Tips for taming those awkward and heavy sheets. Woodworking alone is peaceful, serene and quiet. Just you, the radio and your project. It’s also a pain in the posterior when you have to work with big, heavy sheets of plywood, MDF or particleboard. If you can get help, it’s great, but often we end…

A complex moulding can be difficult to sand. Softening its crisp edges is a crime, so I’ve been using a thin, flexible stick with sandpaper adhered to it for getting into the flat areas. Not just any stick will do; it must have just the right amount of spring. An auto-body putty spreader, cut into…

When sawdust got packed into the back end of my planer’s blast gate, I couldn’t close the gate all the way.  I solved this annoying problem by cutting a notch in the gate. Now, when I close the gate, all the dust slides right through. –Fredrich Meder

Difficult glue-ups are troublesome enough without having to position clamp pads as part of the process. I’ve tried using hot-melt glue, double-sided tape and various other methods to hold pads onto clamp jaws, but they always seemed to fall off at just the wrong moment. I recently tried using rare earth magnets, and they work…

I usually work alone, but when I install upper cabinets, I always enlist the help of two shop-made cabinet jacks. They’re steadier than an extra pair of hands. The jacks stand on the lower cabinets. To position and level the upper cabinets, I just turn two bolts in each jack. The jacks are 15″ tall…

A tenon should be one-third the thickness of a rail—at least, that’s what an old rule of thumb recommends. A 3/4″ board should have 1/4″ tenons, for example. But what about a 7/8″ board? What’s one-third of that? I use my dial caliper to help solve this type of problem. I usually make a tenon…

Zero clearance inserts are wonderful for eliminating tear out, but unfortunately, they also eliminate dust collection. To give my collection system an opening to pull sawdust through, I cut a 1/2-in.-dia. hole at the front end of the blade slot. In this location, the hole doesn’t adversely affect the benefits of my zero clearance insert….

While I was gluing up the pedestals for an oak desk, I realized I needed a way to hold the sides parallel at the front. Three Quick-Grip clamps and a scrap wood spacer did the trick. They installed in seconds and were easy to adjust. -Steve Keller

My flush-trimming setup allows trimming veneer and solid wood edging up to 7/8-in. thick. It consists of a router with a 1/2-in. straight bit, a table and a perpendicular fence. A 1″-thick spacer separates the fence and table. The router mounts to the fence so the bit is flush with the tabletop. I attach my…

My dust collector, though pieced-together, is the perfect solution for my one-car garage shop. I use a cyclone separator and 5-gallon bucket in conjunction with my shop vacuum. For easy mobility, I combined the two units on one 1/2″ thick plywood platform. To fasten the platform to my vacuum, I removed one of my vacuum’s…

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 square foot in rolls from home-supply centers. I attach it to my vise faces using wide double-stick tape. Cork is also great for holding irregular…

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 finished. I just remove the tape. -Stanley Krasovic