Tricks of the Trade
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Chuck in a Chuck
My wife recently took up scroll sawing, and she needs to drill small starter holes for the blades to make tiny cutouts.
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Chalk Lines Take a Powder
If you snap many chalk lines, you know that the red or blue chalk leaves stains that are hard to get out of the wood.
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New Twist on Tricky Tenons
I make walking canes from tree limbs fitted to their handles with a round tenon.
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Homemade Wax String Screw Lube
Dabbing wax on the end of a screw will help it drive easily, but I find more wax gets squished out of the pilot hole than into it.
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Disposable Finish Decanter
When I buy a new gallon of finish, I can’t seem to pour some out without spilling.
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Wrangling that Shop Snake
Here’s how I tame the vacuum hose “anaconda” that lives in my shop.
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Slides First, Drawers Second
Here’s a trick that can save you headaches when installing slides: mount the hardware before you even build the drawers.
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Coping with Power
After using a coping saw for years to cope the inside corners of crown molding, I figured there had to be an easier way to do it. There is.
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New Spin on an Old Grind
I always thought my benchtop belt sander would make a decent sharpening station, but I could never find a blade-holding jig designed for it.
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How to Get a Square Bolt into a Round Hole
Recently I was building some folding chairs from pecan and needed to recess the square shoulders of carriage bolts into the wood. Pecan is too hard to just draw the bolt into the wood by tightening.
