Tricks of the Trade

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

After years of use, I could hardly see through my table saw’s guard. While at a car show, I heard that polish for renewing aluminum wheels also worked to clear up old headlight lenses—so I [...]

  A bench hook is an indispensable workholding device for crosscutting. The traditional bench hook is made of a base, a stop or rest and a cleat. It is usually used against the apron or [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Trying to bore with a Forstner bit using a hand brace is a nearly impossible task. I’ve come up with a solution that works fast and effortlessly. Drill a pilot hole to whatever depth you desire, [...]