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

Tighter Corner Joints Ahead Dadoes and, rabbets are two of the most widely used cabinetmaking joints. Cabinet carcasses, drawer boxes and jewelry boxes all lend themselves to this simple but strong joinery method. I’ve been woodworking, demonstrating and teaching for a long time. Over the years, I have accumulated some great tips for making and…

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…

Practical solutions for a cleaner shop Vacuum-Assisted Bench I got tired of hooking my bench tools to my shop vac. Now I simply plug their dust collection hoses into the bench. I drilled and routed a hole in the bench to house the 2- 1/2-in. PVC pipe and hexagonal 2-1/2-in.-to-1- 1/4in. reducer that I bought…

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

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 frames. For my 8-ft. bench, I made four frames. The rest of the materials were…

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 its nozzle with a washing machine lint trap. Lint traps are made for washing machine drain hoses and are…

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 get when you dump it out. The answer is to line the barrel with a trash bag; simple, right? Not exactly. See, when…

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 cuts on the table saw to establish the basic concave surface, then clean up the faces with an angle grinder and disc sander. It worked…

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 storing and transporting workshop essentials, from screws to power tools. They come ready-made and they’re super-easy to install. I’ll never build another storage drawer! Bus boxes…

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 finding the color I wanted, so I built this simple storage rack for all the cans. Now I can instantly find…

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 so their sharp edges touch. Apply strips of tape along each joint, pressing the tape firmly onto the wood, then flip…

Simplification and organization are the keys to success. I’ve worked in a small workshop for many years now. Many, if not most woodworkers, would classify my 7′ x 13′ space more as a closet than a workshop. In fact, I have seen some master-suite walk-ins that were indeed larger than my shop. The challenges of…

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 1⁄2“-diameter pipe – works fine for many of my needs. As seen in the drawing, the pipe clamp extends through the vise…

Maximize your drum sander’s potential. 1. Skip the Scrape Eliminate laborious hand scraping of dried glue: contrary to popular belief, you can take glue-ups directly to your drum sander. The secrets are to use a coarse abrasive (24-grit to 60- grit, depending on the amount of glue and how uneven the glueup is) and feed…

Whenever I have to cut down a sheet of plywood, I reach for one of my trusty metal stud straightedges. Metal studs are available in different thicknesses for different applications. For example, a 20-gauge non-load-bearing drywall stud won’t deflect significantly when it’s not clamped to an 8‘ long sheet of plywood. I bought 35/8“ by…

When crosscutting a series of short pieces from a longer board using the table saw’s miter gauge, it’s dangerous to use the rip fence as a stop. The freed pieces can get jammed between the blade and fence, causing kickback. To prevent this, the usual approach is to clamp a wide “standoff” block to the…

Here’s a dirt cheap way to store your saw blades and keep their carbide teeth from knocking into each other. Slip the blades onto a 3/8″ dia. landscape nail, using plastic coffee-can lids as spacers. I hang the nail on a perf-board tool holder, but you could pound it into the wall, instead. –William Monahan

I use bench holdfasts because they’re so convenient and provide such a tremendous amount of clamping force. However, in the process, they can mar workpieces, especially softwoods. The traditional solution is to place a protective wood block under the holdfast pad, but this can be a bit of a hassle, and it’s one more maneuver…

How do you know when your miter gauge is set exactly at 90°? Here’s a method I learned years ago, before I could afford a precision square to check the cut. You’ll need a 24″ long board that is flat and straight, with perfectly parallel sides. It should be about 6″ wide. You’ll also need…

The blade of a marking gauge must be as sharp as a scalpel in order to cut a fine line across the grain. Sharpening it can be very difficult because it’s so small. I solved that problem by making a gauge that accepts snap-off utility knife blades. I use epoxy to glue the blade into…

Accurately drilling an angled hole with a hand drill is a challenge – particularly if you’re using a brad point or Forstner bit. This angled drilling guide solves the problem handily. The guide keeps the drill bit from wandering as it enters the stock. It can be cut at any angle, and its alignment marks…

When using my miter saw, I’ve found that the easiest way to sneak up on a line is to use a stack of sticky notes. First, set a stop block to cut your part slightly oversize (1/16″ is plenty). Attach a thin pile of sticky notes to the stop block, make a cut, and then…

After brushing the first coat of finish on my shelf project, quite a bit remained in the disposable cup. I didn’t want to pour it back, because that would contaminate the fresh finish that remained in the can. But I didn’t want to waste the finish by throwing it away, either. Knowing the shelves were…

Gambler’s Micro-Adjust Precise fence adjustments are a sure bet when I clamp this shop-made device on my router table. I simply drilled and tapped a hole to accept a 1/4″-20 machine screw through the center of a 3/4-in. by 1-in. by 3-in. piece of hardwood. I covered the tip that contacts the fence with a…

While turning wooden pens, students in my woodshop classes kept wearing out the points on the live centers of our mini lathes. The points fit into the hollowed end of the pen mandrel. If the mandrel isn’t clamped tight enough between the lathe’s head and tailstock, it spins on the point and wears it out….

Small logs from a local downed tree are a great windfall of free lumber for small projects. They’re easy to saw into boards on the band saw once you have established a couple flat reference surfaces for safe feeding. I use a simple L-shaped carrier jig screwed together from scrap plywood to make the initial…

I recently came across another handy solution to prevent jaw-racking when clamping a workpiece on the side of a vise. Most parallel vises tend to rack in such scenarios, but there are situations where clamping on the jaws’ right or left sides becomes necessary, especially when working with long pieces to bypass the central screw….

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 switches because they’re light and small. However, as unobtrusive as they are, I would occasionally catch my sleeve on a switch,…

I always sign my work, now that I’ve figured out an easy and permanent way to do it: I use an engraver. But not just any engraver—it has to have an adjustable stroke (the distance the tip moves in and out). Set the stroke to maximum. An engraver works just like a pencil, but some…

Filling knots with colored epoxy usually works quite well, but sometimes the void is in a spot that’s difficult to fill, like the edge of a board. Here’s how to do it. First, apply some paste wax to a piece of melamine so the epoxy won’t adhere to it. Clamp the melamine to the workpiece,…

Before the advent of magnetic-based LED lights, many of us used flexible gooseneck lamps with an incandescent bulb as auxiliary lights on our drill presses and band saws. These lamps were usually screwed or clamped onto the machine. I acquired a Craftsman lamp many years ago, but there were many other brands and styles available….

Mice used to rule my shop. They got into everything! That all changed when someone told me that fresh mint repels mice. Mint grows wild in one corner of my yard (it’s a perennial and comes back each year), so every couple weeks, I pick a handful and spread it around my floor. Now my…

Chamfering an edge with a block plane is often easier, faster and safer than using a router or tablesaw—particularly on a small part. I do it so often that I’ve dedicated one of my planes for the job. To modify your plane, make two 3/16″ thick hardwood sides, two 3/8″ thick chamfering guides and shims…

How do you know if the table on your drill press is square? Not more-or-less square, but precisely square? I’ve adopted an old machinist’s trick, using a very simple jig. To make it, you’ll need a hardwood arm, two 5/16″ carriage bolts that are 2″-3″ long, four nuts and four washers. First, make the arm….

Here’s a simple way to sharpen chisels using a 3″ sanding drum mounted in an oscillating spindle sander or a drill press. Cut a squared-up 2×4 the length of the sander’s table. Cut a 2″ deep by 1/2″ wide slot at 45° near the 2×4’s center. Clamp the 2×4 to your sander’s table.  Place the…

Wiping is fast, almost as fast as spraying (without the downside of having to clean the spray gun). Wiping is also every bit as effective in all situations except possibly into recesses such as inside corners, fluting, deep carvings and the like.

Dust is a real problem when you can’t use a router table’s fence and its dustport. Here’s a clever way to suck up that dust using your shop vacuum’s nozzle.

