Tricks of the Trade

When I had to install a bunch of magnetic catches recently, I came up with this simple method to mark the doors for the strike plate. It requires no measuring...

Planing the edge of a long board perpendicular to its face is a real challenge. To make the job easier, I built a guide that attaches to the side of...

I make lots of lazy Susans in my cabinet business, so I cut circles of many diameters. Changing diameters is easy on my circle-cutting jig, because I use a pop...

Nothing makes a cabinet look worse than door panels with unattractive grain that runs at werid angles. It pays to be picky about grain direction, even it means wasting some...

I enjoy making picture frames but always found it a pain to use tacks or staples to hold the picture in place. Plus tacks and staples are hard to remove...

I often need to find the center of a board for resawing (and other purposes). A quick way to do this is to use a cheap doweling jig and brad-point...

I needed a way to secure the tail board on the pin board for marking on a large case project while transferring the layout. So, I used two picture-frame clamps...

I cut custom base plates for my routers, which not only allows me to adjust the size for better stability, but to better see the work. They’re 1⁄4“-thick Plexiglas that...

When turning, I like to have all my supplies close at hand, ready for use.  I use an index card box to store and organize cut pieces of sandpaper. It has...

One afternoon my wife called out to my shop with an urgent request.  She needed me to make a round plywood cake plate for a charity auction.  I assured her...

I recently made a couple of recipe boxes with finger joints. I didn’t have enough regular clamps to glue both boxes at once, so I decided to use band clamps....

I’m making and installing approx. 5000-bd.ft. of hard maple trim. Keeping track of what I’ve already sanded is difficult, so before sanding, I rub artists non-oil pastel chalks (also available...