Work in Tight Spaces without Special Tools. When you have to work inside a carcase, there are a wide variety of specialty tools on the market – such as right-angle drills and drawer-lock chisels – to make your life easier. I try to keep a small tool kit. Not because I’m a tightwad. I’m not. But I travel a lot and I prefer to have fewer tools to take care of and keep track of. Here are a few of my favorite tricks for working in tight spaces with regular tools. 1. It’s a stick that is slightly longer than the space in which you need to apply pressure.
This is a very old trick – the earliest place I’ve seen it was in a 17th-century French text. Many woodworkers and piano makers use these goberges against the ceiling for applying pressure to the middle of panels on the bench. 2. If your handle comes loose too easily, spray it with a squirt of hairspray – yes, hairspray. 3. 4. 5. . — Christopher Schwarz. Reverse Hide Glue’s Bond. Whenever I talk about glue to clubs and classes, I hand around a bottle of liquid hide glue and ask them to tell me what its disadvantages are. “It’s weak.” Actually no, it produces a bond stronger than the wood itself. “It stinks.” Hide glue smells only as bad as a wet rawhide chew toy. “It is sensitive to heat and moisture.” This weekend I built a six-board chest for members of the Alabama Woodworkers Guild. So this morning I removed the moulding on the returns. Each strip of moulding took about three minutes of heat and moisture to come loose. If you’ve ever wondered about hide glue, try picking up a small bottle of liquid hide at your local hardware store.
If you want to learn more – a lot more – on hide glue, check out Stephen A. . — Christopher Schwarz P.S. Frank Klausz's 'Your First Toolkit' I’m at work on a Sunday … procrastinating on a personal project in the shop. So, I’m spending a little time at my desk answering e-mail and trying to work up the energy to go back to my massive pile of plywood. One question in my inbox today was, “What tools do I need to get started?” (It’s a question we get a lot.) I’m going to let Frank Klausz answer this one, with the basic kit of tools he recommended in an August 2006 article, “Your First Toolkit.” We’ve a joinery video coming out soon from Frank Klausz, and we’re delighted to be welcoming him to Woodworking in America 2014 (Sept. 12-14 in Winston-Salem, N.C.).
So it seems fitting to put him in the spotlight here. The Basic Kit of Tools Below is a list of tools essential for good woodworking (editor’s note: pictured atop this post). If you’d like to build Frank’s tool box (pictured on the cover at left), download this free PDF: YourFirstToolkit — Megan Fitzpatrick. Woodworking for Mere Mortals: Free woodworking videos and plans. Getting Bit by the Toothed Planing Stop. I know there are people who use edge tools straight out of the box, but I can’t. I always sharpen them. So why should workbench accessories be any different? For many years I’ve been indifferent to metal planing stops.
The aluminum ones are terrible for too many reasons to even get into here. The iron ones I’ve used in the past are OK, but there is always the risk that you are going to slam a plane into one. No wonder tail vises are so popular. But since August I’ve been re-evaluating my relationship with the iron planing stop. I’ve built three pieces of furniture and some try squares on this bench so far and have been slowly falling in love with the planing stop. What changed my attitude? This made a huge difference. Then my brain’s second neuron decided to fire that day. As it’s a carving executed by a woodworker, everything in the scene carries some important visual information.
I never gave this any thought until recently. To knock the wood into the planing stop. . — Christopher Schwarz. The Notched Batten – a Great Workbench Trick. Traversing boards without a tail vise can be tricky. For the last eight years, I’ve used a setup that requires two holdfasts and a batten between them. It works fine, but it requires a long batten and two holdfasts to work. Workbench builder Richard Maguire published a tip on his blog this summer that allows you to use one batten, one holdfast and a planing stop for traversing. It’s a great little video – check it out here. I’ve been using this method on my French oak Roubo bench, which does not have a tail vise or even a strip of dog holes.
You have to have a dang-good holdfast that can cinch down hard and not slip. There are lots of good holdfasts out there, and lots of crap ones as well. If your holdfast doesn’t hold well, the notched batten will give way when you reach the end of the board next to the planing stop. You might consider putting some sticky-back sandpaper on the underside of the batten to improve the grip. Give it a go. . — Christopher Schwarz.
Storage Solutions. Drill Press. Tablesaw. Even more sanding tricks. Weekend With WOOD is back for 2014! One attendee of last year's Weekend With WOOD caught me between classes to thank the WOOD staff for planning and hosting the event. He told me how much he learned during the class sessions, how he enjoyed meeting the world-class teachers and fellow attendees, and more. As we talked, I could see tears welling up in his eyes as he told me, "Dave, this weekend has been life-changing for me.
" Wow. " Weekend With WOOD " is a three-day educational seminar that will be held May 16-18, 2014, at WOOD 's world headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa—the very place where every project design in WOOD magazine is tested and built. The weekend consists of eight two-hour-long woodworking sessions taught by the biggest and best woodworking educators in the world (including Marc Adams, Jim Heavey, George Vondriska, Andy Chidwick, The Wood Whisperer , and more), and you get to choose the topics of most interest to you! Neighborly reminder about oil finishes Burning on rip cuts.