My lathe came with a lamp, but the lathe’s manual has this weird warning: “Position the work lamp so that wood chips do not accumulate inside the lamp shade and pose a fire hazard.” Now, where in the world could the lamp go? When I turn, chips fly everywhere! It occurred to me that metal…

For small cabinets, I prefer to use small, discreet shelf pins that I make myself. I also make sleeves for the pins to fit into. Sleeves help hold the pins firmly in place. I make the pins from 1/16″ brass rod and the sleeves from 1/16″ i.d. brass tubing. Both of these are available at…

Flush-cutting dowels, corner keys or screw-hole plugs used to frustrate me because my saw’s teeth always left scratches on the project’s surface. Rather than buy a special flush-cutting saw, I made one from a hacksaw blade. I used my disc sander to grind off the wavy set of the teeth from both sides of the…

I used to have three shooting boards for planing end grain: one for 90° cuts, one for 45° horizontal miters and one for 45° vertical miters. Now I’ve combined them all into one. The jig’s main body is a typical shooting board for trimming pieces at 90°, except that it has long wedges to tilt…

An F-style clamp works well for getting into tight spaces, but how do you turn the handle? The answer: Just drill a couple of holes through it and insert a screwdriver. A 90° offset to the holes ensures that the handle won’t be significantly weakened and makes at least one hole accessible at all times….

While staring at the pile of assorted hardware I just accidentally spilled onto my sawdust-covered floor, my thoughts quickly turned from banging my head against the wall to patting myself on the back. Here’s why. I grabbed my MagSwitch featherboard, turned on its two magnets and picked up all the hardware—minus the sawdust—in one fell…

Vacuum attachments are a challenge to store. They come in so many shapes! I made this device to keep them all together, within easy reach. It’s just a long chain with shorter lengths of chain branching out from it. Each branch has a 3″ to 4″ length of 1/2″ dowel fastened to its end. The…

Sometimes it’s fun to build a gadget just because it’s a neat idea. There are many ways to draw a centerline, for example, but this method is very clever. It doesn’t require any measuring or trial-and-error adjustments. To build the marker, you’ll need two hardwood bars 3/4″ x 1″ x 12″, two Plexiglas links 1/4″…

Even though my shop is well-lit, sometimes I need more light right on my work area. Instead of rigging up additional lights, I attach a small clip-on LED light to my cap’s brim. It’s great for working inside cabinets or doing close work of any kind. The light shines right where you’re looking. You can buy…

With all the high-tech, expensive tools in my shop, I still find a dozen uses for a simple, inexpensive hunk of paraffin wax. I use it anywhere I need lubrication to slide material: the tops of my tablesaw, router table and jointer, the sides of my miter gauge, the bottom of my router base plates,…

Shellac is a mainstay in my shop, both as a sealer and as a finish. I mix my shellac from flakes and usually go with a 1 lb. cut, which is ideal for brushing ultra-smooth coats. I used to measure out the flakes each time I made a new batch, but here’s an easier way….

 Here’s a trick for I use for removing a stubborn router bit from the collet. I cut 1/2″ wide slots in a few credit card-size pieces of laminate. I then slide as many cards as I can fit between the collet and the bottom of the bit. As I unscrew the collet, it pushes against…

Frustrated with my vise’s inability to hold odd-shaped pieces, I tried many solutions: v-notched face plates, cork, bubble wrap, leather, etc., but to no avail. One day I pulled an old mop out of the trash. I peeled off its bottom pad, cut it in half and fastened both pieces to the faces of my…

Like most people, I keep lots of different screws, bolts, nails, washers, and other small parts in bins. Instead of paper labels, I hot glue a sample of the actual part on the outside of the bin. It’s much easier to locate what I need by eye than by name. If I ever run out of parts,…

Having grown tired of bending and tearing sheet sandpaper again and again to get the size I need, I finally decided to employ the time-honored trick of cutting it with a hacksaw blade screwed to a plywood panel. The jig is very quick to make, and it allows you to simply slip a sheet of…

Can you assume that a board is straight, just because you’ve jointed its full length? Nope. It can still be as bowed as ever. You really should check it before moving on to the next piece. Rather than pull out a long straightedge, I just place the board against the jointer’s fence and look for…

I made my own try square using a 1″ x 4″ corner mending plate and a couple scrap pieces of hardwood. To make one yourself, first check the mending plate to be sure it’s square. If it’s off, true it up with a file. Epoxy wood blocks to both faces of one leg, and you’re…

I wanted to rout some shelf dados, but I didn’t have the correct-size bit for the job. Fortunately, my dad stopped by and, as usual, had the answer to my problem. We cobbled up a couple L-shaped wooden fences from 3″-wide straight scraps, squaring each of the units carefully before gluing and screwing them together…

To sand a lot of molding, glue 80-grit sandpaper to several inches of the molding. Rub a block of Styrofoam on the sandpaper until the block conforms to the molding’s contour. Glue sandpaper to the block, then sand the molding. This method works best on large cove moldings; small rounds or hollows can loose their…

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 sits on 2″ tall legs. I added shelf liner to the top of the stand…

Bench grips are handy for holding parts above the bench for routing, sanding or finishing.  To make them, just cut some wood and rubber shelf liner into 2″ to 3″ squares. Glue the shelf liner onto both sides of each square using spray adhesive, such as 3M Super 77. –Marlin Davis

Good light is a must in every workshop, but sometimes I need a little extra light in just the right place. To make my light/magnifier more portable, I drilled a hole in a handscrew to fit the light’s post. Now I can clamp the light to any of my benches, stationary tools, or shelves. –Edward…

Instead of measuring for my circular saw’s offset each time I need to make a cut, I use a modified edge guide. I screwed two 3/4″ x 3/4″ x 12″ hardwood blocks to the front and back clamp bars of the guide and clamped the guide to a board. Next, I placed the saw’s base…

Let’s face it: running a twisted board through the planer doesn’t make it flat. The board will still be twisted when it comes out. The trick is to use a sled that prevents the board from rocking as it’s being planed. That’s not a new idea, but I’ve made a sled that accommodates a board…

To support a large panel while I drilled holes in the edge for dowels, I added a second sliding clamp jaw to a pipe clamp and clamped it to the edge of my workbench. -Steve Keller

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 store. To keep the tubing in place, I wrapped the handles with athletic tape first. –Serge Duclos

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 store and cut it into two pieces, 12″ and 24″ long. I threaded the old chucks onto the rods and…

On a crosscut sled, the fence must be absolutely square to the blade. Here’s a super-accurate method of testing for square. It makes errors easier to detect by magnifying them by a factor of four. The same method also works for a miter gauge, using smaller test pieces. Start with a piece of plywood about…

My crosscut sled is my “go-to” jig for precise, square cuts. Recently, I added this self-adhesive tape scale – called Peel-n-Stick Ruler Tape – that makes it even more efficient. You can buy this tape on Amazon or at most fabric stores. Peel-n-Stick Ruler Tape is non-metallic, and comes in a 1/2″-wide x 30′-long roll….

My simple tenoning jig produces flawless tenons in minutes— even haunched tenons. The jig consists of a sled with a glued-on support block and a screwed-on sacrificial backstop. The sled and support block are flush on the work side and square. The backstop protrudes by the thickness of the workpiece, minus 1/16-in. Before using the…

My contractor saw shares a garage with my car, so it’s stowed against a wall when not in use. It’s not an easy thing to drag into place when it’s time to set up for woodworking, so I decided to outfit it for wheelbarrow-style mobility. I screwed a couple sturdy non-swiveling casters to a stiff…

Spring clamps are easily converted to miter clamps by adding swivel jaws. Remove the vinyl tips, and then hacksaw a 1/2″ long slot down the center of the metal jaws. Use needle-nose vise-grips to fold down the two halves of each jaw, and then drill a hole for a small bolt or rivet. To make…

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 likely I am to use it, until my pencil is really dull. I removed my pencil sharpener from its permanent location on…

Planing stock to fit standard dados is much easier than trying to find the right chipper and shim combination to fit the dado to your stock. I cut five grooves in a scrap of plywood, using only the blades and 1/8″-thick chippers – no shims or thin chippers – from my dado set. As I’m…

Occasionally, I like to veneer my own cabinet doors. Like many small-shop woodworkers, I do the job by covering the veneered face with a platen, then applying clamping pressure onto the work via hardwood cauls that extend across the platen. The cauls are slightly crowned on their bearing edges to better transfer clamping pressure to…

Planing or scraping parts with angled or mitered ends is tricky. Bench dogs will damage a crisp corner, and clamps get in the way. To hold the work, I use an over-sized bench hook with a new twist: a layer of 3M’s grip tape, made for slippery sidewalks and steps. The grit doesn’t mar the…

A coping sled is a must-have accessory for router table work. It helps you hold a narrow piece, such as a door rail, perpendicular to the fence and backs up the cut to prevent blowout. At least, it’s supposed to. On my sled, the backup piece is an integral part. Once you’ve cut one profile…

This light-duty clamp is ideal for small parts-and easy to make by the dozen. All you need are a couple wood scraps, a rubber band, and a short piece of dowel rod. You can vary the pressure by changing the position of the dowel or the rubber band and how many times you wrap it….

