[ Saw whirring ] ♪♪ It's "The Woodsmith Shop."

Hi.

I'm Phil.

On today's episode, it's time for our tips extravaganza.

We're going to look at all the woodworking tips, tricks, and techniques that we've gathered from this season to pull together to help you become a better woodworker.

There's a lot to learn here.

We're looking at power tools, bench tips, even how to use some specialized tools over at the drill press.

If you're ready to follow along with us, the plans and explanations are at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

So let's get into it.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters.

Offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional... and by Kreg.

Tools designed by woodworkers for woodworkers.

Create what inspires you.

Additional funding provided by... Titebond wood glues -- the pro's advantage.

and by... ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ On a shop project, it's really important to have the ability to customize the project in order to suit your needs, no matter what the plans say.

Take, for example, this clamp cart that we made.

One feature of the clamp cart is this lower compartment that, in the plans, have these removable hardboard dividers.

With them in place, now I have three narrower spots to be able to store vertical tools -- nailers, a tool case, pocket-hole jig, things like that.

Now, when we built this project for the show, on this one, one of the parts that Logan wanted to emphasize is that ability to customize it.

So we left this compartment without the dados to hold those dividers.

Now you can put bulkier items in, larger things, maybe even a basket or something to be able to hold small items.

But that doesn't mean you can't add the dividers even after it's been built.

And it doesn't mean taking everything apart.

The solution is to create the dados yourself and then just glue or nail them in place.

Here's what I mean by that.

I made a set of plywood spacers that I can put inside the compartment.

I made a set for both the top and the bottom.

What I'll do is, I'll set the two outer pieces into the compartment, flush up against the sidewalls.

Then I can nail those down.

Then I'll use the hardboard dividers as a spacer to set the gaps between them.

That'll help me locate where that middle spacer needs to be, as well.

Once everything's all nailed in place, now I can just slide those hardboard dividers in and create a cubby that's designed and ready to fit for my tools in my shop.

Now, this applies to just about any kind of shop-project cabinet.

Doesn't mean that it has to be a cart like this.

And, frankly, you could use it in kitchen cabinets, too, to help organize the gear in your house, no matter where you find it.

This clamp cart has proven to be a valuable addition to our shop space.

Not only does it provide a couple of extra surfaces for us to pile junk on, but we can keep a bunch of clamps on the back side.

One of the standout features of this particular cart, though, is the set of clamp racks right up front -- perfect for all those shorter-length clamps that you use throughout the course of building a project.

Probably the only downside is that you don't really know what the length of clamp is when you're looking at it head-on like that.

Here's a simple solution, though.

You take a silver-colored permanent marker, and then you can just write the length or the capacity of the clamp right on the clamp-head.

Now, when I slip it in place in the rack... I can see which clamp that I need and grab it.

You can also see if somebody else has been using the tools in your shop, and, you know, whether they put something in in the wrong spot.

I hope this helps you organize your clamps in your shop.

♪♪ It's no secret that having a set of sawhorses in your shop is pretty handy for setting up a temporary work surface, whether it's in your shop or out on the patio or the driveway, to get some projects done.

The only problem is, what do you do with the tools that you're using while you're working with the sawhorses?

The solution I've used in the past is right here.

Balance the stuff precariously on the sawhorses while trying to maneuver pieces around.

You know what happens.

Invariably, something gets knocked off, edges get dinged up, or you lose track of where the tools are.

The solution, instead, is to make yourself a little tray.

That's what I have here.

It's a piece of plywood, but on the back side are a couple of cleats, and those cleats are spaced so that this shelf... fits right over the lower stretcher of my sawhorse.

Now I have a stable work surface that I can keep bulky items, like drill, some clamps, and your tape measure, and you know exactly where to find them.

in the middle of the project.

Drilled a few holes in the shelf so that you can hold things like a screwdriver or rasp or chisel and, again, keep those accessible and ready to get to.

They're not lying around on the driveway, where they're going to get dinged up on you.

This is a great way to organize your work area, whether you're working in your shop or out on a site.

