Your Best Nifty Shop Tip?

[Jim Underwood]

I'd be very careful about irrigating my nasal passages with something that might not be sterile. The neti pot instructions always tell you to use sterile water. There have been a couple of nasty deaths recently related to using plain tap water.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasal_irrigation

[Russell Neyman]

There are times when you find yourself in "tenon no man's land" and your well-planned foot is too small for the set of jaws planned to use. Well, in an emergency and under certain circumstances when it's safe to do so (like turning a bottle stopper) you can make the closing diameter of most jaws smaller by removing two of the four.

[rick pixley01]

When turning green woods, sometimes your hands turn black...Soap does not remove it...Keep a bottle of cheap lemon juice near where you wash up and squirt a little on them...Walla, clean again...Beware, if you have paper cuts( or any other nicks and scratches) they will suddenly stand out...

[Brian Ashton]

Best tip I can suggest is adding a D pull to the control panel of your lathe that sits over the variable speed dial. This will help in stopping you from accidentally brushing the dial and having a bowl go from a few hundred RPMs to a couple thousand in a few seconds. At those speeds you don't even see the pieces fly off in all directions - been there done it so I know.

Other tip is with VFD's at such a low price build your own truly slow speed grinder; mine goes down to 1 RPM if I wanted it to. I usually grind at around 10hz and it is nearly impossible to burn a tool or over grind. At such slow speeds you really have the time to grind very complex finger nail or other shapes without much if any practice because everything happens at such a leisurely pace. And! it's the opposite of what many may be thinking - you actually get results much faster than on a normal speed grinder - about 40% faster in fact YMMV. Or if that's not your cup a tea then buy a mandrel to sit on the outboard side and use that as your slow speed grinder.

[Russell Neyman]

When I'm turning the inside of a bowl, at the point where I begin to check for depth, I leave a deliberate nub in the center as a reference point for the additional material I've removed. If I see a quarter inch nub, I know that I've only gone that far since I last used the thickness calipers. (There's something deceiving about looking into a vessel and figuring out if you close to the bottom; don't know why, but there's a reason turners all use the "I made a funnel today" joke.)

[Dave Masters]

Russell, thanks for starting this thread. I notice that the visits are approaching 14,000, so it must be useful to more than just a few turners.

Here's my add: Working with round or irregular objects can be a pain, but filling two or three old socks with dried beans or rice makes a nice, flexible platform for bowls. Cheap, too.

[robert baccus]

A bag full of chips/curls makes a good padded holder also. Don't waste the beans & rice yeah. Try the foam/plastic fingernail files as a sanding block for working down drips--runs--nits ect. Works good on a curved bowl side.

[Ken Kimbrell]

To safely keep small parts and tools (like an Allen wrench) close at hand on your lathe go to HF and pick up one of their small magnetized metal bowls. Very cheap and works great.

[robert baccus]

If you are half as clumbsy as I buy a large box of large bandaids and using a staple gun----staple 2-3 bandaids eye high all over your shop and 8 or 6 by the door yeah.

[Dick Gerard]

Clean your glasses and your faceshield visor, inside and out. You will be amazed at how quickly your visual acuity declines as dust accumulates and it accumulates faster than you can turn!

Also, to reveal whether you still have sanding scratches to deal with BEFORE applying your finish, flood the surfaces with mineral spirits. The minieral spirits darken the torn grain and/or scratches. Use carbide wet/dry from Vince'sWooden Wonders or let dry 10 minutes or so and use regular sanding disks. I use the 10 minutes to clean my glasses and faceshield and if time permits to start cleaning the floor and lathe. A clean shop is a happy shop.

[robert baccus]

This is a little 0ff the wall but you guys try experimenting with your final sanding grits. Been turning 25 years and I've observed most people make sanding much harder than necessary. A few of my techniques for what they are worth. On soft woods sanding with 6 grits is a crock. Try like 120 and 220 if you have a good final cut. Don't be afraid to power sand with 60-80 if you have a rough finalcut. On harder woods use several steps in grits. Let the wood density set your # of grits. Don't be afraid to powersand(6"--2" pads) to final grit and spend more time with the lower grits than the finer. Finish touchup and final sand with hand paper and sponge backpad. Also I find that for a oil or wax finish 320 + is fine enough usually. For a film finish (multi-coats) anything past 180/220 is really makework. Try an experiment on the same board--150--180--220--320 sanding and then finished out like you normally do. The powersanding i do is at 500-1000rpm reversed against the drill rotation. RPN does not cause scratches, its really pressure and high rpms produce a cooler job if you control your pressure. All this is qualified by the fact that wood and people are both crazy and prone to aberations. I also use airgrinders inside bowls or long shafts on a drill. Even at 10,000 rpm heat buildup is almost impossible with light pressure. Old forester

[Harry Robinette]

Cheap plastic table clothes are about $1.00 to maybe $2.99 each. I use them to cover some of my equipment when I'm spraying finish or to cover whatever I'm finishing on.You can reuse them for a long time and then toss them. Also work for a cover when your gluing up something that the glue runs off of, the glue don't stick to them very well.

[mark ravensdale]

Most of the sandpaper I use is torn into strips around 3/4 - 11/4inch wide, I keep rolls of these (around 30-45 feet) on a shop made holder/dispenser in all the grits I use 80, 120, 240, 320, 400, 600, 800, and 1200, using this method has saved me plenty of the stuff, I do also keep some that's around 4inch wide for the very odd occasion I need wider, I just tear off the length needed and have found that these 1inch (average) wide strips are used for around 95 percent of my sanding needs, when I first tried these strips I was sure they wouldn't be wide enough but they are!!!
hope this is of use!!!

[Russell Neyman]

...to reveal whether you still have sanding scratches to deal with BEFORE applying your finish, flood the surfaces with mineral spirits. The minieral spirits darken the torn grain and/or scratches....

Great tip, Diok. I'm slapping my head, thinking I should have posted that two months ago!

[Russell Neyman]

This one came from a woodworking magazine, and I've already begun using it in my shop:

In the same way a diode works on a boat to defray any corrosion/rust, wrapping steel objects in aluminum foil will keep them from degrading.