Even with a zero-clearance throat plate in my tablesaw, a thin cut-off slips through now and then. These pieces can clog a vacuum hose or damage the blades of a dust collector.  I made a trap to catch them by attaching a piece of hardware cloth inside my saw, in front of the dust port….

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 MDF and fastened it to the back of my router table’s fence. In this nest, I…

New hardware is often way too shiny for my taste, so I chemically “age” it. If the metal is raw steel, I use standard gun bluing. But if it’s plated with zinc, I turn to Super Blue, a double-strength bluing.  Super Blue gives zinc-plated hardware a beautiful copper-brown patina. Super Blue also works on highly…

Chisels don’t wait to get dull until you’ve finished a job—do they? The trick is to keep them sharp while you’re working. Rather than pull out my stones to renew an edge, I keep a piece of MDF charged with honing compound close at hand. It works just like a leather strop—only I skip the…

This sandpaper storage system is about as simple as it gets. It’s just a stack of folded envelopes bound with a big rubber band. Each envelope is marked with a grit number. A thin piece of wood on the bottom of the pile keeps the envelopes flat. Standard letter-size envelopes work well. Fold and tape…

To mark the exact center of a board, I measure an equal distance from both ends and make two marks. This distance is just an approximation—it doesn’t matter if it’s longer or shorter than exactly half the  length of the board, as long as the marks are reasonably close together. Then I just split the…

Here’s a quick way to glue up a mitered frame of any size using only two clamps, with no worry that the frame will shift out of alignment. You’ll need two 1″ x 1″ hardwood bars (make them whatever length suits your needs). Fasten a 1″ x 1″ x 2″ fixed stop block to one…

Here’s a quick way to get all the dust out of your machine’s nooks and crannies. Most shop vacuums have one port for vacuuming and a second port for blowing. Hook up a hose to each port, then blow and vacuum at the same time.  –Chad Stanton

Drawer Helper Desperation is the mother of invention—isn’t that how the old saying should go for woodworkers? I invented this device when I realized that the drawers in my new armoire tipped down way too much. Two of these helpers, one at each corner, now keep each drawer level when opened. They act as stops,…

When I crosscut hardwood plywood, I use an old technique to minimize tearout on the bottom face. I simply make two passes with my general-purpose blade. After setting the rip fence, I cut a shallow groove, no more than 1/32 in. deep. Then I raise the blade and cut all the way through. Cutting plywood…

The dust collection port on my sliding miter saw missed a lot of sawdust, so I added an additional port mounted directly behind the blade. The port is a piece of 3-in. ABS pipe that’s cut at 45 degrees to create a wide mouth. The pipe is shaped to fit behind the saw’s swiveling table,…

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 tables, so I get more life from them. First, make a 3/4” x 16” x 20” base for your drill press table and bolt…

I use biscuit joints in lots of small projects, particularly for joining rails to legs. I usually reference from the bottom of the plate joiner rather than use its fence. When I want to make an offset joint, I cut the slots in the rails first. Then I add a large shim plate to the…

Rare earth magnets make really slick hinges for small boxes. The lid on this ring box pivots on two hinges made from 10mm magnets—nothing more. Each hinge is composed of two magnets: one is glued to the box’s side; the other is glued to the cleat under the lid. The cleats are carefully positioned so…

When I’m sanding pitchy wood or removing old finish, my sandpaper gets really gummed up and I can’t get it clean with the rubber eraser-type cleaner. I used to throw it away and buy more. Now, I pour some resin cleaner (for cleaning saw blades) in a glass jar and soak the sandpaper overnight. You…

I needed a way to lift pieces off the surface of my bench for finishing, so I made some 3/4″ x 2″ x 3″ blocks and inserted 1/4″ x 1-1/4″ dowels into them. Here’s the bonus: I discovered that if I fastened a piece of peg-board on top of my bench, I could tap the…

I’ve dried my own lumber for years, but I always had a problem getting enough weight on top of the stack, to keep the upper boards from warping. Here’s a solution: Use clamps made from threaded rods. Start building the stack by placing short pieces of 2×4 on your shop’s floor. Next, place 2x4s across…

Whenever creating small pieces that include a routed detail of some sort, it’s best to do the routing on the larger “parent” board, and then separate the small piece from the larger. However, this isn’t always possible, and you may find yourself needing to rout a small piece. The question, of course, is how to…

Hoisting heavy sheets of plywood and MDF onto my tablesaw is not my idea of workshop fun. That’s why I devised this pivoting rack— and began storing my sheet stock vertically. The rack’s frame fits around the two base uprights and pivots on bolts. A cleat at the bottom keeps the sheet from sliding off….

Nobody likes wrapping up the last bit of finishing on a project and suddenly catching a run or imperfection you missed earlier. You can either ignore it, or more likely sand it down and fix the blemish. Thankfully, it’s easy to avoid this problem with the correct lighting. While having a well-lit shop with light…

  I built a deep drawer for my workbench so I would have lots of storage, but it created another problem. The tools I wanted were always at the bottom of the heap. I solved my frustration by adding an upper and lower tray. The upper tray slides forward or backward on top of the…

Here’s a simple way to protect your chisels from getting nicked and rusty rattling around in your toolbox. Just cut the fingers off some old leather work gloves. Poke holes with an awl at the open end, and thread a drawstring through them. Slide the chisel’s blade into the finger and close it tight with…

My shop is in a walkout basement with a steep grassy slope from the driveway.  The skateboard-like devices made for moving stock work well on hard surfaces, but not on grass.  My solution is an 8-ft. long two-wheeled cart. To build the cart, start with a 2-1/2″ wide strip of 1/4″ plywood, 8 ft. long. …

While making a base for a wooden vase, I had to glue up a small octagonal shape. I made this simple band clamp from a piece of string and a rubber band. Here’s how it works: first, tie one end of the string to the rubber band and loop the string around the workpiece; next,…

A nice scraper burnisher can be made quickly for little or no cost. All you need is a cheap wooden file handle (available at hardware stores) and an old drill bit. You simply drill into the handle, then leave the bit in its hole with about 11⁄2” of the unfluted end projecting. A 1⁄4“- or…

I can’t stand throwing away good wood. When I’m turning a goblet or any other object, I don’t leave the waste areas blank. I pick up a gouge or a skew and use the waste to perfect my turning techniques. –Bob Patros

Ripping very narrow stock on the table saw can be a bit dicey because your push stick runs so close to the blade. If you’re not careful to keep it against the rip fence, it can tip into the spinning blade. And cutting short, narrow pieces is particularly difficult because the blade’s rising rear teeth…

Every woodworker knows not to rely on inside measurements made with a tape measure. Instead, I use two steel rules with dimensions that run to the edges. I butt one rule at each end, so the graduations overlap. To calculate the exact inside measurement, I read one ruler from the 10-in. mark on the other…

While looking around the shop to find a shim for my dado set, I saw the plastic lid from a cottage cheese container in the trash. Hmm, I thought, that could be it. I trimmed away the edge and measured the thickness. At .022 (about 3/128), it complemented my thinner paper shims perfectly. To cut…

In my work I often need to draw large-radii curves, for which I use this long beam compass. Built from scrap wood and a dowel center, it’s cheap and easy to make in any length. It can be quickly adjusted and doesn’t need locking clamps or screws to hold its setting.  The compass consists of…

Like many woodworkers, I use a bench hook to support small pieces on the bench for handsawing. A typical bench hook is just a small panel with a shortened topside fence at one end for supporting the workpiece and a full-length underside fence on the opposite end that “hooks” against the edge of the workbench….

