Archives

Flexible Spray Gun Pickup Tube My HVLP spray gun came equipped with a standard metal fluid-pickup tube. It works fine until I tip my gun to get inside a cabinet. Then the gun sputters and spits [...]

Longer-Lasting Polyurethane Glue Polyurethane glue is great stuff but has a short shelf life after the bottle is opened. That’s because the humidity in the air inside the bottle causes the glue [...]

Clandestine Tool Chest By Patrick O’Donnell I transformed this dresser for my daughter, who didn’t like the way her husband’s metal tool chest looked in their apartment. For [...]

Get the Burn Out By Dave Munkittrick Arrgh, another burned cut! Don’t you hate it when this happens? Here’s a fix. Shim out the workpiece with thin cardboard and take a second light [...]

Ribbed Saw Table Fillers I like my contractor’s saw just fine, except for the ribbed extension tables. The openings can be a real finger pincher when sliding the rip fence across them. [...]

Chair Leg Repair My kitchen chairs are hardly valuable antiques, so when I broke a rung on one I wanted a strong but simple fix. I drilled out the broken tenon from the mortise and plugged [...]

Safer Small-Parts Routing By Paul M. Jayko When I have to rout a small part on my router table, I reach for a hand screw clamp. It holds the workpiece securely, keeps my hands a safe distance [...]

Two-Wheel Mobile Base Here’s my quick and cheap solution for making a contractor-style tablesaw mobile. I glued a piece of 2×4 to a 2×6 and added a pair of 2-in. non-swiveling [...]

  Swing-Out Plywood Storage I was looking for a way to keep my small inventory of plywood organized and easy to access. The garage at my town house is small, but I did have a narrow space [...]

Sharpening Jig for Jointer and Planer Blades I’ve tried several different shop-made jigs for sharpening my jointer and planer knives but this one has proved the simplest to use and [...]

Quick-and-Easy Storage Boxes I finally found a use for all that scrap plywood I've been hanging onto. I made a bunch of small storage boxes with it and a small shelf to put them on. [...]

See-Through Chisel Holder Here’s a chisel rack that protects those sharp edges and allows me to see the right chisel for the job at hand. The rack is easy to customize for any size [...]