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 [...]
Adapt a furniture plan with your eye. I think of plans as sort of a roadmap. They were a big part of my early work as a machinist and later as a woodworker. We had an unwritten rule in the …
After years of wishing my old workbench had a tail vise, I realized I could make one of my new Jorgensen Cabinet Master bar clamps do the job. All I had to do was reverse the sliding lower jaw [...]
Hand-cut appearance with half the fuss. If you’ve labored over hand-cut through dovetails, you’ll be amazed how much faster they can be cut on the bandsaw. You get all the benefits, including [...]
Jointing with a Planer I across some wonderful oak boards for a small table I wanted to build. The problem was the boards were too wide for my jointer, and I didn’t want to rip them any narrower. [...]
Take that special drawer or box to the next level. Flocking is a two-step process that involves spraying tiny fibrous particles onto an adhesive-coated surface. Imagine spray-on velvet. This is a [...]
Re-sawing a board is tricky. Most blades drift, so that you must angle the board to get a straight cut. Standard bandsaw fences can’t be angled to compensate for drift, so many folks use a [...]
Having light precisely where you need it at the bench makes it easier to see what you’re doing, especially for jobs such as laying out joinery, cutting dovetails and other detail work. This [...]
I make a lot of shelving from hardwood plywood, covering the panel edges with 1⁄4“-thick solid-wood edging. The edging, which is oversized in length and width, is trimmed flush with the [...]
While I have a shooting board with a 90° fence, any other angle requires fussing with wood, screws and a protractor. In a moment of desperation, I cut a groove down the center of an old bench [...]
While we lust for a 20″ monster, most woodworkers would be just as well off (or better) with a ‘suitcase planer.’ When I started woodworking in about 1993, I wanted two things: a table saw [...]
Whether you are into new socket chisels or old, sooner or later you’re going to have to replace a handle that is worn out or gets lost. Here’s a little trick I came up with to help you get …