the birdsmouth, ridge reduction and speed-square marks drawn to scale; gable studs; rafter, ceiling-joist and header sizes from the IRC span tables; a stud-by-stud wall take-off with headers; and shingles, sheathing, underlayment, drip edge and ridge cap for the roof.
Tool ·
Size a shop's compressed air: the SCFM your tools need with their duty cycles, your compressor against it with tank pump-down and recovery times and starts per hour, pipe pressure drop for copper, black iron, aluminium or PEX-AL-PEX (Darcy–Weisbach and a rule of thumb), how much water the air drops and its dew point, and the motor's current and circuit.
Tool ·
Lay out a dust-collection duct system as a tree — mains, branches and machines with their recommended airflow — and see the air speed in every run, the static-pressure loss from friction (Darcy–Weisbach with Colebrook) and fittings, the worst machine with one or two gates open, and the operating point where the system curve meets your collector's fan curve.
Tool ·
Icosahedral geodesic domes 1V–6V (class I) — whole spheres, 3V 3/8 and 5/8, 2V/4V/6V halves, or any hub ring — with strut types, chord factors, lengths and counts, hub types and the angles at them, dihedral angles, floor size, height, surface and volume, panel templates (fabric seam allowance or ply edge bevels), a cut list packed into your stock lengths, and a 3-D preview coloured by strut; plus Platonic solids and the truncated icosahedron as fold-up lamp-shade templates.
Tool ·
Is it safe to cut? A materials table for CO₂, diode and fibre lasers and CNC routers with the reason for each rating, how to identify an unknown plastic without burning it, and a settings library per machine — starting points for 40–80 W CO₂ and 5–20 W diode lasers, scaling by wattage, JSON, CSV and LightBurn .clb export, and printable test cards.
Tool ·
Price a job for a member or a customer — sheet goods by area, filament and resin by weight, consumables, machine time at each machine's member and non-member rate (the laser estimated from cut length and speed), labour, design time, setup, waste and markup, discount, VAT or sales tax and a deposit — and print the quote with its line items and terms. Saved quotes, duplicates, any currency.
Tool ·
Primary and micro-bevel angles for chisels, plane irons, gouges, knives, axes, scissors and drills by steel (O1, A2, PM-V11, D2, HSS, carbon, VG-10, stainless); a honing-guide projection calculator with the geometry derived and calibration from your guide's chart; a printable projection jig and laser-cut angle gauge (SVG and DXF); JIS / FEPA / micron grit conversion; and knife-sharpener rod angles.
Tool ·
Nest DXF and SVG parts (or built-in shapes) true-shape onto sheets and remnants — quantities, gap and kerf, rotations, mirroring, grain lock, small parts inside holes — with a genetic search you can stop at any time, utilisation and cut length, and each sheet exported as SVG or R12 DXF with the original arcs.
Tool ·
Plan a workshop's circuits — US 120/240 V split-phase or UK/EU 230/400 V three-phase — with breakers, wire and run lengths, and the machines on each (table saws, dust collectors, compressors, welders, kilns, lasers, 3-D printers, heaters, lights): what can run at once under the 80 % continuous rule, which motor starts will trip the breaker, voltage drop running and on start, three-phase currents, and a load schedule to print. A planning aid, not a substitute for an electrician.
Tool ·
Plan a reach-in or walk-in closet as sections — double hang, long hang, medium hang, shelves, drawers and shoe shelves — with rod heights from published closet guidance, rod and shoe capacity, elevations, plan and isometric, a cut list for the towers, shelves and drawer boxes, a shopping list, and install steps.
Tool ·
Joists, beams, posts and footings from the American Wood Council's DCA 6 span tables by species, grade and spacing, ledger fastener spacing, decking and guards, a framing plan, section and isometric, cut and shopping lists, build steps, and an optional pergola — a planning aid, not engineering.
Tool ·
Drawer box sizes from the opening and the slide maker's published clearances (Blum TANDEM and MOVENTO, Accuride 3832), joinery allowances and fronts; cabinet doors full overlay, half overlay or inset with reveals, Euro hinge cup boring and hinge count, and shaker rail, stile and panel sizes — with drawings, cut list, steps and a print view.
Tool ·
Plan an epoxy pour from start to finish — volume from a river-table outline, a rectangle, a cylinder, or area × depth; mix by volume or weight; the product's maximum pour depth turned into pours and waits; waste, kits and cost; the melamine form with a cut list; plan, section and isometric drawings; and step-by-step instructions.
Tool ·
Draw a building floor by floor — walls with clean joins, doors, windows, stairs, rooms with their areas, dimensions, labels and scale-true furniture — over an imported plan image you calibrate and trace by hand or with automatic wall detection, see it in 3D, and export SVG, PNG, DXF (a layer set per floor) or JSON, or print it to scale.
Tool ·
Lay out a French cleat wall — size, cleat rows, spacing and bevel, screws into the studs or a plywood backer — and a library of holders (screwdriver rack, drill holder, shelf, bin, clamp rack, saw till), each with its own cut list, drawn in elevation, section and isometric, with a shopping list and build steps.
Tool ·
Design a bookcase, a base or wall cabinet carcass, or a workbench from its size, sheet thickness and joinery (screws, pocket screws, dados, rabbets) — joint allowances added to the cut lengths, back panel, fixed and adjustable shelves with shelf-pin holes, face frame, toe kick — with drawings, a side-panel layout, a cut list, sheet and board layouts and a shopping list from the cut list optimizer, shelf-sag checks and illustrated steps.