There are all kinds of ways to work with small parts.

At the router table, I like having those small parts act like much bigger pieces.

The way to do that is with a sled like this.

The sled has a toggle clamp on it that provides a secure grip to the workpiece.

But there's a lot more going on here to keep that workpiece secure while you move it past the bit.

For starters, I have 1/4-inch MDF or hardboard base that has some adhesive-back sandpaper on it.

That sandpaper, in conjunction with the clamp, helps the piece to resist shifting in the middle of a cut.

In addition, there are these two adjustable blocks here that I can slide over with the aid of these knobs and slots in the blocks that now pin that workpiece side-to-side, again, keeping it from shifting.

Once I introduce the toggle clamp to it, I have everything all locked down, ready to go.

There's really nowhere for that piece to move around.

The other thing here, the knobs act like handles so that I can move that piece into the bit and across and away, keeping my hands safely away.

No matter how many pieces I'm working with, I know that the results are going to be right on the money.

♪♪ Picture frames are great weekend projects and a great way to use up scrap material that you have and turn it into something amazing.

Now, when I make mitered picture frames, one of the problem spots is the miter.

It's a tough joint to glue up and for it to last a long time.

Now, granted, a picture frame doesn't take a lot of stress over its life, but you still don't want it to snap apart.

To reinforce that joint, we'll often put a spline on the end, running across that mitered surface to provide some long-grain glue joint and to stiffen it up.

The trick is, how do you cut that slot?

Now, my preference is to use the router table for all kinds of joinery, and reinforcing miters with splines is just the thing for it.

What you need, though, is a way to hold the workpiece at that correct angle.

So what I have here is a simple sled.

There are two fences on the sled that are cut at 45 degrees and run... at an angle away from the fence.

They're attached to a platform that supports the workpiece.

Now, to make the slot, I'm using a slot-cutting bit here in the router table.

Since I've used this a few times, I can use the existing kerf in the sled to set up the right height for the bit.

Then it's just a matter of running the sled along the edge of the fence and pass the bit.

I'll often use a push pad to keep the workpiece in place and my hands safely away from the bit.

Great way and simple to make miters even stronger.

♪♪ Some of the most valuable woodworking tips for me are ones where I take an idea and then adapt it to suit the needs of my particular working style, shop, or my tools.

For example, here's a riff on an old idea.

I have a "V"-block that I use at my workbench quite frequently.

It's a great way to corral, like, round pieces that tend to not want to stay stable when you need to work at them.

The "V"-block cradles the piece, holds it so that you can do drilling or planing, sanding, whatever it takes.

They're also great if you're working on pieces that are octagonal in shape or if you have a square piece and you need to work on one of the corners, say to taper the inside edge or to add a little notch or something like that.

Now, what I did to my "V"- block, which consists of just two layers of plywood, with your standard "V"-shaped cutout in there to hold the pieces.

I made mine 24 inches long, which is a great size for a lot of the kind of pieces that I'm working with frequently.

One thing that I wanted, though, was a way to be able to hold on to those pieces.

So what I did is screwed on a thin stop on one end.

Now, when I slide a piece in, I can basically just hold it with my thumb and then have this piece pretty much locked in for all kinds of work.

You'll notice that the stop is set below the top of the "V"block so that everything that's exposed on this workpiece I can still work on without marring or knocking the stop off.

The other upgrade that I did on this "V"-block is -- the 24 inches works great for most of the pieces, like I said, but there are occasions when you're going to want to work with something a little bit longer.

Rather than have or make a second "V"-block that's much longer and that's really just going to get in the way, what I did on my version was to cut it... and then I added a set of dowels in the long end with matching holes in the extension.

Now, when those long pieces come in, I can set the piece in place and I can position this extension anywhere I need to along the edge, clamp it down, if necessary, to hold it, and I can work with a variety of lengths of pieces with just a simple "V"-block.

Now, I don't want this piece to get lost or thrown away accidentally.

So I put a little wax in the holes and on the dowels to be able to attach it easy.

