Resaw Tips, Dye or Stain?, Stripping Paint and MORE!!!

Guys Questions:

Good day gentlemen! I'm planning to make a new tabletop for my travel trailer. It will measure about 36x36". Because of the great swings in humidity and temperature that a travel trailer gets subjected to, I'm a little reluctant to make it out of solid wood. My current thought is to use veneered MDF instead (or, perhaps baltic birch plywood)... something along the lines of applying shop-made 1/8" (or so) veneer to 1/2" MDF (or HDF or plywood). In my mind at least, an MDF/plywood substrate would better resist movement & deformation from the aforementioned big swings in humidity and temperature. Thus, my questions: 1. I know of the principle that says you should always veneer both sides of a substrate to keep things “balanced”, and I plan to abide by this. What I’m wondering is do I HAVE to use the same veneer on both sides? I plan to use a “nice” veneer on the top… could I use some other “less nice” wood for the veneer on the underside of the tabletop, to conserve the good stuff? 2. What ideas or suggestions would you have for attaching solid edge banding to the tabletop? What are the pro & cons of applying the edge band before or after the veneer? Thanks a ton for taking my question and the helpful woodworking conversations every week! - Nelson in Iowa

Great show guys. I occasionally need to resaw lumber, and I have made quite a bit of my own shop-made veneer. I usually set the distance of my blade to my tall bandsaw fence, and then put one featherboard on the table-top and another featherboard about 5 or 6 inches higher to keep the board against the fence. With a carbide tipped resaw blade, it usually works pretty well. (Except maybe the time I didn't realize how hard Bubinga is, but that's another story) Today, I was resawing some Ash and decided to use the round steel bar that bolts to my fence, and I steered the board to follow a pencil line that I drew on the Ash. That worked really, really well. The round bar came with my Rikon bandsaw. I had to look it up, but it seems to be called a resaw bar. So I am wondering if you guys rewaw against a flat fence, or against a resaw bar, or if it depends on the size or type of material ? Stephen

Hi Guys, I’m another new listener and like many others, I’m making my way through all of the back episodes. Your podcast has cost me a fairly significant amount of money because each time you mention something that I think I need, I go directly to Amazon, and click ‘buy now’. I have been getting serious about woodworking over the last 6 or 7 years. I have a pretty simple question, and I apologize to the listeners that have heard this before, or already know it. I hear you guys talk about both “dye stain” and “conversion varnish”. I am old school, (I’m even a little older than Guy), so I’m wondering if those are just different names for regular stain and varnish, or are these two things somehow different than the old-fashion stain and varnish that I grew up with? Thanks for a great show! PS: Like Brian, I too do my designing in Excel. I attached a copy of my plan for the outfeed table that I built. Tim Parker Freedom Woodworking

Huys Questions:

I have a 6’ tall by 3-1/2’ wide display cabinet with a wood frame structure that holds glass panels. It has a solid back and an enclosed cabinet on the bottom with two frame and panel doors. The frames and structure are all nicely detailed with beads and grooves throughout. The cabinet is finished with light blue semi-gloss paint that was applied years ago. The finish has been well maintained and is in very good shape. However, we would like to change the cabinet from its current blue painted finish to a stained wood finish. Is it possible to strip a painted furniture piece down to bare wood well enough that it can be stained? If so, what products and/or techniques would you recommend in order to accomplish this task? How do you go about getting all of the paint out of the beads and grooves? Thank you for your wisdom. Greg

Firstly, thank you all for hosting such a fun and helpf