When doing repair work, I often have to inlay small patches of wood into a finished surface. To help level the patch afterward without marring the adjacent surface, I made up several of these little detail sanders, band sawing them from 3⁄4“-thick hardwood scraps. A strip of sandpaper wraps around the foot, with one end…

This workshop tip saves both time and money. Make your table saw inserts two-sided to pull double duty on projects.

Making an inset drawer line up flush with the face of a cabinet can be fussy work. To make it easy, I just install two screws on the back of the drawer and turn them until the drawer’s front is perfectly aligned.  –Bob Smith

Like most planers, mine snipes, overcutting a bit at both ends of a board. Sometimes I’ll simply cut off the sniped areas if I can afford the extra board length. However, with precious woods, that can mean trashing a few bucks. Another technique is to closely precede and follow the board with a scrap of…

Nothing in handplaning is more frustrating than tear-out

After cutting out plugs on the drill press, I used to saw them from their blank using the table saw. Unfortunately, this would often send the freed plugs flying across the shop, forcing me to hunt for them afterward. I recently discovered a much better approach. I drill the plugs right at the edge of…

I use lots of wedges in my shop, sometimes as disposable clamp pads for tricky glue-ups or for general shimming chores. Sometimes they’re incorporated into a project, as when making wedged mortise-and-tenon joints. I used to cut wedges on the band saw but the rough surfaces often proved to be a hindrance. I decided to…

When working on small projects, I often need to glue odd-shaped mouldings and tiny trim to box sides and other pieces. Not much pressure is required to hold these small pieces in place, and I find that the humble wooden clothespin is often the perfect clamp for the job. Cheap and easily available, spring clothespins…

My basement shop is quite small and my drill press is right next to my workbench. When I needed to drill a long board, I would stack pieces of wood on top of my workbench to act as a support. I decided to build a holder to sit on my workbench that would allow me…

Although I have several commercially made accessories for clamping mitered frames, they don’t work well on small frames. So, I devised my own small-frame clamping method. First, I made four V-shaped corner blocks out of 3⁄4″ MDF. Along the outside edge of each corner piece, I cut a groove about 1⁄4″ deep and 1⁄4″ wide,…

Six great ideas for space-challenged woodworkers to get more out of their small shops.

Like most woodworkers, I never have enough clamps. Adding to a clamp collection is expensive, so when I needed some deep reach clamps, I made these auxiliary hardwood jaws. The jaws are mortised to slide on the clamp’s bar. You can make them whatever size you like. A stiff wood, like maple, is ideal. –William…

In need of some quick lumber storage, I rummaged around my shop for a solution.  I discovered a length of PVC pipe left over from a plumbing job and cut it into three 12″ pieces. I also found some 1/2″ rope and cut it into three pieces, 5′ long.  I tied knots on the ends…

Efficient storage is important in my garage shop, so after use, my assembly tables tip, fold, clamp and roll. Each table has one apron-mounted caster ($10 at a home center). I used two sheets of 3/4-in. plywood to make the tabletops and aprons and ordered the folding legs from Rockler. My tables are very stable…

I made this rack so the finish on my small projects would dry without leaving marks. I cut strips off of a 3/4″ board with my tablesaw’s blade tilted 30 degrees. For each new strip, I just flipped the board and moved the fence over 1/2″ in. Then I glued the strips on a piece…

I have a humble number of bar and pipe clamps and no time or desire right now to build a dedicated clamp rack for them. Instead, I installed a standard closet bracket on my shop wall for the purpose. Now the clamps are centrally located and easily accessed. I hang the clamp head on the…

I don’t have a lathe, so when I need to make a cylindrical part, I do it by hand. Using this holding device, I can easily turn a square piece into a round piece using a hand plane—and you can, too. This jig is about as simple as it gets. It’s just a wide board…

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 them to raise work pieces for stacked glue-ups. I also use the blocks and strips for pocket-hole assembly, so I don’t have to hang…

Ready-to-carve 3D images make it easy to produce finished machine carvings or hand tool ready roughouts. Creating stunning carved woodwork has never been easier with a CNC router. Think of all the creative possibilities for carvings: door panels, box lids, frieze boards, emblems, awards, artwork, signs or having your signature carved into the back of…

I found yet another use for my trusty speed squares. Just clamp one or two of them inside the corners of a cabinet when you’re gluing it up. This guarantees that the corners will be square.  –Charles Mak

For turning spindles, there’s nothing like having a  really long tool rest. You never have to move it! I made my own with parts from the hardware store. This rest is just a length of square steel tubing with a steel rod fastened to its top. The rod’s rounded surface makes it easy to slide…

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 outfeet table, drawing table, or assembly table at different heights as nee need arises. My sawhourses are the folding, galvanized-metal kind, but any type will do. Cut 2×4’s to fit on…

This jig makes it easy to set up the bit for routing flutes and dadoes. I simply drop the appropriate depth gauge into the channel, set my router on top and lower the bit until it touches the gauge. The base is an 8“ square piece of 3/4“ MDF. Two strips of 3/4“ MDF on…

Editor’s note: Special thanks to reader Bob L, who pointed out that putting a rare earth magnet that close to a moving saw blade can have catastrophic consequences. If you choose to use this tip, please ensure the magnet is adequately recessed and high enough to be out of the way for your specific saw. …

A felt-tip pen is the best tool I’ve found for adjusting a grinder’s tool rest. When you need to find the center of a bevel in order to duplicate an angle, color the whole bevel with a Magic Marker or a Sharpie. Adjust the rest to the approximate angle of the bevel, then start up…

This sled allows me to cut the 1/8-in.- wide strips of veneer that I often use for inlays. I can cut strips all day without having to measure or reposition the saw’s fence. The sled consists of a 13-in. by 24-in. piece of 1/2-in. MDF with a hardwood runner attached to the bottom. Battens and…

In my work as a luthier, I sand a lot of curved surfaces. I’ve found that I can make perfect sandpaper backing pads from “kneeling cushions” sold for garden work. Available at home-supply stores or on Amazon for a few bucks, these 1″ x 7″ x 16″ foam cushions can be cut up to make…

Small tools are easier to reach since I added two rare-earth magnets to my apron. I epoxied the 1/2″ dia. magnets to two 1″ square pieces of leather, punched 1/2″ holes in the apron, and then epoxied the leather squares to the apron’s back side. –Mark Thiel

I don’t know about you, but when I’m working in the shop, I usually try and carve out at least a few hours. Enough time to make some progress on a project at least. Often, this means standing for long periods of time. And, while I do what I can to try and have anti-fatigue…

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 store-bought dogs, so I made my own. At first, I thought all I’d need was a couple 3/4″ dowels with…

Specialty hardware can be really annoying. Take the T-bolt—it’s essential for attaching anything to a T-track, but where can you buy one at a moment’s notice? Hardware stores don’t carry T-bolts, but I’ve found that they always have a good substitute in stock: closet bolts. Closet bolts are used to fasten a toilet to the…

Get better woodworking results with these 12 tips. I’ve been teaching now for more than 15 years. And in that time I’ve thought a lot about why students are or are not able to do certain things. Problems arise only rarely as a result of a student not having good information about how something should…

Ordinary push pads tend to slip, I’ve found, when face-jointing a board. I modified one of mine by cutting 1/2″ of the rubber padding off its back end and then screwing on a 1/2″ x 1/2″ cleat. Now the rear push pad hooks the back end of the board. No more slipping! –Mike Cyr

Old bandsaw blades can easily be recycled into useful marking or carving knives. One blade nets you a slew of small pieces. Use a tin snip to cut off a piece of the blade, grind off the teeth, and then grind the profile. Quench the blade in water quite often so you don’t burn it;…

When finishing a flat panel, I use plastic soda bottle caps as standoffs to raise the panel above the bench. First, I finish the back side of the panel. Then I set the wet side on the upturned soda caps and finish the front side. One small problem–the soda bottle tops have a series of…

When gluing miters for small mouldings, clear packing tape makes an ideal clamp. Begin by placing a strip of tape across the bottom of the joint; this will prevent glue squeeze-out from getting on your bench. As you push the joint together with one hand, wrap the tape up and over the top of the…

