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Ordinary push pads tend to slip, I’ve found, when face-jointing a board. I modified one of mine by cutting 1/2″ of the rubber padding off its back end and then screwing on a 1/2″ x [...]

Old bandsaw blades can easily be recycled into useful marking or carving knives. One blade nets you a slew of small pieces. Use a tin snip to cut off a piece of the blade, grind off the teeth, [...]

Add this flexible material to your shop repertoire. Plastics are amazing materials. Their lightweight grain-less structure gives them uniform strength in all directions making it an ideal [...]

When finishing a flat panel, I use plastic soda bottle caps as standoffs to raise the panel above the bench. First, I finish the back side of the panel. Then I set the wet side on the upturned [...]

Here’s a fun way to save money, be creative, make something useful, and use up scrap stock: make your own picture frames. You can start from scratch and have finished frames in a day or less, and [...]

When gluing miters for small mouldings, clear packing tape makes an ideal clamp. Begin by placing a strip of tape across the bottom of the joint; this will prevent glue squeeze-out from getting [...]

  These tips and tricks will take you a long way toward success. The router is, simply put, a multi-tasking workhorse in the woodshop. But you would be surprised by how many folks don’t get [...]

While sawing dovetails for a jewelry box, I found my back was hurting from hunching over my bench vise. In order to work more comfortably, I built this vise extension that works on the same [...]

As a sawyer, I always have a few questions for a client as I prepare to saw their logs into lumber. The first is: “How do you want this cut…live edge or boards?”. My second [...]

Check out these 11 methods to make layout easier. Write With Chalk Lay out “cut here” marks on rough lumber with chalk. Chalk marks are easy to read, even on the scruffiest surface. Unlike ink, [...]

Your joints will last for decades if you know how to apply your glue. Much of woodworking is joinery: An edge-to-edge joint is used to join two or more boards to create a tabletop, dovetails are [...]

I re-sharpen disposable planer blades a few times, using a shop-made jig, before tossing the blades away. I use a set of three diamond hones to sharpen the blade at an angle 5° higher than the [...]