Tricks of the Trade

While trying to attach a carved 1⁄8“-thick mahogany veneer to the edge of a curved shelf, an idea came to me as a last moment glue-up solution. Initially I thought I could make it easier to [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Clamping cauls are indispensable for gluing up casework. A caul is simply a stiff piece of wood used to apply pressure where a clamp can’t reach. Sooner or later, you’re going to run [...]

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.…

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 [...]