Tricks of the Trade

Whenever creating small pieces that include a routed detail of some sort, it’s best to do the routing on the larger “parent” board, and then separate the small piece from the larger. However, [...]

I have long used my car’s scissor jack for house and shop projects including lifting a settled deck and leveling workbenches. And when I needed to install a new set of cabinets in my shop, I [...]

Hoisting heavy sheets of plywood and MDF onto my tablesaw is not my idea of workshop fun. That’s why I devised this pivoting rack— and began storing my sheet stock vertically. The rack’s frame [...]

Nobody likes wrapping up the last bit of finishing on a project and suddenly catching a run or imperfection you missed earlier. You can either ignore it, or more likely sand it down and fix the [...]

I needed to cut stopped grooves on a round surface – and while I could have cut them on the stock while it was square, then proceed to turn it on the lathe, I didn’t want to worry about catching [...]

  I built a deep drawer for my workbench so I would have lots of storage, but it created another problem. The tools I wanted were always at the bottom of the heap. I solved my frustration by [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 …

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 [...]