Tool ·
Design 2x4 garage shelving — bays of tote rails (totes hang by the lip and slide out like drawers) and fixed plywood or OSB shelves, mixed per level, free-standing or screwed to the studs — with front, side and isometric drawings, a cut list, a shopping list packed by the cut list optimizer, span checks and illustrated build steps.
Tool ·
Risers and treads from the total rise, checked against IRC R311.7 (and AWC DCA 6 for deck stairs) — stringer layout with the throat check, headroom and stairwell opening, side elevation, plan and isometric drawings, cut and shopping lists, build steps, and a 1:1 printable step template.
Tool ·
Turn an SVG or DXF drawing into G-code for a CNC router — pockets (offset or zig-zag), inside / outside profiles with tabs and lead-ins, drilling with pecks, engraving and V-carving — with a tool library fed from the router chip-load table, GRBL / LinuxCNC / Marlin output, a 3-D toolpath preview, a material-removal simulation and a time estimate.
Tool ·
Beam solver for simply supported, cantilever, propped, fixed and overhanging beams with point, uniform, triangular and moment loads — shear, moment, slope and deflection diagrams, stresses from a section-property calculator, steel, aluminium, wood and 3D-printed materials — plus Euler and Johnson column buckling and a drawable 2-D truss solver with tension, compression and member buckling.
Tool ·
Living hinges (straight, wave, diamond, honeycomb, spiral, serpentine) with a bend-radius estimate and an animated bend; the saw-kerf bending formula; finger, T-slot, egg-crate and snap-fit joints with kerf compensation and fit; a press-fit coupon, kerf test, polygons, stars and gear outlines; and nesting on sheets — as SVG with LightBurn, xTool or Glowforge layer colours, or DXF R12.
Tool ·
Your phone as a compass — magnetic or true north, with the declination worked out for where you are by the World Magnetic Model — and a spirit level: a bullseye for flat surfaces, a tube for edges, two-sided calibration, a target angle that beeps, and the slope in degrees, percent, inches per foot and mm per metre.
Tool ·
Photograph something next to a bank card or a sheet of paper, drag four handles onto the reference, and measure lengths, rectangles, and areas on that surface — perspective-corrected, with a magnifier, pinch-zoom, undo, and an annotated PNG to save.
Tool ·
Photograph a wall, then lay pictures, a TV, a shelf, or a photo of furniture over it — moved, scaled, pinned by four corners onto an angled wall, or placed at its true size by measuring against a sheet of paper or a door in the shot.
Tool ·
Board feet and cubic metres, nominal versus actual sizes for dimensional lumber and hardwood sold in quarters, prices per board foot, linear foot, piece, or m³, a lumber list with waste factor and totals, and approximate weight.
Tool ·
Tightening torque and clamp force for metric (coarse and fine) and UNC/UNF bolts in ISO, SAE, socket-head, and stainless grades — by nut factor or by thread and under-head friction — plus the preload a given torque really gives, and a table for the whole series.
Tool ·
Finger-jointed laser/CNC boxes with kerf compensation, dividers, and eight lids — including living, knuckle, side-pivot, and bought hinges with magnet catches — nested onto sheets as SVG or DXF; and 3D-printable enclosures with PCB standoffs, connector cut-outs, and a snap, friction, screw, or hinged lid (print-in-place, snap-fit, filament pin, flexure) as STL — with a 3D preview that opens the lid and flags collisions.
Tool ·
Chip load by material and bit size → feed rate, plunge, stepdown, and stepover for router bits; trim-router speed-dial settings; and V-bit depth and width geometry.
Tool ·
Lay out parts on sheet goods or boards with kerf, edge trim, grain direction, and materials; see each sheet drawn to scale, the waste, the cost, and export a CSV or a printable cut sheet.
Tool ·
How much epoxy a pour needs — rectangles, rounds, river tables, or an outline traced on a photo — minus embedded objects, split into part A and B by volume or weight, with layers, colourant, cure, and cost.
Tool ·
How much finish to buy for a list of projects, shellac pound cuts and dilution, a stain colour mixer previewed on different woods, sanding progressions, and dry and recoat times.
Tool ·
Solve any triangle from three values (including both answers of the ambiguous SSA case) with a drawing; arcs, chords, and rise; circle through three points; regular polygons with mitre angles; volumes and surface areas of solids; and coordinate geometry with shoelace area.
Tool ·
Dovetail spacing with a drawn layout and marking positions, box-joint finger counts, mortise-and-tenon proportions, dowel and Domino sizing and spacing, and drawbore offsets.
Tool ·
Power × speed test grids as GRBL G-code (settings and labels built in) or colour-coded SVG with a legend, a kerf comb and kerf calculator, a slot gauge for press-fit joints, and a focus (Z) ramp — for CO₂ and diode lasers.
Tool ·
How far a shelf sags under books or a point load, for solid woods and sheet goods by stiffness, with optional front and back stiffening strips, compared against the 0.02-inch-per-foot guideline, with a drawn deflection curve.
Tool ·
How much a board or panel will swell and shrink across its width from species shrinkage coefficients and moisture change, flatsawn versus quartersawn, equilibrium moisture content from temperature and humidity, and gaps for panels, tops, and breadboards.
Tool ·
A tape-measure fraction calculator, polygon frame miters, compound miters for splayed boxes, crown moulding angles, stair risers and treads, and arcs from chord and rise.
Project update ·
How a conversation with Bill Borsari became a walk-through history of the Amiga at the Vintage Computer Festival. It was built almost entirely at my home, some 2,500 people came through, and we finished the day with the Amies.
Project ·
A walk-through history of the Amiga, built for its 40th anniversary at the Vintage Computer Festival at the Computer History Museum, with the Amies awards in the evening.