Now I can just store this in my shop and have a flexible work-holding piece that I can use whenever I want.

♪♪ There's a saying amongst woodworkers that you can never have enough clamps.

And while I agree with that, it is an expensive proposition, because clamps can get pretty expensive.

But I find that using pipe clamps is a good, budget-friendly way to outfit your shop with various sizes.

They do come with some quirks, however, and I have some tips that will help you avoid some of those.

So, a pipe clamp features a head that threads on one end of the pipe and then a foot that slides along the other side.

Now, one of the problems with using black-pipe or pipe clamps in general is that as you're doing glue-ups, the iron in the pipe can react with the tannins in the wood, and that causes some black staining.

Now, this isn't the end of the world.

It is only surface-deep.

However, you can avoid that.

There's two ways that I found work best to avoid it.

The first is simply by buying galvanized pipe.

Now, this is available at most home centers, and you can buy it in various lengths.

And it is a little bit more expensive, but you completely avoid that black-staining issue.

If you have black pipe in your shop already... you can add a little bit of protection to your workpiece simply by using painter's tape.

Just applying a strip before you do a glue-up not only will protect your work from that iron staining, but it'll also protect your pipe clamps from any glue getting on them, causing that foot to get stuck as you're trying to slide it.

Now, another good tip is, while you're doing a glue-up, you can use a pair of rare-earth magnets... as standoffs.

Simply putting them on the pipe will raise your workpiece above the surface of the pipe, avoiding any glue squeezing right onto the clamp.

Now, I mentioned that most home centers are going to have pipe, either black pipe or galvanized pipe.

However, you can save a little bit of money by visiting a local metal-supply store.

A lot of those iron dealers will carry this pipe uncut and unthreaded, and then you can specify what length you want, and they'll cut it and thread one end for you, and it'll save money when you compare it to the big-box store.

Now, I will say that pipe clamps are not necessarily my favorite clamp in the shop, but I find them super-versatile, especially when I need a really long clamp.

♪♪ The common question among woodturners is, "Are you a member of the funnel club?"

Meaning you made the inside of a bowl bigger than the outside.

But if you do punch a hole in the bottom of a bowl as you're turning, it doesn't mean it's the end of the world.

You can actually turn it into kind of a cool project and salvage that piece you were working on.

Now, this bowl wasn't a funnel, but it did get knocked off the workbench by a rambunctious dog.

But we can do the same thing and save this.

What we're going to do is, we're going to turn this upside down on its rim.

We're going to cut out the damaged area.

So now that I have this cut in half, first thing we're gonna do is, we're going to inspect our bowl shape, see how close we were on our thickness.

And I'm okay with that.

It could have been a little bit thinner, but I like it.

And now we're going to use a piece of 1/4-inch plywood.

And then I'm going to position the bowl -- or the half of a bowl, rather -- on that.

And we're going to transfer the shape.

Now, the idea here is that we're going to take this broken bowl and make something useful out of it.

In this case, it's going to be just a wall hanging basket, something you can throw keys in or other things you need to store.

And we're just going to make this backer whatever shape looks good.

There we go.

Now it's pretty close.

Now we're going to cut it to size, leaving a little bit of extra.

Then we'll head over to the workbench and glue it together.

So now we're going to apply glue to the face of our bowl... and position it on the backer... and shoot a couple of pin nails carefully into the bottom.

Okay.

Now, once that glue dries, I can sand it flush.

And this is just a great way to turn an oopsie of a project into something useful.

♪♪ You know, when I'm in my shop, finishing a project, my favorite way to apply finish is spraying.

I find it gives me better results, and it's simply easier than brushing.

But I don't like to do the whole flipping of parts and holding them on painter's points.

Instead, what I like to do is hang my parts.

And to do that... I keep this little container in my workbench, and it's full of just a bunch of random eyelets.

So what I do is I pick out a pair.

Throw it back in the drawer.

And then I take a look at my part that I'm getting ready to finish.

On most projects, a part will have a portion of it that just isn't seen in the finished project.

In the case of this door, you'll never see the bottom edge of it.

