Router Crank Handle

The fine adjustment knob on plunge routers can be small and difficult to use. So I replaced mine with a window crank that I found at my local hardware store.

The large handle makes fine adjustments easier to con-trol. Plus, the handle is a lot easier to find when I mount the router under a table.

Window cranks come in several sizes, so be sure to get one that matches the shaft on your router. The shaft on my router just happened to be 3/8", which is a standard window crank size. 

Depending on the kind of router you have, you might get a better fit if you first remove the threads in the crank handle. I reamed out the splines of my crank.

with a 3/8" bit and then used the set screw to anchor the handle to the flat part of the shaft.

Recycled Brush Holder

When using oil finishes, I like to keep my brush immersed in thinner until I'm finished with the project.

Problem is, if you stand the brush up in a can or jar, you'll eventually ruin your brush with permanently curled bristles.

One way to keep bristles in like-new condition is to temporarily store your brushes in baby wipe plastic containers. The lids already have an expansion hole in the top, which makes it easy to insert the brush handle.

With the lid in place, the brush stays suspended and the thinner doesn't evaporate as quickly as it would in an open jar.

Putty Trick

When filling nail holes with putty, I sometimes smear the putty around without too much thought. This can cause problems if the putty is lighter than the wood around it, resulting in large ugly blotches (instead of tiny nail-sized spots). Fortunately, I found a better way to fill the holes with less mess.

Before picking up the hammer, I apply a strip of masking tape over the area where I'm going to set the nails. Then I nail and recess the heads as normal. 

When I fill the nail holes, the putty goes in the holes and never touches the surrounding wood. After I remove the tape, I simply sand the small bump of putty that remains.

Power Stir Stick

Here's a quick and easy way to thoroughly mix a can of paint that's been sitting in your shop for awhile.

Simply cut a piece out of a plastic coat hanger and chuck it in your power drill, see photo. You'll find it mixes the paint quicker and more thoroughly than stirring by hand.

When you're done mixing, just open the chuck and let the hanger drop in the trash.

Glue Brush Tip

I like to use a small acid brush to apply glue to my projects. Problem is that I never know what to do with my brush between applying coats. It always seems to end up on my workbench, leaving a sticky mess.

To solve this problem, I converted a standard-size baby jar lid into a brush holder.

The lid keeps my brush off the bench surface while I'm working.

And when I'm finished, I simply leave the brush in the lid and screw it back onto the jar. It's a great way to store the glue until it's time for my next project.

Finishing Wood Plugs

Whenever I use wood plugs, I like to stain or finish them before adding them to my project. Problem is, they’re so small it’s difficult to hold on to them. Plus, I usually end up with stain on my hands and fingers. To make things easier, I came up with this simple trick.

Take a piece of masking tape and push a row of thumbtacks into the sticky side of the tape. Then place the tape down on a piece of scrap wood, with the point of the thumbtacks facing up. Now push your wood plugs onto the thumbtacks, just enough to keep them steady while you apply the stain or finish.

When the plugs are dry, simply pull up the tape and remove the plugs.

Finishing Shelves

Finishing shelves can be a time-con-suming task. Once you’ve applied the finish to one side of the shelf, you have to wait for it to dry before turning the shelf over to finish the other side.

While working on a project with a lot of shelves, I came up with a simple solution. I screw some narrow strips of wood to the back edge of the shelf to act as temporary "feet", as you can see in the drawing.

Then I stand the shelf up while applying finish to both sides. Once the finish is dry, I simply remove the feet. Don't worry about the screw holes.

They're aren’t visible since they are on the back edge of the shelf.

Finishing Easel

Applying a finish to something lying on a sawhorse can be a pain, literally. To ease the strain on my back and make the work less tiring, I built an adjustable "easel" that rests on a sawhorse. Now I can work at a more comfortable height.

Shelf Pin Jig

I like drilling shelf pin holes in the top, bottom, and sides of a box so that it can be used vertically or horizontally. But that means the holes must be perfectly aligned if I want the shelves to be level regardless of how I set up the box. To get this kind of uniform spacing, I like to use a simple layout jig to mark my hole locations before I drill.

I made my jig out of ¾"-thick scrap material. The L-shape design lets me slide the jig flush along the edge of the board while I mark holes with a nail. Plus, the indentation left by the nail makes a nice starter hole for my drill bit. 

Start by marking the position of the first set of holes. Then simply slide the jig down the board and mark the next pair of holes. If you start your jig at the same place on every board, all shelf pin holes will be perfectly aligned.

Quick Drawer Slides

Some of the older wooden drawers in my house just don't slide in and out like they should. They bind and catch in the drawer slides, especially in the more humid months of the year. Here's a quick fix I discovered that will have your sticky drawers gliding smoothly across the slides.

Try inserting metal thumb tacks on the bottom of the drawer and on the front of the drawer opening, see below. I use two on the cabinet front rail and two on the drawer bottom at the back.

Overhead Storage Shelf

Finding extra storage space is always a problem, especially for seasonal items that don't get used that often. Here's an easy-to-build overhead shelf perfect for a garage or storage room.

