Squaring Gauge

If you're used to checking square on a cabinet by comparing the length of the diagonals, you know it can be difficult to get the end of a tape measure over the corners of the project once the clamps are in place. You could place the tape inside the corners, but this makes it hard to get an accurate reading.

I solved this problem by making an adjustable squaring gauge, as shown in the photo above.

The gauge is simply an adjustable length of wood that I can use to compare the inside diagonals of a cabinet. By sliding the pieces together or apart, I can adjust the length to fit a variety of different projects. An L-shaped hook at each end fits precisely into the corners, and a small cam device allows me to lock-in my first diagonal measurement.

The gauge consists of upper and lower extension strips that are held together with a sliding dovetail joint. (I used a 14° dovetail bit to rout the groove and then used the same bit to sneak up on the size of the matching tongue.) The cam is an irregular-shaped piece of hardwood (see pattern) that fits in a slot in the upper extension. Simply raise the cam when you need to lock the gauge in place.

Spindle Sander Jointer

I don’t have a jointer in my shop, so I came up with a way to use my oscillating spindle sander for jointing edges. I just made a simple “jointing” fence. The fence is nothing more than a straight board with a U-shaped cut out to fit around the drum of my oscillating spindle sander.

To create an offset between the front and back of the fence, I shaved about 1/32" off the “infeed” side of the fence, see detail below. (The deeper the cut, the slower you’ll have to feed the work-piece.)

To use the fence, simply clamp it to the top of the sander so the drum is flush with the “outfeed” edge of the fence. Then feed the board along the fence past the sanding drum.

Splined Miter Joint

When I'm making picture frames, I like to "beef up" the mitered corners of the frame with a spline. As you can see in the photo, using a contrasting wood provides an opportunity to highlight the joint. Or you can make it nearly invisible by using the same type of wood. Either way, the spline adds a lot of glue surface that really strengthens the joint.

JIG - To cut the kerf for the spline, I use a shop-made jig that straddles the rip fence on the table saw, as shown in the drawing below.

Screwing two supports to the face of the jig at a 45° angle to the blade forms a “cradle” that holds the glued-up frame securely in place. All you need to do to cut the kerf is set the frame in place and make a pass across the saw blade. (I use a rip blade to cut a flat-bottomed kerf.)

ASSEMBLY - Once the kerf is cut, you can glue in the spline. After gluing and clamping the joint (see detail), remove the excess material with a handsaw and then sand the spline flush.

Slip-On Clamp Blocks

When edge gluing boards, I use scrap blocks to distribute the clamping pressure and avoid marring the edges. But sometimes the blocks shift out of position or fall to the floor before I get the clamps tightened. To solve this problem, I made a number of U-shaped clamp blocks that slip over the edge and stay right where I put them.

The secret is a piece of self-adhesive weatherstrip (see inset) attached to the top and bottom of the "jaws" of each block. When you slip the block over the edge of the workpiece, it compresses the weatherstrip and creates the needed grip.

Making the clamp blocks is easy. Especially if you start by gluing up a couple long pieces of hardboard to a piece of ¾"-thick stock. After attaching the weather stripping, all you need to do is cut the individual blocks to length.

Shop Made Clamp

There are times when you just don't have enough clamps. Here's an easy-to-build clamp that you can build from scrap that will work great for most projects. What's unique about this clamp is how the pressure is applied. Instead of tightening a threaded screw, you'll tap a wood wedge between the clamp and the workpiece.

The clamp is easy to make. It's simply a long wood rail with clamp heads at each end. One clamp head is fixed and the other is adjustable to accommodate different size objects.

I used a 1/2" dowel for the pin, which allows the adjustable clamp head to pivot as you tap in the wedge, as shown in the detail. The farther you tap in the wedge, the more pressure it applies against the workpiece.

Repairing Loose Tenons

It's frustrating when you cut a mortise only to find out your tenon doesn't fit snugly. Luckily there's an easy fix that doesn't require cutting new mortises.

