The Tips and Tricks Thread

[Rick Potter]

While answering a question about dowel sizes, I decided to post this here too,

Many dowel rods, and sometimes factory dowels, are undersized and don't fit in the normal sized holes properly. I suspect they just make them to the closest metric size. To make the problem worse, I have found that all bradpoint drill bits are not exactly the same. I have a nice set from Shopsmith, a set of B&D's, some from Sears.

To make sure my dowel stock or dowel is going to fit my holes, I have made a simple block of wood with the common size holes drilled in it with each set of drills I have, including forstner bits, and spade bits. Now, when I am looking for dowels at the store or at home, I just take the sample block with me and test the dowel.

I also bought an inexpensive set of over/under brad points. It has sizes 1/32 on both sides of the desired size. Pretty handy sometimes.

Rick Potter

[Mark Kay]

OK, so I guess this is going to be a one man show. Well, here is another thing I ran across which I really like. Fastcap makes a number of unconventional measuring tapes in their Pro Carpenter series. Some time ago I got their Lefty-Righty which reads from both sides of the tape. I like as it actually numbers the sixteenths, but for me it would work better if it read from the top of the tape instead of the bottom. So most of the time I hook on the left end of the board, and have to read the tape upside down when marking a cut on the top of the tape. But if you hook on the right end, you don't have to read upside down like you would with any other tape.

Then last week I ran across their Old Standby Flatback. This one I really like as the tape is flat, so when doing cabinet work, it is easier to mark an exact length as the tape isn't an eighth inch above the board due to the curl in the tape. The hook is fixed, unlike most tapes that allow a measurement while pushing the hook against a wall. Of course, this tape won't give you any standout like you need when doing framing or rough measuring lumber.

Other nice features include a momentary hold button on the bottom as well as the standard lock on the front, an easy to use belt clip feature as well as a built in PENCIL SHARPENER, and a pencil friendly, erasable white surface if you need to write down a measurement. Not bad for $6.99 at my local tool center. These guys did it right.

Didn't try it out yet but I bought their Story Stick/Pole tape measure (whichever it's called!) It has room on the tape to write on it & put marks on it to act as a story stick--like when measuring for cabinets, you'd lay their locations right out on the tape with marks. I think it has the pencil sharpener too. I bought it last year on ebay I think, forgot how much as the price included shipping... sounds a lot like the one you described.

[Todd Brewer]

I recently purchased a Fastcap Metric/Standard tape measure. I bought it to help me with standard to metric (think Festool). The metric edge is finer resolution than the standard edge, I find it easier to check diagonals for square using the metric edge. Didn't expect that! My only complaint is that the body is black, I hate that! Doesn't stand out amongst the other stuff in my shop like the yellow Stanleys.

[Ole Anderson]

I recently purchased a Fastcap Metric/Standard tape measure. I bought it to help me with standard to metric (think Festool). The metric edge is finer resolution than the standard edge, I find it easier to check diagonals for square using the metric edge. Didn't expect that! My only complaint is that the body is black, I hate that! Doesn't stand out amongst the other stuff in my shop like the yellow Stanleys.

Fastcap has a different color for each of their tapes. For guys like me with more than one version, I don't have to pull out the tape to see which one I am picking up. But, yea, they are easier to loose on the bench than say my bright orange Lufkin.

[Andrew Joiner]

Now, when I am looking for dowels at the store or at home, I just take the sample block with me and test the dowel.

Rick Potter

Great tip Rick. I do it in the shop with my "stock" of dowels, but I'll bring it to the store now when I go to buy dowels.

[Lee Schierer]

If you have a narrow crack in a board that you want to repair, how do you get the glue into the crack?

Here are two methods that work. You can take a length of dental floss, apply a bead of glue on the surface along the length of the crack. Then slide the dental floss into the end of the crack and use it to pull the glue from the surface into the crack. You may need to apply more glue to get glue in the crack. Un-waxed floss seems to work best.

The second method works better for wider cracks. Again place a bead of glue on the surface and then use the suction from your shop vac from the back side to pull the glue into the crack.

Once you are satisfied that you have enough glue in the crack, wipe the excess off the surface with a damp cloth and clamp the crack shut. Be sure to sand the surface to remove any trace of glue before applying your finish.

[Andy Pratt]

Ok, this is definitely one of my better ideas, and I was actually able to put it into practice so that's a first. You know how if you let a panel glue-up dry fully before scraping it, you usually have a lot of tear out along the glue lines, which leads to having to do excessive sanding on the panel? Sometimes you can run it over the jointer, but you have to be careful not to introduce a wide taper (due to the glue throwing off the flatness) if you do that, and then you have to plane it again and both cost you thickness. I have tried every method in the book and nothing worked aside from either a ton of hand-held sander work or scraping the glue off when it was only semi-dried, which has to be timed well. I like to do my glue ups at the end of the day, then leave the shop, so I needed a method that worked with fully dried glue.

