Perfect tongue-and-groove fits
Project plans often call for rabbeting the edges of a panel in order to create a tongue that slips into a drawer or rail groove. This is often done with a router bit or tablesaw dado head, with the work fed flat on the table. Unfortunately, done this way, any inaccuracy in the thickness of the stock is transferred to the thickness of the tongue, creating an ill fit in the groove.
One way to ensure a perfect tongue-and-groove fit is to create the rabbet by making two intersecting cuts on the tablesaw, feeding the edge to be rabbeted against the fence. Set up the first cut to rip the tongue to thickness, feeding the panel on edge with the tongue face against the fence. Use a featherboard to ensure consistency of cut. Now set up to make the intersecting cut against a thick auxiliary fence, raising it enough to create a tunnel for the freed offcut to fall away without being pinched between the blade and fence, eliminating violent ejection of the piece.
—Harvey Mickelson, Reno, Nevada
Dowel as mini drum sander
When smoothing concave edges, particularly in confined areas, I find that a dowel wrapped in sandpaper and chucked in a drill serves as a great mini drum sander of sorts. To make one, bisect one end of a short length of stout dowel using a bandsaw or handsaw, and insert a strip of sandpaper into the kerf. Then chuck the other end in a drill. The rotation of the drill as you work causes the paper to wrap around the dowel, creating the drum sander effect. The real beauty of this is that, when the paper wears, you simply tear off the used section to expose new grit and quickly get back to work.
—Bob Howard, Saint Louis, Missouri
Flush-routing plugs
I’ve found that a router equipped with a straight or spiral flute bit does a much faster (and free of tear-out) job of cutting plugs flush than does the old saw-and-chisel approach. I simply adjust the tip of the router bit shy of the workpiece surface by about the thickness of a sheet of loose-leaf paper, and then tilt the router to lower the spinning bit onto the end of the plug. The few thousandths of an inch of plug projection that remains is easily sanded or scraped away.
A laminate trimmer works best because of its maneuverability and small footprint. However, sometimes adjacent plugs prevent setting the subbase completely onto the work surface. In that case, you may have to trim a few plugs the old-fashioned way to create a landing pad for the base.
—George Aspinall, Tacoma, Washington
Vise-assistance from sanding sponges
When I started making wooden spoons using gouges, spokeshaves, and a drawknife, the biggest problem was clamping the curved spoon blanks in my vise for shaping. As I was smoothing a completed spoon one day, I realized that the sanding sponge I was using might do double-duty to help hold the workpiece in the vise. Sure enough, I found that sandwiching the spoon blank between two sponges (grit against the wood) considerably increased the grip of the vise on the work. Sponges with grit on both faces work even better. Obviously, this technique can help when clamping any number of odd shapes in a vise.
—Alejandro Balbis, Longueuil, Quebec
Cozy winter glue-ups
During cold weather, I rely on space heaters to keep my garage shop comfortable. When I turn off the heat, the temperature quickly drops to outdoor levels. Since many glue-ups fail when done in temperatures below 50°F, I cover end-of-day assemblies with an old electric blanket. Running the blanket is safer and much cheaper than
heating the whole shop overnight for the sake of a few boards.
—Jeff Day, Perkasie, Pennsylvania
Squaring up a hollow chisel
When setting up a hollow chisel mortiser to make a cut, it’s important that the chisel be set square to the machine fence. If it’s cocked, your mortise wall won’t be flat and smooth, compromising the strength of the joint. To set larger chisels, it’s easy enough to press a small machinist’s square against the fence and chisel to check the angle. However, getting a read on a smaller chisel this way can be difficult, especially for weak or mature eyes.
Instead, try this: First, secure your fence at the desired distance from the chisel, and place a small rare-earth magnet against the outward face of the chisel. Then place a steel 6" rule against the inward face. The ruler serves as a long reference surface for gauging parallelism (and thus square) to the fence. Simply measure to the fence from each end of the ruler, rotating your chisel as necessary to bring the rule and fence into perfect alignment.
—Paul Anthony, senior editor