For square tenons, simply glue a thin piece of wood veneer to each cheek of the tenon (see drawing). I always orient the grain in the same direction to get a strong glue joint, too. Once the glue dries, trim the tenon to fit snugly in the mortise.

For round tenons cut too small, glue on a shaving from a hand plane. Then sand the tenon to fit snugly in the mortise.

Fitting a Mortise & Tenon Joint

No matter what method you use for making a mortise and tenon joint, there’s still a good chance that you will have to do some “fine tuning” to get a perfect fit.

Undercutting The Shoulders. One of the most common problems encountered with a mortise and tenon joint is a gap between the two mating workpieces. This is caused by a shoulder that isn’t perfectly square or cut cleanly.

To avoid this problem, I like to undercut the shoulders of the tenon slightly with a chisel. This allows the edges of the tenon to fit tight to the mating workpiece when the joint is assembled, see top photo.

Removing Stepped Shoulders. Another common problem when cutting four-shouldered tenons is a stepped shoulder. If I run into this, I don't try to correct it at my saw. Instead, I come back after and pare them flush with the side shoulders, see bottom photo.

Molding Alignment Jig

Recently, I was building the cottage-style dresser featured in the June 2002 issue of Workbench. To dress-up the drawer fronts, I attached small strips of half-round molding around the edges. The trick was to position the strips on each false drawer front so that they lined up with one drawer to the next.

My solution was to use a simple alignment jig centered on each false front. This let me wrap the molding strips around the jig so that they ended up the same distance from the edges on all of the false fronts (see drawing).

To avoid accidentally gluing the jig to the false front, I waxed the edges of the jig.

Miter Clamping Tip

Instead of purchasing a special clamp for assembling miter joints, here's a trick that will allow you to use ordinary shop clamps to make the joint.

Start by making a couple of angle blocks (cut at 45°) out of scrap wood. Then glue and screw the blocks to a strip of hardboard, see Fig.1 drawing below.

When you're ready to glue your project, clamp the hardboard strip and block to the outer edges of each workpiece. Then place another clamp across the two blocks to draw the joint together tightly, see Fig.2 below.

If the blocks slip as you tighten the clamp, you can attach some adhesive-backed sandpaper to the hardboard strips to hold the block in place.

Matching Grain Is Worth The Effort

Many of my projects require glued-up hardwood panels. The trick is to make the panel look like a single, wide piece of wood. A bad match of grain can be really distracting, as you can see in the photo, below left. But by carefully matching the grain, the glue joints practically disappear, giving the entire project a more professional look. 

To start with, I always look for boards with the same general type of grain patterns. I flip as many boards as possible over and spin them end for end to see if I can find grain that matches.

Bad Match

One of the boards above has a figured spot where an intersecting branch grew. 

It clashes with the straight grain

Good Match

Even though the color varies slightly, the grain in the two boards matches much better in this orientation.

Masking Tape Clamp

Recently, I was building the Craftsman-style clock that was featured in the November 1999 issue of Workbench.

The long edges on the front and sides of this clock are mitered. So, the trick was trying to clamp up the clock without having the tips of the miters slip out of alignment. To prevent the pieces from sliding, I “clamped” the clock together with masking tape. (The tape also lets you adjust the fit of the miter joints.)

Start with the front and sides of the clock face up on your workbench. After you’ve carefully aligned the tips of the miters, tape the pieces together, leaving a space between each piece of tape.

The space will allow you to see whether the tips of the miters are aligned during glue-up (Fig. 1a).

After flipping the pieces over face down, put glue in the valley of the miters (Fig.1). Then flip up one side and use a small square to hold it in place (Fig.2). Now stand the second side up and tape across the two sides (see photo at top). To adjust the fit of the joint, loosen or tighten the tape.

Magnetic Clamp Pads

Whenever I use pipe clamps, I like to use a block of wood as a clamping pad.

The clamping pad helps prevent damage to the surface of my project when I tighten down the joint. Problem is, it's always been difficult to hold the block in place while I tighten the clamp.

