Thursday Night Question and Answer Session…

So I have a chance to practice using this new technology I have decided to launch the Thursday night chat session as the starter. This is just me on live video with you in the chat asking the Router Workshop related questions. I will select a number of router related questions from the chat session and answer each question live. I can’t promise that I will be able to answer all questions asked but I will try hard to do so.

Hopefully you will be able to join us. To give this a good try I would like to schedule more than one session to start. Then if it works out I will make this a weekly or biweekly session starting at 6:00 PM CST Thursday night. The advertising of each session will be via our new post email system, which means that each time I post you will get the email about the post. At the end of the session I will post the live video chat recording to the “Live Video Chat” category. It is easy to sign in, you just go to the specific URL and you are signed in.

The first Q and A session will be on this coming Thursday night, which is just 24 hours away. The system can accommodate 40 participants in the live video portion so hopefully you can join us this coming Thursday night at 6:00 PM CST. Click here to see the Live Video Chat Viewer…

How to start a Woodworking Hobby?

I have had many people ask me to help them build the living room coffee table or a dining room hutch I even had a perspective customer come to one of my live seminars with his wife asking how to make the Kitchen cabinets. I asked him what kind of experience and tools he had at his disposal. His response was he had a Black and Decker 1/4″ shank DIY Router, no Saw, Planer or Joiner. His next answer was to the question of experience, which was that he had very little experience building projects.

As our conversation continued I glanced at the better half of this group to see a very disappointed look. This conversation wasn’t going well and she had something to say. She piped up and asked if the 1/4″ router could make raised panel doors for the kitchen cabinets. My quick response was not really but I mentioned that if you had a lot of experience you could make the panel doors with 1/4″ shank bits as done in episode 301 of the Router Workshop.

Here is the kicker part of this story, this guy had taken it upon himself to rip out all the old cabinets without the prior knowledge of his wife. He has little or no knowledge of the woodworking hobby and has put both himself and his family under the pressure of having no kitchen. In the end these folks were at the local lumber store and building a new kitchen with the modular cabinets. Not sure how it turned out but it wasn’t off to a very good start.

All beginners want to build the Dining Room Hutch as their first project but this is not where to start in my opinion. During my teaching years I was teaching woodworking to grades 7 to 12 and during the first day all students want to build that Hutch as their first project.

My response was and is now how about you build a few projects that I want to build first then when you have become successful building my first 10 projects we work on that Hutch. So now we have the idea of building the large and complicated project as the first project out of the way next we need to identify what the first projects should be:

Here is my list with (the TRW show numbers as reference),

1) The Picture Frame, (Show 101)
2) The Linear Dovetail Bookstand, (Show 102)
3) The Magic Box, (Show 103)
4) Box Joint Drawers, (Show 104)
5) Pen Storage, (Show 106)
6) Standard Raised Panels, (Show 109)
7) Standard Drawers, (Show 113)
Raised panel doors with standard Router Bits, (Show 301)
9) The Night Stand (Shows 302, 303)
10) Book Shelving. (Show 401)

Please note, you can see the photos of the projects at the Router Workshop episode guide. Click here to see the project photos.

So what are you going to learn in the FREE Live Video Chat…

The cost of entry into this hobby can be as little as $100 to as much as the unlimited costs. I think the first steps should be built around the router and this series of free Live Video Chats, which will be featuring the router applications that are used to build my first 10 projects outline above. I will be doing these live video sessions once a week at the same time of the day, currently I am thinking about doing these Live Video Sessions on Saturday @ 4:00 PM Central Standard Time. Click here to see the LVC browser viewer.

In Conclusion to this post,

The table mounted router is the most powerful power tool in the woodworking business and should be your first tool to purchase. All the local lumber yards can cut to size your project pieces so having a table-saw is not necessary to start your hobby. The more important part of the hobby is the ability to rout the molded edges, cut the rabbet joint, making linear dovetails, make that special box, etc…which can only be done with the router table-mounted. Click here to see the poor-man’s router table article.

P.S: These Live Video Chat programs will be advertised through the free email posts so if you haven’t signed up to our “free email router tip” system then you should do so now…The sign up form is in the right side menu bar in this website.

We are getting closer…

Well we have just setup the Live Video Chat Viewer that we are going to be using to deliver our new feature called the Router Workshop Live Video Chat, you can see the viewer at the following URL,
http://www.routerworkshop.net/VideoBroadcaster_ChatVersion/index.html

Please be advised that the chat works but there is no video until we join in at the advertised time-frame. To see a sample of the Live Video Chat join us on our home page,

We will be delivering our first Video Chat sometime next week so if you are interested in joining in then bookmark this URL: http://www.routerworkshop.net/VideoBroadcaster_ChatVersion/index.html The live video chat will only be available to the first 40 participants on a first come first served basis and will be advertised through our email system.

The format is a combination of Live Video of me, Rick and 3 or 4 featured clips of the Router Workshop Video Series. You will have the opportunity to join in on the chat portion of the program used to ask questions about the featured video clip. Not all questions will be answered on the live chat but I will make every effort to answer as many questions as asked.

Each participant is noted as Viewer 1, Viewer 2, etc…so no names will be published. With this comes some responsibility with the kind of chat questions being asked. We expect to have all questions and comments on topic and about the presentation. Any off topic or in bad taste questions or comments will mean the viewer will be ban from the session immediately.

That’s it for now,

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