Woodworking On The Cheap

A few years back, I purchased the Best of Danny Proulx’s Stroage and Shelving* on sale after thumbing through it at my local Rockler store. I’ve made a few projects out of this book now, and I can’t say enough good things about how much I like the plans, the writing, the pictures, and the bood.

Storage Galore

This past Christmas my brother approached me about building some inexpensive, yet utilitarian shelving for his garage. Armed with the plans from this book, a miter saw, a router, a dado jig, some help and supplies, in one day we transformed the entire back wall of his garage from useless to a utilitiarian storage space worth envy. For less than $200.

This project was completed in one day with only hand power tools. Between breakfast and supper three guys sourced materials, cut wood, assembled, installed, stocked, and cleaned up.

* Woodworking On The Cheap is not not affiliated with Amazon.com, Danny Proulx, or anyone else involved in the production and publication of this book in any way.

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In the last month, I’ve spray-finished 11 shaker style, frame & panel cabinet doors with polyurethane. I’ve been using the cheap cleaning kit from Harbour Freight, and it’s been doing an excellent job. What else can I say? The brushes work.

A lot of my comparisons happen between items found in Harbor Freight and Rockler stores. I do frequent the local Woodcraft store when I have a coupon or discount, and I do like their products, but I can’t help compare some things found in Woodcraft and Rockler to the cheap-o versions I can get at Harbor Freight.

The other day I found myself at Rockler picking up a spare HVLP cup (it’s a long story) for my trusty and cheap HVLP sprayer when I stumbled across something that would probably greatly speed up the clean-up process, and waste a lot less solvents during clean-up. The Spray Gun Cleaning Kit. It’s a bunch of brushes and insert pins. Some of the brushes are brass. Others are nylon. Either way, by golly, that’s overpriced if you ask me.

Fast forward a few days, and I’m across the street (literally) at Harbor Freight picking up some $0.99 tack cloths. As I was walking toward the checkout, I ran across this Spray Gun Cleaning Kit. Hrm. It’s not as fancy as the one at Rockler, but it’s less than half the price! It’s got brass brushes, some insert pins, some nylon brushes. This cheaper option looks very similar to the Rockler offering, and quite frankly, I’m not convinced the differences are worth the premium price.

I’ve got a lot of spraying to do over the next few days. When I’m done, I’ll let you all know what I think of this cleaning kit. So the question is, in the past, for inexpensive non-power tool purchases, have you found the items at Harbour Freight to be adequate to do the job?

Over the last few years I’ve owned and used a few different tools for literally cutting corners. This is a collection of things to consider, and some notes I’ve made along the way with regards to the venerable miter saw / box.

When I was first setting up shop I was doing a lot of trim work in my home. Since moving in, I’ve replaced or refinished all the baseboard, door and window casing, and even a little crown molding. I needed a miter box, or a miter saw. Then I got into real woodworking, and the first project I ever built was a rocking chair for my one-year-old (at the time) niece. To pull off the rocking chair, I purchased a cheap-o bench top table saw. It’s ability to cross-cut was horrendous. Since I was doing a lot of trim work at the time I made the rocking chair, I started looking around at miter saws.

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