A mobile workbench is handy in a small shop, until you want it to stand still! After outfitting my bench with casters, I found that their locks didn’t prevent the bench from wiggling. My [...]
Achieving exact thickness is really important when making splines to reinforce box corners. The splines have to fit perfectly in the saw kerfs—a few thousandths of an inch one way or the other [...]
As a guitar maker, I rip a lot of very narrow wood strips, which can be difficult and dangerous to cut on a table saw. Instead, I cut them on the band saw using a low-profile fence, which allows [...]
To save space, my trash can doubles as a work support. I made a dolly with locking casters to fit the can’s bottom, so I can roll the unit to wherever it’s needed. The work support is adjustable [...]
Sturdy yet collapsible is easier said than done, but this drying rack is both. It folds flat against the wall to save space until I need it. I made my rack 36 in. tall, with 8 in. between levels. [...]
My dovetail jig doesn’t have a depth gauge, and with my engineering background, I like things to be precise. This depth gauge allows me to set my router bits to within .001 of an inch! I also use [...]
In the good old days, when a woodworker wanted to plane a board’s edge, he’d clamp one end in the bench’s face vise and support the cantilevered end with a free-standing devise called a [...]
Any push stick adds a measure of safety, but I prefer using one that straddles the saw’s fence. It lifts right off when I’m done. A saddle-style push stick has two clear advantages. First, [...]
A complex moulding can be difficult to sand. Softening its crisp edges is a crime, so I’ve been using a thin, flexible stick with sandpaper adhered to it for getting into the flat areas. [...]
When sawdust got packed into the back end of my planer’s blast gate, I couldn’t close the gate all the way. I solved this annoying problem by cutting a notch in the gate. Now, when I close the [...]
Tighter Corner Joints Ahead Dadoes and, rabbets are two of the most widely used cabinetmaking joints. Cabinet carcasses, drawer boxes and jewelry boxes all lend themselves to this simple but [...]
A tenon should be one-third the thickness of a rail—at least, that’s what an old rule of thumb recommends. A 3/4″ board should have 1/4″ tenons, for example. But what about a [...]