To solve this problem, I attach small magnets to my wood blocks to keep them in place while I tighten the clamp. To secure the magnet to my wood block, I cut a recessed hole on one side of the block (the same diameter as the magnet) and then epoxy the magnet into the hole, see drawing. The magnet holds the

clamping pad in place, leaving me with both hands free to align the clamp on the workpiece.

Locking Dowels for Dadoes

A recent project for my shop called for quite a few drawers. To make the project as quick as possible, I simply cut dadoes in all the drawer fronts to accept the sides. After I completed the project, I found the dado joints just weren't as strong as I would have liked them to be.

So next time I tried something new.

I wanted a joint that was easy to make and would also stand up to heavy use. So I tried "beefing" up my dado joint with a pair of dowels that lock each joint like a key, see photo.

After assembling each drawer, I drill a small hole on each joint line, as shown in Fig. 1. Then I insert and glue a short dowel into the hole to form a "locking" pin.

Choose a dowel size about a fourth the thickness of your drawer front. With 1/2"-thick stock, I used a 1/8"-dia. dowel. And don't worry about cutting them to perfect length. Just trim them flush with a chisel after they're glued in.(Fig. 1a).

Since most small drill bits are short, you'll only be able to insert a small length of the dowel into the joint. So repeat the process on both the top and bottom of the drawer (Fig. 2).

Glue Roller

Like a lot of woodworkers, I use a paint roller to spread glue over large surfaces. But instead of using an ordinary roller cover, I cut a piece of PVC pipe to fit over the roller cage.

The PVC pipe gives me a more even and smooth application, and doesn't soak up the glue like a paint roller would. Clean up is easier, too. Just let the glue dry on the pipe, and then chip it off. Now it's ready to be used again.

Fitting Threaded Inserts

I use threaded inserts in quite a few of my shop jigs and accessories. A good way to make sure the insert goes in straight is to use the chuck on a drill press.

Start by drilling an undersized pilot hole for the insert. Find a spare bolt that fits the insert, cut off the head, and mount it in the chuck. Next thread a nut and the insert on to the bolt, see drawing. Tighten the nut to make sure the insert is secured to the bolt.

Lower the drill, applying light pressure with the control arm while you rotate the chuck (clockwise) by hand.

When the insert is completely embedded, lock the spindle in place and back off the

nut from the top of the insert. Then unlock the spindle and unthread the bolt from

the insert while slowly releasing pressure on the control arm.

Corner Clamp

Whenever I'm assembling mitered frames, I have a difficult time holding the frame pieces in position while gluing or installing fasteners. But instead of buying an expensive corner clamp, I made my own using a couple of pipe clamps.

First, I attached my clamps to a couple of short lengths of black pipe and threaded them into a "T" fitting. Then I attached the whole assembly to a 3/4" plywood base with a couple large screws.

I also cut a notch in one corner of the plywood to provide clearance for assembling the frame pieces. 

To support the frame pieces while they're in the clamps, I added supports along the edges and down the middle of the base, as you can see in the lower drawing.

Centering a Table Top

Centering the top of a table on its base used to be a time-consuming process for me. I'd spend a lot of time with a ruler checking and rechecking the overhang along all four sides to make sure it was the same all the way around. But now I use a quicker method — that's more accurate.

First, I flip the top of the table or cabinet upside down and mark the center of all four sides, as shown in the drawing. Then I find the center of each apron (or side), making a mark on the outside face of each one where it meets the top. Once the centers are marked, place the base upside down on the table top.

Now to center the base on the top, it's just a matter of aligning the marks on the aprons to the marks on the top. (Note: Before you tighten the mounting hardware, double check the alignment marks one more time to make sure the base hasn't shifted.)

Applying Edging

Gluing hardwood edging to plywood has never been one of my favorite tasks. It’s always tricky to keep the edging from slipping while tightening down the clamps. So to help hold the edging in place, I made some clamping blocks.

These blocks have a shallow, wide groove on one side that's sized to just fit over the edging and plywood, see drawing. This holds the edging flush with the plywood. To prevent the blocks from getting glued to the workpiece, I apply wax to the surface of the blocks before using them.