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Q: I make my own guards and router bases from plastic. How can I drill clean holes without the bit grabbing the plastic? A: A simple solution is to file a flat edge on a regular twist bit’s [...]

Soup Up Your Router Table By Dave Munkittrick Your router table will really sing with these great accessories. Like all good tools, our accessories will increase safety and improve results. Even [...]

Desktop File Holder   A desktop file holder is a great office accessory. It provides easy and immediate access to the files you’re currently working with so you don’t wear a path between [...]

Restore a Chest of Drawers Make broken-down drawers fit and work like new By Tim Johnson At first glance, the broken-down chest of drawers looks like a lost cause—a wreck even by garage-sale [...]

Photo Album By Dave Munkittrick   Do you have a pile of photos waiting to be put in an album? We all do. That’s why you can’t go wrong making these distinctive photo albums for [...]

Shop-Made Sanding Blocks   Q: Commercial sanding blocks all have some kind of padded bottom. Do my shop-made blocks need to be padded, too?   A: Yes they do. Padded blocks have two [...]

Air-Drying Lumber It’s the low-cost, low-tech way to dry lumber. Here’s how to do it right. By Dave Munkittrick Want a truly cheap and easy way to dry lumber? Consider air drying. [...]

Air Scrubber Trio Three shop-made machines that clear the air. By Ed Krause   Dust haze.Even if you have a dust collection system you’ve probably found yourself in the middle of it. This [...]

Faster Sharpening One of my favorite sharpening tools is a diamond paddle. I use it for router bits, knives and, most importantly, scrapers. The problem is that it cuts so fast the tiny spaces [...]

The primary advantage to square-drive screws is they are much less prone to “cam-out.” Cam-out refers to the slipping of the bit in the screw head as the screw is driven.

Folding Worktable This simple, roll-around worktable fits in tight spaces yet expands to a huge work surface. By David Radtke   Here’s a work space that’s huge and accessible from all sides, [...]

Q: Try as I might, I can’t seem to get a good edge on my bowl gouges. Are bowl gouge sharpening jigs worth looking into? A: Bowl-gouge sharpening jigs do a great job. The jigs give many turners a [...]