While sawing dovetails for a jewelry box, I found my back was hurting from hunching over my bench vise. In order to work more comfortably, I built this vise extension that works on the same principle as a leg vise. The fixture is nothing more than a couple short sections of 2×12 lumber connected with…

The price of good turning tools can be pretty steep. Since most of the better lathe tools can be purchased without a handle, put your money where it counts—in the steel, not the handle. After all, it’s the steel that does the work, and high-quality steel gives you an edge that lasts a very long…

Check out these 11 methods to make layout easier. Write With Chalk Lay out “cut here” marks on rough lumber with chalk. Chalk marks are easy to read, even on the scruffiest surface. Unlike ink, pencil or crayon, chalk marks are easy to erase if you change your mind. (I often do!) Just scrub the…

Some people get pretty worked up about using the right word for the right joint. Perhaps they have a point since imprecise use of terms can lead to confusion. So, to be precise, here are the proper definitions: A dado is a U-shaped, square-bottomed channel cut across the grain. A groove looks just like a…

I recently thought I’d outfit my portable “benchtop” table saw with a zero-clearance throat plate to reduce tear-out and to prevent narrow strips from falling down through the wide throat opening. Unfortunately, the throat plate opening is very shallow and requires accommodating numerous odd-shaped tabs, so making a custom throat plate wasn’t so easy. I…

Whenever I need a cup of water or a damp rag, I just turn the spigot on my $3 water jug. That’s much cheaper than plumbing my shop! –O’Neil Long

My portable planer uses disposable blades. When the first set got dull, I didn’t throw them away–I turned the two blades into very useful drawknives.  I wrapped duct tape around the ends of the blades and touched up their cutting edges with a diamond paddle. The narrow profiles of these tools are perfect for cutting…

I made a built-in bookcase for my daughter that required attaching the face frame after installing the case. I didn’t want to mar the face frame with nail holes, but I don’t have any special-purpose edge clamps and didn’t want to buy a bunch for this single application. I remembered seeing wedges used for various…

A push stick is a familiar device to prevent kickback while ripping a board, but I prefer to use a “push shoe.” It’s shaped like a shoe with a handle, and has a heel, just like a boot. The heel pushes the work through the saw. I’m more comfortable using a push shoe because the…

I got tired of jury-rigging extra light for finishing, so I built this light stand from a 4-ft. length of 2×2 and 1/4-in. plywood. The 6-in. by 17-in. legs include 1/2-in. by 3- 1/2” feet. The post aligns with the bottoms of the leg cutouts, so it doesn’t touch the floor. Each leg simply butts…

When I bought my expensive 24″ machinist’s straightedge, I wasn’t sure where to store it. It didn’t include a hole for hanging, and I was reluctant to drill into the hard steel for fear of devaluing the tool or compromising its accuracy. I didn’t want to stash it in a drawer or on a shelf…

I made a go-anywhere task light by retrofitting an old, broken fixture with a new, battery-powered LED light. First, I removed the cord and inner workings from the task light. Then I screwed a plywood disc into the light’s shade and stuck the adhesive-backed LED light to the disc. I’ve used my light for hundreds…

Some high-end combination squares have a built-in lip or tab for the purpose of resting the tool hands-free on a piece of wood. But because most common combination squares lack this handy feature, I developed this inexpensive solution. Simply attach a 3⁄8“-diameter rare-earth magnet to the head. It allows the square to rest in place,…

After ruining four $90 sheets of plywood by storing them on a damp floor, I came up with a simple fix: PVC feet. Cut several 12″ sections of 2″ dia. PVC pipe in half, lengthwise. Apply traction tape to the convex side, so the plywood doesn’t slide. Place the feet on your shop floor, and…

For years, I sanded and hand planed panel edges by laying them flat on my workbench.  I could never quite squeeze a bench vise into my woodworking budget, so I came up with this fast, inexpensive clamp rail. I recessed a 36” long 2 x 6, into my workbench’s face, and secured it with wood…

Here’s a dirt-simple but effective accessory for your miter saw. It eliminates tear-out, allows you to make precision cuts by aligning a pencil mark with the kerf, and provides room to screw or clamp a stop block anywhere along the fence. Originally, I built this table for extra support when cutting long pieces. But it’s…

Crawling around under the basement stairs to find what may or may not be in this box or that was a pain. However, leaving the space empty was not an option. I built this cart to make use of every inch of priceless basement real estate. The cart is made from 2 x 4’s, with…

To set the height of a router bit—within .001″, if necessary—I made this simple stand for my caliper. It works on a router table or a hand-held router. Two screws with washers secure the caliper. When I need the caliper without the stand, it’s easy to remove. The exact position of the caliper on the…

I had a project on which I needed to rout out a large area about 3⁄8” deep. It was a wooden case for a Nook reader, and the eReader had to fit into the excavation. I had poor luck with my power router. It failed miserably. I had poor visibility of the bit, and the…

Who says you can’t put a square peg in a round hole?  My scrap bin is made from round cardboard tubes made for concrete forms. These tubes are available at home centers; they’re durable, come in various diameters, and are easy to cut. I use their different diameters and lengths as a filing system for my…

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 surface on their edges.  To make these knobs, all you need are plastic caps, 1/2” thick plywood, carriage bolts…

“You can’t have too many clamps,” a wise cabinetmaker once said. That is certainly true, but in a small shop, you can easily run out of room to store them. On clamp is so different from another that no single rack can accommodate them all in a compact space. Most woodworkers benefit from a variety…

We compared 14 methods to find the fastest way to prepare this useful tool.

When buying supplies for my shop, I often visit a store where stuff costs around $1. Many items sell for much more at a home improvement store, so I save a pile of money. You never know what you’re going to find in a $1 store, but here’s a list of things to look for:…

Oxalic acid makes black marks disappear. Nasty stains can occur during glue-up if steel clamp beams are left in contact with wood dampened by glue squeeze-out or by scrubbing off the glue. Removing them requires sanding or scraping… or brushing on a solution of oxalic acid (two heaping tablespoons of crystals dissolved in a pint…

  If you’re unhappy with how your stained finish is turning out, the problem might be in the way that you’re sanding. Follow these tips and you’ll be good as gold! Go E-Z on the R-O Random-orbit sanders employ a dual-action motion (the disc rotates and oscillates) to create a uniform scratch pattern that minimizes…

While making Shaker boxes, I built a jig to accurately rip 1/16″ thick strips without getting my hands too close to the blade. In fact, I can leave the guard on the saw. The jig has two parts. First, there’s a track that mounts on the saw, next to the fence. Two rare-earth magnets recessed…

Here’s a hi-tech way to set your tablesaw’s miter gauge to within 1/10 of 1° of any angle. It really works well for cutting picture-frame miters. The key is to use a digital angle gauge. I bought one designed for woodworkers that has as a handy magnetic base. For this degree of accuracy, you’ll also…

Venetian blinds purchased from a home center come in a variety of standard sizes. They are cut to the correct width by the retailer, but to adjust the height you remove a number of the slats at home. If you’re like me, you hold on to these extra slats because “someday you will find a…

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 made the slots on the table saw. To set the depth-of-cut, I place the circular saw on the appropriate slot on the…

Tool: Sawhorse Supports Shop Now  Manufacturer: Rockler MSRP: $17.99 An extra work surface is always handy in the shop. We’ve all thrown a large piece of plywood down on a couple of sawhorses when we need a temporary bench, but let’s admit it—a top that can flex and sag is less than ideal. This set…

I like to use purpleheart pen blanks because they’re less expensive than other exotic hardwoods. Recently, I stumbled on a cool trick. I discovered that I could cause the wood to overheat and turn dark by using the back side of the sandpaper while the wood is turning. Light overheating makes purpleheart look like rosewood;…

Christopher Schwarz once demonstrated a time-honored trick for hand-cutting tenon shoulders. After laying out the joint, he chiseled directly downward onto the shoulder cutline, then made a V-groove by tapping inward from the waste side. This created a channel to guide the saw perfectly for the desired cut. I decided to try this technique for…

