Techniques

Shop-Built 3-Jaw-Chuck A cheap, effective turning tool.   Three-jaw lathe chucks are virtually indispensable for a turner, yet the cost of buying one can be prohibitive. Three-jaw chucks are [...]

Replaceable Fence Faces It’s hard to improve on the performance of a T-square fence, but I think I’ve done it. I got frustrated with clamping on an additional subfence every time I [...]

Reading Grain Direction “Going against the grain” is a familiar phrase. It means doing something the wrong way.When you’re talking about wood, you always want to go with the [...]

Bandsaws for Cutting Metal and Wood   Q: I plan to buy a bandsaw, and I’d like one that can cut metal as well as wood. I’ve seen some two-speed bandsaws advertised. How well do [...]

Perfect Edge Joints A 6-step tune-up sets your jointer straight. By Dave Munkittrick   Jointers are simple machines with few moving parts, but the two beds, the fence and the cutterhead all [...]

Minimize Router Burns End grain burns easily on maple and cherry, and those burns are hard to remove. After sanding my fingers to the bone following one particularly unfortunate routing pass, I [...]

Scratch-Free Flush Cuts No matter how carefully I cut with my economy-model flushcutting saw, it always left scratch marks on the wood’s surface. To solve the problem, I attached a playing card [...]

Q: Does varnish go bad sitting on the shelf? A: Unopened varnish should last for years on the shelf when kept away from excessive heat. When a can is opened and the finish exposed to oxygen, [...]

With the glue dry, it’s time to see if your square is square – or if it’s a doorstop. Squaring a wooden square is a simple operation if you plan to use it for woodworking – not for building [...]

Making the blade of the Wierix square is the most creative part of the construction process, when you can get in touch with your inner fledermaus (aka bat). While you can argue about whether or [...]

A customer asked me to make a Wierix try square for him this week, and because it’s silly to make just one wooden square, I’m making a batch of five this week and am documenting the process here [...]

Tambour Doors Disappearing doors hide your clutter and show off your skill. Tambour doors are a bit of woodworking sleight of hand. Now you see them, now you don’t. Fun to open and fun to close, [...]