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I’ve found that padding my vise faces with cork prevents them from marring many surfaces, especially softer woods or finished workpieces. I use 1⁄4“-thick cork, which is available by the [...]

I like to buy used electric motors for powering various tools around the shop. I also use them to mount grinding wheels, wire brushes and buffing wheels. I typically outfit the motors with toggle [...]

I don’t like to lay my router on its side with the bit exposed, so I built a stand for it. It’s just a 3/4″ x 8″ x 8″ board with a 2″ dia. hole in the center. The board …

I own several routers and they all have thin wrenches that are awkward to hold. To avoid frustration, I made the handles thicker by housing them in transparent plastic tubing from the hardware [...]

I have a hard time throwing things away, such as these chucks from a couple of worn-out drills. To put them back into service, I bought a 3 ft. long, 3/8″ dia. threaded rod at the hardware [...]

A sharp pencil is a must for accurate work, but having a pencil sharpener permanently mounted in one place isn’t always ideal. The further away I am from my pencil sharpener, the less [...]

Watching an expensive router bit roll onto the floor is a heartbreaking experience. In the middle of a project, it can be a disaster. I drilled a few 1/2” and 1/4” holes in the edge of a piece of [...]

Instead of making disposable inserts for my drill press table, I found that it’s faster and cheaper to make disposable fence/table assemblies. I can use the entire surface of my disposable [...]

Bessey K-Blocks are great for holding K-clamps in position for glue-ups, but they’re also quite handy for other things. I milled hardwood strips the same dimensions as my K-clamps and use [...]

Bullet-Catch Bench Dogs When I built my workbench, I drilled round bench-dog holes in the top so I didn’t have to cut square mortises. Being a thrifty sort, I didn’t want to shell out for [...]

Bottle Cap Jig Knobs I’m always trying to use up scraps and stuff that would otherwise end up in the trash. My latest devices are jig knobs made with plastic bottle caps, which have a grippy [...]

Setting the depth-of-cut on my circular saw was awkward at best before I made this handy gauge. It’s just a thick block of wood with 1/4″ wide slots cut at precise, incremental depths. I [...]