Kitchen Kalamity The cherry salad tongs I’d made needed repairs. They were steam-bent, so they would “spring” when you squeezed them together. But the top portion where the two arms attached was messed up. Cutting off this section significantly shortened the tongs, so there wasn’t much “spring” left. No problem; I could simply re-steam the…

Tool: Groove Center Buy Now Manufacturer: Prazi MSRP: $149 A lock miter is an excellent joint for building boxes and small cases. It creates lots of surface area for glue and a tight mechanical fit—the two requirements of any good woodworking joint. There’s one big downside, however. Setting up a lock miter bit in a router…

This modern take on a mid-century classic is a study in precision geometry. The sunburst-style wall clock came in a variety of shapes and sizes during its heyday of the mid-1940s to the mid ’60s. Its aesthetic captured many of the design elements common to the mid-century modern style – curves, colors, acute angles and…

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…

Add artful accents to a play table. Project #1914 • Skill Level: Beginner • Time: 1 Day • Cost: $150 Last Christmas my wife and I introduced our young boys to LEGO. This was a good reminder that there is something really special about spending time with your kids with toys that you grew up…

Tool: Festool MFT/3 Multifunction Table Buy Now Manufacturer: Festool MSRP: $735 If you work in a small space, on a jobsite, or must stow all your tools when you’re done, check out the Festool MFT/3 Multifunction Table. It’s designed to work hand-in-glove with the Festool guide rail system, which accommodates their plunge-cutting circular saw and router….

Baffle your friends with perplexing joints Press a dovetailed board into another board with matching sockets, and you’ve created woodworking’s most iconic joint. The dovetails and sockets wedge the boards together, so the joint can’t pull apart; the only way to disassemble it is to lift the dovetailed board back out of the sockets. So,…

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”…

Get a perfect fit using a shop-made jig. Oval and circular inlays are a time-honored method of adding class to a project, such as the top of a jewelry box. It’s an interesting challenge to make your own inlay, but far easier to select one from a wide range of ready-made designs (see Sources, page…

Shave-A-Shelf 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…

No matter how good your shop lights are, there are always areas that will benefit from the extra flow of photons. Like most bandsaws, the Grizzly bandsaw that we have (I mentioned it a few weeks ago when I showed how I replaced its tire) did not arrive with a dedicated lamp. Since I use…

Handle homemade pizza like a pro. Wednesday is homemade pizza night at our house. Everybody likes something different, so we each make our own personal size pizza. My favorite is hot Italian sausage with tomatoes, mushrooms, and mozzarella. Ready-made crusts make it especially easy, and you can bake them right on the oven rack. Restaurant…

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…

Welcome to the December to Remember 2020 Sweepstakes! To celebrate the holiday season, Popular Woodworking  and its sponsors are giving away a prize a day throughout December. To earn your chance, enter below, and come back each day for additional entry opportunities for each day’s prize. All entrants will qualify for the Grand Prize: an…

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…