Joinery
We all strive for clean and accurate tablesaw cuts. In chasing perfection, though, we often spend much more time setting up a cut than actually making it. Here's how to safely get great crosscuts in less time.
To make the best use of rabbets, you need to know the various ways to cut them, when to use each method, and how to make the cuts effectively.
For quick, reliable alignment and joining of project parts, nothing beats a biscuit joiner.
Joinery makes or breaks a project. That's why woodworkers decide on the joints they'll use early on in the planning stages. Here's a sampling of popular joints, some simple, some more difficult.
Smooth unattractive edges using one reader's unconventional method of removing biscuits.
Cope-and-stick joinery produces great-looking frames for cabinet doors, but you need specialized router bits or shaper cutters to do the job the traditional way.
If your circular saw leaves the shelf only to trim deck boards or knock down sheets of plywood to rough size, you're underutilizing it. You can also use it as a joinery tool for parts too unwieldy to dado on a tablesaw.
Every once in a while, a project plan calls for a quick groove or rabbet.
Plywood and melamine-coated particleboard have plenty of advantages over solid stock, but you do need to cover their unsightly edges.
Using scraps, build a T-square biscuit joiner to make woodworking even easier.
Pocket-hole joints provide the perfect combination of speed and strength for this job.
Watch Bob Wilson's Wood Joint Torture Test I and II in these free video.
Simple dovetail jigs, such as the one shown here, help you make tight-fitting half-blind dovetails quickly and easily.
Sure, you can find woodworking joints more beautiful than the half-lap. And, one or two joints might be stronger. But few woodworking joints match the half-lap for all-around usefulness and ease of construction.
You can go a long way with the basic mortise-and-tenon joint, but sometimes a variation comes in handy.
Get a grip-instead of using pushlocks with jointers and shapers, try something with a little more grasp.
See more in-depth joinery techinque and feature articles from the editors of WOOD magazine.
Although you can build drawer joints using any number of methods, we think lock-rabbet joints like the ones you'll find in this story make sense for attaching the sides, fronts, and backs of most drawers.
Before the advent of cardboard boxes, manufacturers joined the sides of thin wooden boxes with these joints because they were strong and fast to make. Today, box joints have taken on practical and decorative roles in projects ranging from jewelry cases to hope chests.
Eliminate the guesswork when it comes to figuring out where the biscuit slot should go. Follow these simple steps and you'll avoid making careless mistakes.
Miss a spot and your project loses style points. Here's what to do before and after glue-up.
Use this handy, easy technique to see if your disc-sander table adjustments are squared. It's a quick way to make your disc-sanding superior.
Eliminate the trial and error of spacing biscuits in narrow rails. This jig lets you quickly determine the right size and number of biscuits for each joint.
Concealing a tabletop's end grain using breadboard ends can be tricky. We show you how to make it work.
Sliding mitersaws have pretty much replaced radial-arm saws in woodworking shops and job sites.
Staved or segmented construction figures in a lot of projects, from ornamental bowl turnings to porch pillars. A question we often hear is: What miter angle (or bevel) do I need? Another recurring question is: How long (or wide) should I make the pieces? Finding those answers is relatively easy. Here's how to do the math.
To turn a wobbly chair into a sturdy one, first you have to disassemble it. Use these methods to conquer dowels that don't want to budge.