Over the years, I’ve shortened a fair number of long bolts to some desired size rather than traipsing to the hardware store for just a few of the proper length. Unfortunately, I always encountered two problems with sawing bolts. The first was that it’s difficult to mark an accurate cutline on bolt threads. The second…

I frequently need to clamp wood on edge to saw tenons or work the edge of a plank, but I don’t have a traditional woodworking bench. While studying at the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding, I worked at a traditional planking bench where boards were clamped to the edge of the top. That inspired me…

One of the most accurate approaches for checking a case or other assembly for square is to compare the inside diagonal measurements for equidistance. The easiest way to do this is using pinch rods – a pair of sticks clamped together with a collar to create the appropriate length for measuring. To use pinch rods,…

I have to admit that I’m not very fond of dowel joinery. I’ve repaired too many old dowel joints over the years to trust them. Part of the problem is that a dowel hole in face grain offers only about 50 percent long-grain-to-long-grain contact, which a strong joint requires. The remaining long-grain-to-end-grain contact provides only…

Glue Cleanup in Tight Spots Glue squeeze-out can be difficult to clean up in tight spaces such as beads and grooves because you can’t wipe the area very effectively with a damp rag nor insert a chisel to slice away the hardened glue afterward. I’ve found that a good approach is to clean up the…

After years of wishing my old workbench had a tail vise, I realized I could make one of my new Jorgensen Cabinet Master bar clamps do the job. All I had to do was reverse the sliding lower jaw (it’s removable) and mount the bar and fixed jaw under the benchtop. I drilled and chiseled…

Re-sawing a board is tricky. Most blades drift, so that you must angle the board to get a straight cut. Standard bandsaw fences can’t be angled to compensate for drift, so many folks use a single-point fence instead, like this one. The point on my fence is a tall stack of machine bearings, which gives…

Having light precisely where you need it at the bench makes it easier to see what you’re doing, especially for jobs such as laying out joinery, cutting dovetails and other detail work. This sliding block holds the stem of my articulating-arm lamp, and it allows me to move the light anywhere I need it along…

I’ve struggled for a long time to adequately light my garage for woodworking. I’ve added fluorescent and LED work lights in the areas where I do the most woodworking, but overall brightness was still lacking. I stumbled upon some adjustable LED garage lights at my local home store and decided to grab some on impulse….

A router can be one of the most versatile tools in your shop. We’ve brought together a few of our favorite tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your router.

I make a lot of shelving from hardwood plywood, covering the panel edges with 1⁄4“-thick solid-wood edging. The edging, which is oversized in length and width, is trimmed flush with the plywood panel after the glue cures. Although the projecting edging can be routed using a flush-trim bit, it tends to tear out if there…

While I have a shooting board with a 90° fence, any other angle requires fussing with wood, screws and a protractor. In a moment of desperation, I cut a groove down the center of an old bench hook that matched the standard miter groove on my table saw and dropped in my miter gauge. I…

When I need to cut a bunch of small, equally sized pieces, I install this simple jig. It holds short pieces securely during and after cutting, so they don’t get caught by the blade and thrown around the shop. My jig is just a hold-down clamp attached to a squarely-cut piece of plywood. This clamp…

I recently ran into a turning dilemma when my wife asked me to make her a quick, inexpensive lamp base. I decided that a two-piece base would do the trick, attaching a long, narrow “neck” to a short, wide base for good footing. Shaping the pieces on the lathe would be easy. The challege was…

The next time you use your jigsaw, forget about hauling out the sawhorses or cantilevering a hard-to-hold workpiece off your bench. Extruded polystyrene insulation board, the rigid pink sheets used in housing construction, makes sawing easy, whether you’re cutting a small piece of hardwood or a full sheet of plywood. During the cut, the workpiece…

Board-Stretching Joint I bought a planer/molder so I could make my own moldings. My living room required one 28‘.-long molding, but all I had to make it were 12‘. boards. I didn’t want to settle for separate 12‘. molding sections mitered during installation. I wanted this molding to be one continuous piece. Joining the boards…

This mobile, folding table base provides a huge work area, holds a ton and folds up to only 7 in. thick.

Ordinary paraffin canning wax has dozens of uses in my shop. It’s cheap at a few bucks a pound, available at any grocery store, and easy to cut into small chunks. Unlike candle wax, which often contains beeswax, or some spray lubricants, which may have silicone in them, paraffin won’t contaminate oil and varnish finishes…

There’s nothing more annoying than a vacuum hose dragging on the bench when you’re working with a router, sander or other power tool. These big hoses always seem to hang up on workpieces and tangle with tools on the bench. I finally found a cheap, easy solution in the form of a clothesline retractor available…

Keeping project parts organized and in proper relation to one another while machining and assembling them can be a real challenge, especially if you’re organizing the pieces for attractive grain composition. So how do you mark the parts for quick return to their home position? Once again, we can turn to the old-timers for the…

I lost the rubber pads that came with my clamps. I liked the way the pads protected the wood, so I decided to make my own. After a couple dips in liquid plastic ($9 at a hardware store), my clamps have cushy pads that don’t slip off. They work great! —Randy Barker

A straight mortise-and-tenon joint requires each tenon cheek to be flat, of consistent thickness and parallel to the body of the workpiece. If a cheek is twisted or angled relative to the faces of the workpiece, the result can be a twisted assembly. The same goes for an end rabbet joint. This simple tool can…

Sometimes drilling a hole in a finished piece of wood is unavoidable. I keep a pad of sticky notes nearby for this purpose. I put the sticky note roughly over the area where the hole is to go. Then I can mark the location of the hole without making any marks directly on the wood….

Quick Panel-finishing Setup When making frame-and-panel doors, my panels are finished before installing them into their frames. The fact that the edges will be tucked into the frames allows for a quick, easy setup that permits finishing both faces right away instead of waiting for one face to dry before flipping the panel over to…

Winding sticks are very useful for gauging twist in a board, but they’re difficult to read. My improved version of these time-tested helpers makes the twist stand out. I start with a pair of straight, flat 2“-wide sticks made from 3/4“-thick light-colored wood. Then I stain both of them dark—the darker, the better. When the…

While building this little station to organize my cordless-drill paraphernalia, I discovered that bicycle hooks make great drill holders. Mounting the station on the wall saves valuable benchtop space. Now I never have to hunt for my drills, chargers, and bits. –Hans Wendt        

When turning, I like to have all my supplies close at hand, ready for use.  I use an index card box to store and organize cut pieces of sandpaper. It has a lid and dividers,  so everything is neat and orderly. When you cut sandpaper into sections, some pieces won’t have the grit information on them,…

One afternoon my wife called out to my shop with an urgent request.  She needed me to make a round plywood cake plate for a charity auction.  I assured her it would be no problem. I was in the middle of a project and didn’t want to spend all afternoon on this. Then it hit…

I recently made a couple of recipe boxes with finger joints. I didn’t have enough regular clamps to glue both boxes at once, so I decided to use band clamps. During my dry run, I discovered that the bands wouldn’t allow the joints to close. To fix this, I put a dowel on each side…

I’m making and installing approx. 5000-bd.ft. of hard maple trim. Keeping track of what I’ve already sanded is difficult, so before sanding, I rub artists non-oil pastel chalks (also available at artist supply stores) onto the wood and into the grain with a dry staining sponge. Then I simply sand until all the chalk is…

“Measure twice cut once” is probably the most commonly passed-on bit of woodworking advice. With that in mind, we’ve gathered some of our favorite tips to make measuring easier, more accurate, and sometimes altogether unnecessary! Benchtop Ruler I wish I had three hands sometimes, when I’m measuring and marking. After dropping a tape measure I…

Now that arthritis has a grip on me, I have trouble getting a good grip on clamp handles. My solution is easy and costs nothing. I carve grooves lengthwise on the handles using a medium-sized gouge. Problem solved. –Clovis Davis

Understanding the Why is just as important as the How. Hand tools are a pleasure to use-if they’re sharp. Once you have a sharp tool in your hands, you’ll begin to realize why some woodworkers are so passionate about old ways of working wood. Slow is beautiful, after all. I’ve been a hand tool enthusiast…

