Techniques

I spent much of Friday in the shop, tuning up machines in preparation for an upcoming magazine project. The thing I will be building is rather small, but with some involved details. I wanted the [...]

Q & A: Rusty Router Collets Q: Returning to my shop after working outside this summer, I noticed a rusty film on my router collets and bits.What’s the best way to remove the rust [...]

Mobile Router Center This rolling router center has onboard storage for all your router components, folds into a tidy package, serves as an extra work surface and rolls out of the way when [...]

Spend the last weekend of summer 2013 (and probably the first 1/2 hour or so of autumn, because we may not be done by 4:44 p.m.) with me at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking in Franklin, Ind., [...]

At-Hand Tool Storage By Bob Ungar I hate fumbling around in drawers or digging into cabinets for tools.That’s why I love perf-board. It displays my hand tools out in the open [...]

Tool snobs beware: This post is about an inexpensive tool that is useful for woodworking and without an ounce of style or charm. In the cabinet industry, plastic laminate files are used for [...]

Q & A: Truing a Framing Square   Q: I just inherited my grandpa’s framing square. It’s big and heavy and I’d like to use it but it isn’t square! How on earth can [...]

I hate end grain. In my work, I take great pains to hide every square inch of it. This often means cutting joinery that is more involved. For example, on my spice chest, I could simply have used [...]

Q & A: Rub-Joint Gluing   Q: My panel glue ups drive me nuts because the boards slide around whenever I clamp them together. Then I end up beating them back into position. What’s [...]

Traditional approaches in woodworking are generally reliable and efficient. If you know something has worked well for other woodworkers for a few hundreds years, you can likely assume that [...]

Q & A: Final Rubout   Q: I always have problems getting a smooth finish. I sand the wood with 220 paper,wipe it with a tack cloth, apply three coats of high-quality varnish, and still [...]

Three of the enemies in my shop are rust, zinc coating and black oxide. 1. Rust: No explanation needed. Rust is the enemy of steel, and steel is what allows us to tame wood. 2. Zinc coating: Many [...]