Tricks of the Trade

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 use a piece of painter’s tape to mark dadoes when I assemble cabinets. Then I know exactly where to shoot nails or install screws and there aren’t any pencil lines to sand off when I’m [...]

I felt like I won the storage-space lottery when I came up with this bench design for my shop. I wanted a way to store lumber and my benchtop tools. The backbones of this bench are the 2 x 4 …

When my bench’s tool tray fills up with sawdust and hardware, I’ve found that the easiest way to clean it is to use a vacuum. To keep the hardware from going into the vacuum, I cover [...]

If you use a cyclone dust collector, you’ve no doubt struggled with emptying the barrel. When it’s filled with dust, it’s really heavy, not to mention the face full of dust you [...]

An old-timer showed me this trick years ago and I’ve used it ever since. Plain old waxed paper is great for lubricating my tools’ cast iron tables and miter gauge bars. Whenever I start to feel [...]

Establishing Depth Reference A recent project required making a series of small wooden panels with shallow concave faces. For efficiency and accuracy, I decided to make a series of preliminary [...]

Large plastic boxes, the kind that restaurants use for bussing dishes, are perfect for shop drawers. They’re strong, durable and lightweight, plus they have built-in handles. They’re perfect for [...]

I don’t use my machinist’s vise often enough to dedicate any of my limited bench space to it. Instead, I keep it tucked under a nearby cabinet for occasional use. I bolted the vise to a board [...]

I’m a great fan of aerosol finishes, especially now that many of them have adjustable tips that make much less splatter. But my shop got so cluttered with half-used cans that I had trouble [...]

The strong adhesive and tough plastic of packaging tape allow it to work as a hinge on long, mitered corners. After carefully cutting the miters, lay the boards outside-face up and side by side [...]

My tight finances forced me to devise an alternative to an expensive bench vise. This simple leg vise – cobbled together from a board, a 3⁄4“-diameter pipe clamp, and a short length of [...]