So I grab a drill... and I pop a couple holes in the bottom.

And now I can screw those eyelets in.

And these don't have to go in real far.

Just enough to hold.

Okay, now with those two eyelets installed, I can hang this part up.

Now, in the shop, what I like to do is just set up a ladder, and then I use a couple pieces of wire bent into hooks.

And I can hang it up.

What I like to do is use two wires, because now, as I'm spraying, the part doesn't want to spin around from the air coming out of the gun.

If I have a bunch of parts to spray, I'll set up two ladders and I'll hang a dowel between them.

And that allows me to hang multiple parts at once.

I find this is a great way to hold parts while you're applying finish.

♪♪ There are several elements to a great box.

It starts with quality design, and then carefully considered materials are two big ones that we woodworkers tend to focus on most.

One often-overlooked element is what to do about the inside of the box.

And you can turn the inside of a box into a special part just by adding something to that bottom piece.

Now, in this case, what I'd like to do is to add this piece of felt.

I think the green is going to look really great with the color of the walnut, once it has some finish applied to it.

The problem is getting felt not only cut to the right size, but installed in the bottom without wrinkles or smudges.

If I were to try to just put some spray adhesive in there, not only would I get spray adhesive all over the place, as soon as I started putting this down, it's going to wrinkle.

I'm going to get glue all over my hands.

I'm going to use language that I really don't want to.

But there's a better way to do that.

And that's to start with a liner.

Now, what I'm using here is a piece of poster board.

I started with an oversized piece and then used one of these rotary fabric cutters -- kind of like a super-sharp pizza cutter -- to cut out a piece.

And then I took some time to fine-tune the size of it.

What I'm looking for is it to slip into the box in all dimensions.

Now, you want to be careful here not to drop it all the way down, because it's going to be kind of a dickens to pull out.

Once I have that sized, the next step is to attach the fabric to it.

For that, I'm going to use spray adhesive, just like I talked about.

I have an oversized piece of felt here that's going to make attaching this pretty easy.

So after letting it dry for just a few seconds... I can set it in place and press it out.

So, here we go.

Now it's back to using a straight-edge and my fabric cutter here to trim the felt to match the size of my insert.

Alright, there we go.

Our piece is ready to slip into the box.

And with the soft edge of the fabric, once I press it in... I get a nice fit all the way around.

It's still relatively easy to use a little piece of masking tape or just pinch the material and be able to remove it if I need to, especially for putting on finish here in just a little bit.

Now, you don't have to use this with just felt.

You can go with a special piece of fabric or leather or cork, and it's a great way to dress up the inside of a box or even drawers, too.

This episode wraps up the 20th season of "The Woodsmith Shop."

Yeah, 20 years has gone by pretty quick for us.

What's surprising is how fast the time has gone and also how much we still have to learn about woodworking.

That's part of what makes it so great is that with every project that we build, we're picking up new ideas and new ways to use our tools to the best of their ability.

I hope you've learned something in this episode.

If you're ready to build along with us on any of our projects and to get the tips that you saw here, the plans are at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

It's a great place to gather and find out more about new project ideas, videos, and ways to become a better woodworker.

And then we'll gather right back here for another great episode of "The Woodsmith Shop."

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ If you'd like to get more video tips and techniques, sign up for the free weekly Woodsmith eTip.

Every week, you'll receive an e-mail with a video tip to get more out of your table saw, router table, and more.

Sign up at WoodsmithShop.com.

Everything in today's show comes from the newly expanded Woodsmith Guild Edition, with shop projects, plans, tips, and techniques.

To get a free preview issue of the Woodsmith Guild Edition and a free Woodsmith book, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

In addition, past seasons of "The Woodsmith Shop" are available on DVD, or you can watch them online from your computer, tablet, or mobile device.

For more information, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters.

Offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional... and by Kreg.

Tools designed by woodworkers for woodworkers.

Create what inspires you.

Additional funding provided by... Titebond wood glues -- the pro's advantage.

and by... ♪♪ ♪♪