Tips & Tricks: Issue 114

By Woodcraft Magazine March 8, 2024

Thickness tapering

For a recent project, I needed 2×6s tapered in thickness. My first thought was to tilt the blade on my table saw, but a fully-raised blade isn’t high enough for the job. So I turned to my thickness planer. I cut a scrap of plywood to serve as an auxiliary table and screwed a cleat to its underside that would hook on the planer’s infeed table and hold the plywood in place. Then I screwed a fence along one side of this auxiliary table. Next, I drew the desired taper on the end of one of the 2×6 pieces to determine the amount of wood I needed to plane away to achieve that taper. I made another piece, this time matching its thickness equal to the amount of wood I needed to plane away. I attached this riser parallel to the fence but offset 5" to the side. To taper the pieces, I made multiple passes through the planer with one edge against the fence and the other edge riding atop the riser.

Jeff Peters

Redgranite, Wisconsin

Improved hose control

Instead of using a dust bag, I prefer attaching my orbital sander to a shop vac for the superior dust collection it offers. But wrangling the hose presents challenges of its own. I tried an overhead support but found it limiting for large panels or when I had to move my sanding table. A better solution is to attach the hose to my shop apron. To do so, I added an S-hook to the hose, hooking it to several coils of paracord I’d looped around the hose. My shop apron happened to have a steel ring attached to its right side that I could hook to, but a hammer loop would work as well. Now the hose is well supported and moves with me as I sand, and it’s easy to disengage as needed.

David DePauw
Cincinnati, Ohio

Driving threaded inserts

Threaded inserts are a great way to add the strength and knockdown capability of nuts and bolts to your wooden creations. But for them to function well, they need to be driven in straight. I’ve found this simple guide makes short work of getting it right. It consists of a block of 8 /4 hard maple (or other suitably dense wood) with a notch cut near one end. Drill a perpendicular hole into the center of that notch, sizing it for a bolt that matches the inside diameter of your inserts. For example, if your inserts take 1/4-20 bolts, drill a 1/4" hole. Then cut the long end of the block down to serve as a handle. To use the guide, slide a 4" bolt through the hole and thread a nut onto its end. Next, thread on the insert and tighten the nut against it to lock it in place. Drill a hole for the insert in your workpiece, making sure it is perpendicular to the surface. Lightly countersink the rim of the hole before driving in the insert with a wrench.

Robin Carmichael
Waitsfield, Vermont

Heat shrink wrap for clamp handles

The older I get, the more trouble I have tightening clamps adequately. The solution came from my other passion: fishing. I wrapped heat shrink fishing rod grips around my clamp handles. This resilient material makes it a lot easier to get good purchase on the slippery wooden surfaces.

Dan Hendricks
Snohomish, Washington

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