Floor Sweep Dust Port My router table is probably the most-used tool in my shop. I have dust collector ports on the fence, but when I rout with a bearing-guided bit, it still makes a huge mess. One day I was at my local woodworking supply store shopping for more dust collector ports, but I…

Seeking Comfort This year hasn’t been easy. There have been times I’ve really identified with Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog’s Day, doing the same things over and over again, with no real end in sight. Wake up. Check the news. Make coffee. Sit at my computer. Eat dinner. Sleep. Repeat. Hope for change. As the…

My oscillating spindle sander’s auxiliary table makes quick work of edge sanding short boards and forming perfect circles. Make the table from melamine or a laminate-covered material and fasten it to your sander’s table. Make a fence the same length as the table and drill a hole through one end for a 3/8” x 6”…

I devised a new way to fit a shelf into a dado. I use my router to make a tiny adjustment to the shelf’s thickness instead of fine-tuning my dado set with shims to match the plywood’s thickness. This may be standard practice for some woodworkers, but it’s new to me. For 1/4” deep dadoes,…

Pattern-Cut Finials The traditional way to make a square finial on a bandsaw is to mark and cut the pattern on one side of the blank, then tape the offcut back on to the blank in order to guide the cuts on the adjacent side.  This is difficult to do with an intricate pattern because…

Staple Set Pneumatic staplers don’t always set 1/4” crown staples flush.  Driving them the rest of the way with a hammer causes the staples to kink,  so I designed this easy-to-make tool, which I call a “staple set.” To make the set, cut a 5” section of dowel at least 1” in diameter and drill…

Being an impatient sort, waiting for glue to reach the bottle’s spout became a pet peeve of mine. To put an end to this, I made a stand with a hole in the top matching the diameter of the bottle’s lid. It allows the bottle to stand upside down so the glue is always ready…

There’s never enough storage space in a shop, is there? When I recycled some old kitchen cabinets to use in my shop, I added one more drawer to each one—in the toe-kick space.

I often lubricate the soles of my planes with paraffin wax to make them slide easier. While ripping a board that was insistent on pinching just enough to make sawing difficult, it occurred to me to lubricate my saw, too. Suffice to say, I’ve been doing this ever since.

Shop-Made Rocker Jaw One simple board, cut into the shape of a seesaw, can make a huge improvement to your vise. It allows you to firmly hold tapered work and long, upright boards off to the side of the vise. For a tapered piece, such as the leg shown here, place the rocker in the…

To make a quick and easy drying rack, or to raise a project off your bench while applying a finish, use blocks of rigid foam insulation and drywall screws. For stability, the screws should be no more than 1/2″ longer than the foam’s thickness. If you simply push the screws through, they’ll punch out a…

The thought of emptying my dust collector’s plastic bag used to make me cringe. Many times I’d go through my entire repertoire of colorful language two or three times, and that darn bag still wouldn’t stay in place while I put on the strap clamp. I solved this by holding the bag in place with…

To Get the most from my limited shop space, I built a two-sided “mobile tool wall” to park in front of my overhead garage door. The wall is just basic carpentry construction, with a 3/4″ plywood bottom and bracing, a stud wall with perf-board panels on both sides, and heavy-duty 4″ casters. When I need…

Carrying plywood by yourself is a pain. This caddy allows you to roll it around instead. Just clamp this caddy to the board’s edge, tip the sheet down onto the wheels and off you go.

Plastic bins are excellent for storing hardware and other small items. After purchasing all the types and sizes of bins I needed, including some complete cabinets, I made this shelf unit to neatly house them in one place. –A.J. Hamler

I often use my shop vacuum for dust collection on hand-held power tools. Two things annoy me about most vacs, though. First, they’re really noisy. Second, when the vac gets full—and that can happen before you know it—the filter clogs up and airflow drops. I solved both problems at once. I put my vac in…

I bought a keyless chuck for convenience, but I found it hard to tighten and loosen by hand. The knurling on the chuck wasn’t very deep, so my hand just slipped. I often resorted to using a pair of channel-lock pliers, but that defeats the whole purpose of a keyless chuck, doesn’t it? While wandering…

Cutting small parts on a miter saw doesn’t have to be scary or dangerous. I’ve adopted a method that keeps your fingers well away from the blade and prevents the piece you’re cutting from zinging across the shop. First, make a zero-clearance table. It’s composed of just two parts: a base and a fence. Make…

I added a pair of powerful handled magnets [buy on Amazon] to my shop-made featherboard. They fit snugly into two notches and hold the featherboard absolutely rigid. The magnets enable me to place the featherboard anywhere I want on my tablesaw or bandsaw without fumbling with clamps. Each magnet exerts 100 pounds of force–plenty of…

I made a clamping device for my bench that can quickly snug up a board just by swinging a lever. The lever has a cam that pushes a sliding stop tight against the board. I made all the parts from 1/4″ thick stock. The total thickness of the device is 1/2″, so I can use…

Here’s a faster way to clean out your router table or cabinet saw if it’s hooked up to a central dust collection system. Instead of sweeping it out, or dragging over the vac, just remove the vac’s hose and stick it down into the machine’s dustport. Turn on the central system, and voila! Even though…

Super-Accurate Tablesaw Tilt Tablesaw tilt gauges are inherently inaccurate. After all, the degree lines are usually at least 1/16″ wide. I use a digital angle gauge instead, which is accurate to 1/10 of 1°, and mount it on a bracket in front of the saw. You could attach this gauge directly to a saw blade…

Have you ever clamped a part in one side of a vise, only to find that the piece slips? If you had looked at the vise’s front jaw, you probably would have noticed that it was skewed,  pinching just one corner of the workpiece. That condition is called “racking,” and virtually every vise suffers from…

When I turn hollow vessels, I have to remove my lathe’s tailstock to install a support for the hollowing tool. When I’m done hollowing, I have to re-mount the tailstock to finish the turning. It’s a pain—literally. My tailstock is quite heavy; removing it is hard on my back, and getting it re-aligned on the…

To protect the edges of small carving tools, stick a wine bottle cork on them. Synthetic corks work best because they don’t break apart as easily as natural cork. Allow the cork to dry for a couple weeks before using it. If the cork is still damp inside, it can rust the tool. To make…

Self-Storing Glue Kit Gluing up a project can turn ugly in a hurry if you don’t have all your supplies on hand. I put together a kit that contains everything I need: a small white-nylon paintbrush for spreading glue, a putty knife, a wooden wedge and a cotton rag  for removing glue squeeze-out, and a…

Pull Saw Miter Box Short lengths of molding can be awkward—and sometimes dangerous—to cut with power tools. I’d rather cut them by hand, using a Japanese pull saw and a shop-made miter box. Make the two guide blocks for the miter box from a 1-1/2″ x 4″ x 12″ blank. (I glued two pieces of…

Drilling a mortise requires you to move the stock from side to side. Using a Forstner bit, you drill the end holes first, then drill overlapping holes in between. To keep the workpiece tight against the fence, it helps to have a featherboard that works in both directions. I made one using a pair of…

A scraper’s edge is very delicate. I used to keep my card scrapers loose in a drawer, but to avoid nicking their edges, I decided to make a simple stand for them. I cut a few slots in a 2″ thick piece of hardwood using a backsaw; the scrapers fit perfectly in the saw’s kerf….

I have a meager collection of handplanes made up of mostly dog-meat users. I like using planes that have history because it’s fun to think about what each might have made during the last 100 years. None of my planes are particularly nice, but I do want to keep them from getting destroyed. For a…

Universal Drawer Holder When I make dovetailed drawers, I usually plane the sides to even up the joints and fine-tune the drawer’s fit. Years ago, I found that you can’t accurately plane a side unless it’s fully supported from underneath. This jig does just that and easily adjusts to fit drawers from 8″ to 20″…

A Backer Board Prevents Chip-Out Chip-out is always an issue when you even up the stiles and rails of a door with a plane. If you plane all the way across the door, from one end to the other, you’re bound to chip out the outside edge of the stile. That damage is not easy…

1. Paraffin Lube When you rout a dovetail joint, your sense of feel is important. Your router should slide easily around the jig’s fingers, without hesitating, so you can tell which direction to push the router. To eliminate drag, rub a piece of canning wax (paraffin) on top of the comb. You won’t need much,…

Old wooden planes are usually coated with a layer of grime that obscures their true beauty. I clean them using a homemade solution that removes the dirt and grease without damaging the wood’s patina. It’s made from common ingredients. Make the solution from 1 part boiled linseed oil, 1 part Murphy’s Oil Soap and 2…

Close your eyes and picture it: your entire shop organized, a place for every tool, never struggling to find your cardscraper when you need it, and a stress-free day of woodworking. Sound like a dream? Not anymore! Finally get your shop organized just the way you want it. Swing-Out Plywood Storage I was looking for…

Some objects aren’t easy to hold for drilling. When I run into a situation like this, I use a wooden-jawed handscrew that has sandpaper glued to one side of it, so it doesn’t move around. You can use either adhesive-backed sandpaper or spray an adhesive on regular sandpaper.  

