Tricks of the Trade

Establishing Depth Reference A recent project required making a series of small wooden panels with shallow concave faces. For efficiency and accuracy, I decided to make a series of preliminary [...]

Large plastic boxes, the kind that restaurants use for bussing dishes, are perfect for shop drawers. They’re strong, durable and lightweight, plus they have built-in handles. They’re perfect for [...]

I don’t use my machinist’s vise often enough to dedicate any of my limited bench space to it. Instead, I keep it tucked under a nearby cabinet for occasional use. I bolted the vise to a board [...]

I’m a great fan of aerosol finishes, especially now that many of them have adjustable tips that make much less splatter. But my shop got so cluttered with half-used cans that I had trouble [...]

The strong adhesive and tough plastic of packaging tape allow it to work as a hinge on long, mitered corners. After carefully cutting the miters, lay the boards outside-face up and side by side [...]

My tight finances forced me to devise an alternative to an expensive bench vise. This simple leg vise – cobbled together from a board, a 3⁄4“-diameter pipe clamp, and a short length of [...]

Woodworkers are both cursed and blessed with our hopelessly archaic system of measuring. When it comes time to divide any distance in half, like marking the center of a board’s edge for resawing, [...]

Whenever I have to cut down a sheet of plywood, I reach for one of my trusty metal stud straightedges. Metal studs are available in different thicknesses for different applications. For example, [...]

Put a ton of tools up on the wall in this tool “book.” Hang 1/2“ or 3/4“ thick plywood “pages” 4“ apart on horizontal 2x4s with 3“ door hinges. Screw and glue …

Sheets of sandpaper aren’t easy to work with. It’s tempting to scrunch a sheet up so you can get a better grip, but if you do that, most of the paper gets wasted. Tame the abrasive beast by [...]

When crosscutting a series of short pieces from a longer board using the table saw’s miter gauge, it’s dangerous to use the rip fence as a stop. The freed pieces can get jammed between the blade [...]

Here’s a dirt cheap way to store your saw blades and keep their carbide teeth from knocking into each other. Slip the blades onto a 3/8″ dia. landscape nail, using plastic coffee-can lids [...]