Shopsmith Forums

Hi,

I've made a total of 3 of these for gifts to "handymen" I know. Here are my comments:

- The heavier the wood, the nicer the screwdriver! These have a balance that feels luxurious.
- For nice dense woods with beautiful grain, I like a basic bulbous handle. For plainer or lighter woods, I like fluting features in the wood.
- I've done 2 Penn State kits and one similar Rockler kit. The Penn State has more detailed assembly drawings and spec's. The Penn State also provides for the likelihood that you'll have a hole all the way through the wood -- they provide a brass top-cap to cover such a hole. The Rockler kit doesn't have a top-cap so you have to be pretty careful when setting your boring depth stops.

Happy Woodworking!

I put together two of the Rockler kits for gifts this year. They were very well received. I used Black Palm for the handles which I found a bit messy to deal with, but it yielded a superior, very hard, dense handle. Too bad I didn't take any photos before the DW wrapped them up. I could post them here.