Shop Tips
Learn tips and tricks that make your shop time more productive. Find out how to get the most out of hand tools and power tools, including your router and table saw. See tips on finishing, gluing, clamping, sharpening, layout, and more!
By reversing the jaws of a one-handed clamp (making it a spreader), you can use the clamp to hold a trivet or picture frame while you apply a finish with your other hand.
A wood caul, with its slightly bowed face down, helps distribute clamping pressure to the middle of a long workpiece such as a face-frame rail.
The dust port on a router-table fence collects most of the dust above the table, but some still escapes below.
I love a good shop tip but often forget it when an opportunity comes to apply it.
I organize and store hardware in shallow fishing-tackle boxes, with clear lids that enable me to quickly see what’s inside.
While turning the inside of deep vessels, I struggled to see the tool’s cutting action, even while using a flashlight to peer inside.
For small, delicate clamping tasks, clothespins prove handy and affordable.
Always looking for ways to cut clutter and improve convenience, I embedded rare-earth magnets into the edges and ends of my workbench for holding steel rules, small tools, and other ferrous items.
Like a lot of dust collectors, mine can’t keep up with the large volume of fine debris produced by a drum sander.
Tip of the Day
Prevent petrified wood putty
To avoid throwing away half-full containers of hardened, water-based putty, attach a 11⁄2 ×11⁄2... read more