For this to be sensible, you need a powered hand planer with removable wear bases that you can leave dedicated to this purpose. Luckily for me I had a Freud FE82 planer collecting dust (part of freud's failed entry into the power tool market) and decided to make it my new glue joint planer. The entire conversion took me 1-2 hours.

Modification:
1) Remove the front and back wear bases on the planer, set your front plate adjustment to something you can leave it locked at or remember easily.
2) Make shop-built wooden versions of each that are the same thickness or a little thinner (you will shim them)
3) Route a groove into the bases that is as wide/deep as you can make it given your planer construction and base material
4) Install the new bases back on the planer, leaving the screws loose
5) Shim between the bases and the planer with thin, wide shims (i used 1"x1"x1/16" slices of maple) and tighten the screws until the bases are roughly coplaner and are a hair "thicker" now than the cutting depth of the blade. This extra thickness prevents the planer blade from ever touching the wood of the panel, so it gets just the glue. Modify your shimming/thickness based on the thickness of glue film you can put through your sander. If you would rather risk barely hitting the wood than having any glue left, leave the bases at the exact same height as the blade.
6) It is ready to use: run the planer over a glue line, keeping all glue dots/runs in the channel at the base
7) Fine tune the shimming as necessary for your preferences

Pictures, which should give you the idea of the concept if my description is lacking: IMGP1844.jpgIMGP1845.jpgIMGP1846.jpg

edit: the backing to my front plate was at exactly 1/4" from where I wanted it, so i just glued on guides made out of hardboard. The back portion follows my description exactly though, and is the method that is probably more applicable for most people.

[Rick Potter]

Tip O' the Day from the Village Idiot..

I am probably the last person in the world to realize this, but I thought I would pass it on for other-worldly members. Not my tip, I got it from this weeks WOOD magazine e-mail.

When installing side mounted, full extension drawer guides, you install the drawer part using only the vertical slots on the guides. Then install the cabinet part using only the horizontal slots. This allows you to adjust in any direction. When you are happy with the fit, put in a couple screws in the round holes to lock it in.

Check out the WOOD tips for the week, they even have a video for those of us who have been doing it the hard way.

Rick Potter

[Jim Matthews]

I use the same gizmo as a "depth stop" for resawing on my bandsaw.

No measuring required.

PS - That sanding station with a third hand and rubber baby buggy bumpers to raise the workpiece over the downdraft?


That's clever, right there.

[ryan meacham]

Wow thous are great ideas. I like the sanding station. For me it's a clean shop. which is a given. I'm not good at it, but I try to put 5 things back before and after each day. It kind of helps.

[johnny means]

When using a chamfer bit in a router table, use the outermost portion of the bit as possible. This well reduce tearout.

[Ole Anderson]

This idea only works if you have a nice smooth floor (mine is Pergo): I screwed the CI base of my DP to a piece of 1-1/8" MDF and added four felt furniture pads at the corners. Slides easily, but not too easily, and is very stable. I used up a whole package of felt tabs in my shop for those things that didn't already have casters.
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[Rick Potter]

This is the flip side of Ole's tip above. I made a benchtop router table out of scraps of pre finished plywood. Turned out great, except it tended to move on my formica covered bench. At first I clamped it down, but being lazy I went to HD and got some anti skid tabs. They are just 1" patches of rubberized something, and stick on just like felt pads. They were right next to the felt pads at HD.

Problem solved....non skid, and I don't have to unclamp it to move it.

Rick Potter

[Rick Potter]

I have picked up half a dozen cheap ($10-20) routers off Craigs list, and I keep them set up with roundover, chamfer, ogee, and flush trim bits. Hey the routers were cheaper than the bits. This has worked out very well, since they are set up and ready for a quick trim.

In the post above, I talked about making a little bench top router table. This is my second one, and more are on the way. On this one, I tried out one of those little Rockler router table tops, made to clamp to a bench, because it was on sale. Size is about 11X15", and I made a base for it. I am doing this because I feel much more comfortable doing roundovers, etc, on a table than freehand, especially with a laminate trimmer sized router. I find myself holding them with my fingers way too close to the bit. I made an egg shaped base for one, and it works well, but since I have the extra routers, I am going with the tiny tables. My first one, 25 years old, is just about the same size as the Rockler, melamine....could build more for $5 each, so I will build the next two.

Anyway, I just wanted to mention how handy these tiny tables can be, and how cheaply you can do them. Maybe give someone some ideas. Like maybe a lazy Susan, with four small routers in it, or a flip top stand with two on each side.

Rick Potter

[Greg Hines, MD]

My tips are hardly my own original ideas, but I did build the shop-vac cart featured in Shopnotes, and also on the tips/tricks episode of the Woodsmith Shop TV show, and did mobilize my workbench by the same trick that Norm Abram did with his assembly table. They both work great.

Doc