Tricks of the Trade

Here’s a simple, invisible repair for an all too common mistake. Say you’re flush-trimming a board and, for whatever reason, your router’s bearing dips into a dent and makes an...

My sharpening procedures involve a lot of buffing with compound. On one side of my buffer I’ve mounted a hard felt wheel, and on the other a paper wheel shaped...

Over the years, I have often clamped stops on my drill-press fence to register hole locations in workpieces. Unfortunately, I always seemed to lose the stops. Flip stops always seemed...

Many of us are familiar with the technique of using a razor blade to scrape away drips from varnish and other film finishes. It’s a great way to level defects,...

Wooden wing nuts are so much easier on your hands than metal ones. Plus, it’s a great way to use up shop scraps and leftover hex nuts while avoiding a...

I find my stock band saw table too small to support many workpieces, so I outfitted it with a larger, auxiliary table. However, I wanted to be able to remove...

To create a planing stop on my workbench, I decided to go the simple route. I installed and countersunk a short row of #12 brass flathead screws near the edge...

I’ve combined the working parts of two quick-action clamps to make a good tool even better. A two-headed clamp allows me to quickly make an adjustable-height table for my drill...

When gluing plastic laminate to a substrate, lots of folks use sticks or dowels to support the laminate. Supports allow you to perfectly position the laminate, since it can’t be...

When I clean my HVLP spray gun, this shop-made container captures the liquid solvent and fumes. When the gun is clean, I simply pour the waste into a storage container...

If you do a lot of spray painting and finishing, but don’t have room for a permanent finishing bench, give this turntable a spin. It’s surprisingly sturdy and because it...

  Faced with cutting hundreds of plugs for a big project, I came up with this idea: I cut the plugs a little deeper than needed. Then I ran strips...