Organize your work to save time

For example, in a kid's room ensemble we were building, parts A had routed coves, all the parts B had round-overs, and parts B and C had rabbets along their edges. To save time when making all three projects, we avoided repeat setups by first cutting all the parts to size. We kept track of them by labeling their ends, as shown. (We labeled ours CR for the clothes rack, WS for the wall-hung shelf, and CB for the chalkboard/tackboard, followed by the part letter, -A, -B, etc.)

Then, we selected the parts with the same machining operations from each pile, and machined them together. The few moments it takes to mark each part is time well spent not having to go back and set up a machining operation for a second or third time.

From the WOOD Magazine shop