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Bye-Bye Birds-Eye An Army buddy from northern Michigan stopped when he came upon a truck that had overturned and scattered its load of lumber. The trucker, who was unhurt, told my friend to take [...]

For a quick and simple bench stop, I mounted a sliding bolt taken from an old door to the end of my workbench. In the locked position, the bolt stays put, and in the unlocked position it’s [...]

I needed a 1/4″ zero-clearance throat plate for cutting dados the other day, but my throat plate only had a 3/4″ slot in it. I didn’t want to interrupt my project to make or buy a new [...]

Micro fiber cloth picks up tiny dust particles as well as, if not better than, a tack cloth. Unlike a tack cloth, micro fiber cloths are washable and reusable. Rockler sells Norton’s micro [...]

There’s no single surface in my shop that’s the ideal height for every job. With my adjustable-height sawhorses, I can quickly set up an outfeed table, drawing table, or assembly table at [...]

“So this is what they used to look like. Wow!” That’s what I told all my friends after spending hours completely disassembling, cleaning and polishing a Porter-Cable Model 507 Extra Heavy-Duty [...]

I’ve always had bad luck with really small drill bits–if I don’t break them, I lose them. I’ve stopped buying new ones, and now clip the heads off finish nails and use the nails [...]

I like to use carpenter’s pencils until they’re worn down to stubs. Stubs aren’t very handy, though–they’re hard to dig out of a pocket. To solve this problem, I gathered up all [...]

My tablesaw’s top often does double duty as an assembly table. It’s a guaranteed-flat surface. When I glue or screw together a project, it won’t come out twisted. Sometimes I use the saw’s fence [...]

I bought this old 18” bandsaw for a song from a used machinery dealer over 30 years ago. “It came from a local high school,” he said. “I heard that it was purchased by the school back in the [...]

I love the convenience of mobile bases, but I hate it when they wobble on the floor even when they’re locked down. I got my chock block idea at the airport where the ground crews use something [...]

I’m not sure if I qualify as a tool nut–machine crazy is more like it. I started out using a ShopSmith, but I now have 17 industrial-grade machines. It all started when my wife saw an ad in [...]