The housing joint is a useful structural joint, particularly in cabinets and shelving units. It’s sometimes also called a dado joint, and is effectively a trench that’s cut across the grain of the timber, into which the end of another component is inserted. The difference between a groove and a housing is that a groove always runs along the grain, whereas a housing runs across it.
The Titan is the cheapest
machine on test. It has
a steel body with a onepiece
opening front door. The
table is made from fairly rough
alloy, and is supplied with a
rip fence and a sliding plastic
mitre fence.
The blade runs on a fairly
small pair of alloy wheels,
though it isn’t a problem to
make it track properly and
also to apply a fair amount of
tension.
The Ryobi is an attractive
piece of equipment
which has been carefully
designed, and it incorporates
some useful features. The alloy
body is well braced with a
one-piece blade access door;
somewhat surprisingly, there
are no safety interlocks on it,
so the machine will run with
the door open.
The blade runs on a pair
of fairly substantial cast alloy
wheels, and there’s a good
blade tensioning system with a
quick-release…
Woodworking is an activity that does generate a lot of mess. If you mainly use hand tools, the shavings and sawdust tend to build up at a fairly manageable rate, and a quick sweep up at the end of the day can keep the workshop tidy. However once you begin using machinery, you suddenly become capable of generating a large quantities of chippings and sawdust that will quickly overwhelm the workshop. This is the time when you realise that you will…
Saftey
Cordless drills are generally fairly safe tools. Assuming that you can avoid drilling holes in yourself, the main hazards are encountered when drilling into walls.
• Always make sure that you will not hit a mains cable, water pipe or similar obstruction. If in doubt, don’t drill. Use an electronic detector to verify the position of any hazard.
