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A coping sled is a must-have accessory for router table work. It helps you hold a narrow piece, such as a door rail, perpendicular to the fence and backs up the cut to prevent blowout. At least, [...]

This light-duty clamp is ideal for small parts-and easy to make by the dozen. All you need are a couple wood scraps, a rubber band, and a short piece of dowel rod. You can vary the pressure by [...]

Even with a zero-clearance throat plate in my tablesaw, a thin cut-off slips through now and then. These pieces can clog a vacuum hose or damage the blades of a dust collector.  I made a trap to [...]

New hardware is often way too shiny for my taste, so I chemically “age” it. If the metal is raw steel, I use standard gun bluing. But if it’s plated with zinc, I turn to Super Blue, a [...]

Chisels don’t wait to get dull until you’ve finished a job—do they? The trick is to keep them sharp while you’re working. Rather than pull out my stones to renew an edge, I keep a piece of MDF [...]

HOUSE OF DUST To keep airborne dust from getting into the house, I bought a dust collector for my basement workshop. I wanted to start with a clean slate, so I decided to rid the shop of a [...]

Here’s a quick way to glue up a mitered frame of any size using only two clamps, with no worry that the frame will shift out of alignment. You’ll need two 1″ x 1″ hardwood bars (make [...]

Here’s a quick way to get all the dust out of your machine’s nooks and crannies. Most shop vacuums have one port for vacuuming and a second port for blowing. Hook up a hose to each [...]

Some years back, when the company I worked for relocated out of state, I lost my job. While hunting for a new position and feeling a bit down, I visited a shop that sold used woodworking [...]

Drawer Helper Desperation is the mother of invention—isn’t that how the old saying should go for woodworkers? I invented this device when I realized that the drawers in my new armoire tipped down [...]

The dust collection port on my sliding miter saw missed a lot of sawdust, so I added an additional port mounted directly behind the blade. The port is a piece of 3-in. ABS pipe that’s cut at 45 [...]

Rare earth magnets make really slick hinges for small boxes. The lid on this ring box pivots on two hinges made from 10mm magnets—nothing more. Each hinge is composed of two magnets: one is glued [...]