A well-tuned spray gun doesn’t guarantee a perfect finish. Here are five of the most common spraying problems and how to fix them.

How to choose and apply a long-lasting clear finish. What do fancy wooden boats and beautiful wooden front doors have in common? They both need a clear finish that can really stand up to the elements. Sunlight, water, extreme temperature changes and abrasions are bound to occur in both situations. Most clear coatings just can’t…

Not everything has to have a furniture-grade finish. If you read the woodworking magazines or look online, you often come across instructions for filling pores, glazing, toning, rubbing out, and so on. These are wonderful techniques for use on sophisticated projects such as furniture. But they are often overkill for basic kitchen or bathroom cabinets….

These once-standard tools still have a place in the modern shop. Here’s what you need to know about the use, care and keeping of drawknives and spokeshaves.

Armed with a little trickery, you can make the block plane perform a wide variety of tasks. Hang around enough woodshops (or Internet discussion groups) with a block plane in your hand and you’ll eventually be derided for owning a “carpenter’s tool.” It’s a criticism that I’ve never understood. Small trimming planes – no matter…

Bench planes come in a wide range of lengths and widths. Do you need them all? Which ones are most useful? And if you only had to buy one….

Simple joinery creates a compact cabinet with full-size storage.    When I spied an old machinist’s chest loaded with narrow drawers in my neighbor’s garage, I knew my small tools were finally going to have a permanent home. My version isn’t nearly as grand, but it’s just as useful, and it only took a couple…

To build the ultimate jig, use a tap. When I build a jig or fixture that needs to come apart, I don’t use wood screws, I use machine screws–and tap holes in the wood to receive them. It’s very easy to do, and requires only a few special tools. Why do it? Maybe I’m just…

This extra-long mortising fence helps you cut “blind” joints in your work. Cabinets and furniture often have “blind” joints − dados, grooves or rabbets that are stopped at one end so you can’t see the joint on the outside of the case. Sometimes these joints are  “double-blind,” meaning they are stopped at both ends. A…

The next time you use your jigsaw, forget about hauling out the sawhorses or cantilevering a hard-to-hold workpiece off your bench. Extruded polystyrene insulation board, the rigid pink sheets used in housing construction, makes sawing easy, whether you’re cutting a small piece of hardwood or a full sheet of plywood. During the cut, the workpiece…

Strength, patience and a sharp saw turn scraps into treasure. The hardwoods I use are almost always riven or split from a log. When I need thinner pieces than usual, I split them again. But there are times when I have mill-sawn stock and the way to get that thinner is either plane it down…

When I was a kid, the first saw I bought was a Craftsman coping saw with a chrome frame and red-stained handle. For years I did everything with that saw – crosscuts, rips, curves and even joints. But I made none of those cuts particularly well. Part of the problem was that I was 11…

The “Swiss Army” family of knives, and their contemporary descendants – the Multi-tools, are a good solution for on-the-go situations. Although these tools can never really be a perfect substitute for the ergonomics and efficiency of the individual tool, their compactness and versatility can provide us with reasonable solutions while away from our shop, on…

You can tell when you’re holding a good tool in your hands. The way it feels, the way it responds, the way it does everything you ask it to. There’s another dimension to a good tool, though: how the manufacturer supports it. The Nakanishi Emax EVOlution from NSK America is one such tool. This electronically-controlled…

Turn a log into a sculptural statement piece. PROJECT #2101 • Skill Level: Intermediate • Time: 4 days • Cost: $200 Have you ever come upon the opportunity to get some logs either due to a downed tree on your property or somewhere else within your community? A very familiar story is someone has to…

Tool: Small Double Square Shop Now  Manufacturer: Lee Valley MSRP: $49.50 A diemakers’ square with a narrow blade is an excellent tool for determining minute problems with your joinery, allowing you to get in between narrow dovetail pins, for example, to check for sloping walls. But a true diemakers’ square (on which the blade angle…

To set the height of a router bit—within .001″, if necessary—I made this simple stand for my caliper. It works on a router table or a hand-held router. Two screws with washers secure the caliper. When I need the caliper without the stand, it’s easy to remove. The exact position of the caliper on the…

Tool: 5-in-1 Combination Protractor Shop Now  Manufacturer: Starrett MSRP: $142 If walls were all exactly 90 degrees, installing cabinets and trim would be a lot easier. When it comes to installing trimwork–especially crown molding–it sure would be nice to have a device that directly reads a corner’s angle and instantly gives the exact setting for…

When I bought my expensive 24″ machinist’s straightedge, I wasn’t sure where to store it. It didn’t include a hole for hanging, and I was reluctant to drill into the hard steel for fear of devaluing the tool or compromising its accuracy. I didn’t want to stash it in a drawer or on a shelf…

I made a go-anywhere task light by retrofitting an old, broken fixture with a new, battery-powered LED light. First, I removed the cord and inner workings from the task light. Then I screwed a plywood disc into the light’s shade and stuck the adhesive-backed LED light to the disc. I’ve used my light for hundreds…

Some high-end combination squares have a built-in lip or tab for the purpose of resting the tool hands-free on a piece of wood. But because most common combination squares lack this handy feature, I developed this inexpensive solution. Simply attach a 3⁄8“-diameter rare-earth magnet to the head. It allows the square to rest in place,…