I designed an outfeed support for my table saw that doesn’t take up any floor space. It’s made of plywood, hardwood and a store-bought roller. Three main design features enable it to work well. The runners are made of hard maple that resists wear and tear. The sliding mechanism is a dovetail that allows the…

Sometimes you need to clamp parts that are out of reach of the throat depth of standard clamps. Here’s a design for a long-reach clamp that can be made from 2×4 lumber, 3⁄4” plywood or solid-wood scraps, some readily available hardware, an F-style clamp and golf balls! The 2×4 lumber is used to make the…

Here’s a simple way to protect your chisels from getting nicked and rusty rattling around in your toolbox. Just cut the fingers off some old leather work gloves. Poke holes with an awl at the open end, and thread a drawstring through them. Slide the chisel’s blade into the finger and close it tight with…

My shop is in a walkout basement with a steep grassy slope from the driveway.  The skateboard-like devices made for moving stock work well on hard surfaces, but not on grass.  My solution is an 8-ft. long two-wheeled cart. To build the cart, start with a 2-1/2″ wide strip of 1/4″ plywood, 8 ft. long. …

While making a base for a wooden vase, I had to glue up a small octagonal shape. I made this simple band clamp from a piece of string and a rubber band. Here’s how it works: first, tie one end of the string to the rubber band and loop the string around the workpiece; next,…

A nice scraper burnisher can be made quickly for little or no cost. All you need is a cheap wooden file handle (available at hardware stores) and an old drill bit. You simply drill into the handle, then leave the bit in its hole with about 11⁄2” of the unfluted end projecting. A 1⁄4“- or…

I can’t stand throwing away good wood. When I’m turning a goblet or any other object, I don’t leave the waste areas blank. I pick up a gouge or a skew and use the waste to perfect my turning techniques. –Bob Patros

Ripping very narrow stock on the table saw can be a bit dicey because your push stick runs so close to the blade. If you’re not careful to keep it against the rip fence, it can tip into the spinning blade. And cutting short, narrow pieces is particularly difficult because the blade’s rising rear teeth…

Every woodworker knows not to rely on inside measurements made with a tape measure. Instead, I use two steel rules with dimensions that run to the edges. I butt one rule at each end, so the graduations overlap. To calculate the exact inside measurement, I read one ruler from the 10-in. mark on the other…

While looking around the shop to find a shim for my dado set, I saw the plastic lid from a cottage cheese container in the trash. Hmm, I thought, that could be it. I trimmed away the edge and measured the thickness. At .022 (about 3/128), it complemented my thinner paper shims perfectly. To cut…

In my work I often need to draw large-radii curves, for which I use this long beam compass. Built from scrap wood and a dowel center, it’s cheap and easy to make in any length. It can be quickly adjusted and doesn’t need locking clamps or screws to hold its setting.  The compass consists of…

Self-centering drill bits (also called “Vix bits”) are great for quick, accurate drilling of hinge screw holes. Unfortunately, they don’t work very well for many continuous, or “piano,” hinges. That’s because the leaves on continuous hinges often are too thin to allow the chamfered nose of the bit housing to fully seat in the hinge…