Budget Spring Clamp
This light-duty clamp is ideal for small parts-and easy to make by the dozen. All you need are a couple wood scraps, a rubber band, and a short piece of dowel rod. You can vary the pressure by changing the …
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Author Archives: American Woodworker Editors
Tablesaw Trap
Even with a zero-clearance throat plate in my tablesaw, a thin cut-off slips through now and then. These pieces can clog a vacuum hose or damage the blades of a dust collector. I made a trap to catch them by …
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Instant Antique Hardware
New hardware is often way too shiny for my taste, so I chemically “age” it. If the metal is raw steel, I use standard gun bluing. But if it’s plated with zinc, I turn to Super Blue, a double-strength …
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Sharpen While You Work
Chisels don’t wait to get dull until you’ve finished a job—do they? The trick is to keep them sharp while you’re working. Rather than pull out my stones to renew an edge, I keep a piece of MDF charged with …
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House of Dust
HOUSE OF DUST To keep airborne dust from getting into the house, I bought a dust collector for my basement workshop. I wanted to start with a clean slate, so I decided to rid the shop of a decade’s worth …
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