When your hands aren’t strong or large enough to put the last squeeze on a big clamp, try clamping the clamp. My ingenious wife, who has very small hands, invented this solution. She works in my shop too, and the grips on some of the clamps are just too large for her to get good…

Think of it almost like a DIY track saw. Crosscutting a full sheet of plywood on a tablesaw is pretty difficult, particularly when you don’t have any help. I use a circular saw and this shop-made edge guide, instead. The cuts aren’t finish quality, of course, but at least I end up with smaller pieces…

Every little bit helps when trying to keep your shop and tools clean. That’s why we’ve compiled some of our favorite tips all in one place. Mobile Suction 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…

1. Lubricate a Bandsaw Blade It’s safe and easy to cut brass and aluminum with a bandsaw and a regular woodworking blade. Using a miter gauge, you can make a very straight cut. Be sure to use a 4 TPI blade with hardened teeth. A blade with finer teeth is likely to clog up; an…

I had to crosscut narrow strips to make a cutting board. The boards were too wide for my miter saw, so I decided to use my tablesaw’s crosscut sled. I tried a standard stop, but after a few cuts, I realized that the parts were “creeping” ever so slightly during the cut. I needed a stop…

An accurate inside measurement is sometimes difficult to obtain. For example, I needed to take a measurement behind a cabinet’s face frame to fit a new shelf. Typically, most people would solve this one of two ways. Some would try the quick and dirty method of bending the tape into the corner which is a…

Making through-slots without a router may sound tricky, but it couldn’t be easier. In the days before I could afford a router, I made through-slots by gluing up scraps instead. Here’s how to do it. Cut some pieces the same width as your desired slot. Cut these slot spacers to length and then glue them…

Rare earth magnets set in a steel cup are perfect for all sorts of uses around the shop, but have you ever had to remove one? Once they’re in the cup, the magnets are practically impossible to get out. Here’s a trick that works really well. Stack larger diameter magnets on a steel rule, file,…

Monitoring the level of dust in your bin is a pain. You have to remove the lid and look, which isn’t easy. If you forget or put it off, dust will back up into the collector’s main unit, clogging up the filter, which, once discovered, is a huge mess. Some dust collectors have a flashing…

Making equal divisions on parts isn’t always straightforward when it comes to dividing fractions. On a recent trip to my local office supply store, I found a drafting tool that has become a valuable addition to my shop; a triangular engineer’s scale. It’s a six-edged ruler with a different scale on each edge; full size,…

Featherboards are an important accessory, providing both accuracy and a measure of safety. Typically, a featherboard is just a board with thin fingers sawn into the end that act as springs to keep your workpiece from wandering away from the fence. The problem I’ve always had with this type of featherboard is adjusting it to…

Resin build-up on saw blades makes them less effective. A clean blade runs cooler, doesn’t cause burning on your workpiece, stays sharp longer and cuts more accurately. Cleaning blades is a chore, however, so I’m always on the lookout for ways to make it easier. Krud Kutter Cleaner/Degreaser seems to take off resin build-up pretty…

Carrying a cutting list with me to the saw is a habit I learned long ago. If I don’t, it’s way too easy to transpose measurements on the way from my bench to the saw. I used to carry a small spiral notebook, but I found that it ended up getting rumpled and torn to…

Bar clamps can wear out over time. Usually, it’s because the ridges on the bar get worn down. When this happens, the clamps lose their grip, rendering them useless. Even if it’s just one worn spot on the bar, it’s very annoying. So why not just go buy a new clamp? Well, I’m a little…

Precise height adjustments on router bits and saw blades can be tricky because it’s really hard to see or measure small changes. This 1:8 tapered gauge “magnifies” them. Each mark on the gauge is 1/4″ apart, indicating a 1/32″ change in height. The gauge goes from 0 to 2″, is easy to read and accurate….

Cutting wooden plugs used to be frustrating. I like to keep the bit going, but each time I would cut a new plug the previous one would be pushed out of the cutter and fly across the shop, landing who knows where. Too many times, it was never to be seen again. I solved the…

A push pad is essential for jointing, routing or ripping because it keeps your fingers away from the danger zone. I’m always on the lookout for a pad that’s larger and grippier than the standard model. I found one at a home center, of all places, but it’s not sold as a push pad—it’s a…

Clogged sandpaper is really a pain, rendering useless your sandpaper and your effort. I was mindlessly sanding a project a while ago when I looked at my pile of discarded paper and had a “well, duh” moment. Why not clean the paper with the same cleaning stick I use on my disc sander? Works great!…

A storage tray is a useful addition to any stationary tool. After adding this one to my tablesaw, I don’t know how I ever did without it. I made the tray about 3″ deep, just deep enough to store the essentials lower than the surface of my saw, but shallow enough to keep items from…

Equally-Spaced Dovetails Every Time When laying out dovetails, I always start by marking the centers of the pins so the distance between them is approximately the same. I came up with this trick that allows me to position any number of equally-spaced pins (or tails) very quickly, without the use of a ruler. I use…

Unsatisfactory bandsaw fence? This simple shop-made fence and track system could be the answer. The tracks are formed by gluing up three pieces of hardwood. A slotted fence provides adjustment for blade drift, and is locked in place at any angle using T-bolts and jig knobs. To make the tracks, cut two pieces of hardwood…

The handles on hand-wheels are uncomfortable. The one on my lathe, for example, was difficult to turn when drilling into hard wood with a Forstner bit. Using a chunk of scrap, I turned a 2 1/4″ ball, and then drilled a hole slightly larger than the diameter of the handle. Now, when need to drill,…

Applying contact cement with a roller is my preferred method, as opposed to spraying it on. There’s not as much clean-up, and I don’t have to deal with overspray. There are drawbacks to this method, however. Mainly, the glue needs to be covered to keep it from skinning over between applications. Also, if you’re trimming…

A large bridle joint requires an open-ended mortise that may be too deep to cut with a 10″ tablesaw. I encountered this problem when I used my saw to make bridle joints on an exterior door. I tried to finish the cuts on the bandsaw, but was unsatisfied with the results: Working freehand left mortises…

“Scary sharp”—sharpening on sandpaper adhered to glass—works really well, but one thing has always bothered me. I’ve tried spray adhesives as well as PSA (pressure sensitive adhesive) backed sandpaper. In both cases, I’ve found that the sheets are very difficult to remove when they’re worn out. So is the glue residue. When I was a…

Initially lining up the edges of two boards for gluing up a jig is pretty easy. But when you add clamps or screws, one board often shifts out of place. If that alignment is critical, I don’t use clamps at all and divide the job into two steps. First, I apply glue and rub the…

Cutting precisely to a line on a miter saw isn’t easy. Usually, you have to make multiple cuts and sneak up to it. My solution is to use this universal gauge block; one cut is all that’s required. The block works for cutting pieces of any length, as long as they’re not shorter than the…

Turning Tool Tamer by Richard Tendick I was turning a vase recently, and as I got deeper into the turning, the vase’s rotation pulled the tool’s tip down, making it very difficult to keep the tool straight. I made a jig that cost me about $5. It prevents the handle from being pulled up, but…

Sometimes I prefer to sand by hand using a rubber block. This method gives me a better feel for the work than using a random-orbit sander does. Blocks like mine have been around for many years, but I believe I’ve made an improvement. I had noticed that most of the work was done by the…