Tricks of the Trade

When gluing plastic laminate to a substrate, lots of folks use sticks or dowels to support the laminate. Supports allow you to perfectly position the laminate, since it can’t be shifted [...]

When I clean my HVLP spray gun, this shop-made container captures the liquid solvent and fumes. When the gun is clean, I simply pour the waste into a storage container for disposal. Drill a 3-in. [...]

If you do a lot of spray painting and finishing, but don’t have room for a permanent finishing bench, give this turntable a spin. It’s surprisingly sturdy and because it rotates, you can get to [...]

  Faced with cutting hundreds of plugs for a big project, I came up with this idea: I cut the plugs a little deeper than needed. Then I ran strips of masking tape down the faces of the [...]

Everyone can use some creative storage solutions in their shop, which is why we dug through the American Woodworker archives for some classic storage tips. Portable Hose Reel Instead of mounting [...]

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 [...]

I’ve bandsawn hundreds of puzzle pieces using very small blades. I gave up on the steel guide blocks that came with my saw because when those little blades come in contact with the blocks, they’d [...]

I make a lot of drawers in my shop and got tired of fiddling with squares and pinch rods to square up the boxes during assembly. I decided to build a squaring frame to make the job go much [...]

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 [...]

Occasionally I need to drill a hole into the end of a rail or other workpiece using the drill press. I’ve found that a metal shelf bracket makes a handy support, keeping the workpiece square to [...]