I made my shelf from a standard hollow-core interior door cut in half (you can make two shelves out of one door). If you don't have a spare door, you can buy one for about $20.

You'll need to support the veneer skin of the door along the cut edge (it's a hollow door), so I screwed a filler block along the inside edge of the door, as shown in the drawing. To hang the shelf, simply attach it to a cleat that's lag screwed to the wall (see detail a). 

You'll need to support the front edge of the shelf, too. I used a pair of brackets made out of ½" electrical conduit for this (see detail b). You can crimp the ends in a vise, then screw one end to the shelf and attach the other end to a wall stud.

Louvered Doors

If you've ever attempted to build a cabinet with louvered doors, you know that cutting the slots for the louvers can be complicated and tedious. You could build a router jig to help with the task, but this still means more work just to build the jig. So I came up with a different method that allows me to quickly cut the slots on a table saw.

First I cut a groove in the door stile, as shown in the drawing below. Then, using my table saw and miter gauge, I make a louver strip that contains a series of angled kerfs, spaced to fit the louvers I'll be installing in the door later. To prevent tear-out, I use an auxiliary fence attached to the face of the miter gauge while cutting the kerfs. 

After all the kerfs are cut, I rip the louver strip to fit the groove I cut in the door stile. Then I glue it in place. When making the louvers, I just make sure to size the thickness of the louvers to match the width of the kerfs I cut in my louver strip.

Loose Panel Fix

I often have trouble with raised-panel doors and cabinets during the winter. Dry weather causes the panels to contract, leaving them loose and rattling in the frames. To prevent this from happening, I now put small dots of silicone near the corners of the frame before assembling the door.

Apply a small dot at each corner and let the silicone dry overnight. Then install the panel as normal. The silicone acts as a shock absorber, cushioning the panel inside the frame.

Mounting Full-Overlay Doors

Sometimes it takes a lot of fiddling around to get an even gap between two full-overlay doors. So I use a simple technique to establish a consistent gap.

First attach the hinges to the doors. Then roughly position the doors on the cabinet frame. Next slip a steel rule (mine is 3/32" thick) between the doors and clamp them together, see drawing. The steel rule keeps a perfect gap between the two doors while you position them on the cabinet frame. When everything is aligned, simply screw the hinges to the cabinet frame.

Note: To raise the pipe clamps above the rule (and to protect the doors), I added an over-sized clamp pad to each jaw. It’s just a scrap with a hole to fit the pipe.

Two Tips for Installing Hinges

Installing a door on its hinges can be one of the trickiest parts of building a cabinet. Here are two tips I've used in the past to make the job easier.

Temporary Steel Woodscrews

I usually take a door on and off a few times before I get the right fit. In the process, I often strip or break the brass screws that come with the hinge.

To prevent this problem, I temporarily substitute steel screws while I'm positioning the hinge. Plus, I put only one screw in each leaf while adjusting the fit. And when it's time to add the other screws, I run steel screws in and out of the pilot holes first. This creates a ready-made hole for decorative brass screws.

Thin Shims

If a hinge mortise is cut too deep, there may not be enough of a gap between the door and the cabinet. A quick fix for this is to add a paper or thin cardboard shim below the hinge. 

A shim also comes in handy if the gap between the door and the cabinet tapers from top to bottom. Use the shim at the top or the bottom hinge only to correct the taper.

Self-Centering Plunge Router Base

A plunge router is great for cutting mortises on the edge of a workpiece. The only trick is getting it centered. Here's a handy auxiliary base that will center the bit automatically, and it works with workpieces of just about any thickness.

The key is a couple of pins. These are nothing more than common bolts with their heads cut off. I fastened them to the base with T-nuts and hex nuts, but for the base to work, these pins have to be positioned carefully. The centerpoint of the bolts and the router bit must form a straight line. Plus, the pins must be the same distance away from the bit. 

To use the base, simply attach your router and set the base on the edge of the work-piece. Twisting the base so the pins contact each face of the piece automatically centers the bit, as you can see in the details at bottom right. Then just plunge and rout the mortise.

Routing Stopped Flutes

Recently I was making a bookcase with stopped flutes on the side. I was disappointed when I noticed my router bit left some pretty bad burn marks at the end of each flute.

Routing a stopped flute usually results in burn marks at the ends.

The ramps lift the bit out of the flute, leaving a clean, tapered end.

To overcome this problem, I made a simple ramp device that keeps my router from burning the edges. This method works so well that now I use it just about anytime I’m building a project that calls for routed flutes.

My device looks like a miniature skateboard ramp, see photo below. When I slide the router up the ramp, the bit is lifted smoothly out of the flute. Not only do you eliminate the burning, but you also get a nice, tapered end.

The ramps are nothing more than scraps of “2x4” stock with arcs cut in them, see Fig.1. The blanks for the ramps should be the same width as the stock that you are routing the flutes in. For the flutes in the bookcase, I found that a 3"-radius arc was just about right. After laying out the arcs, I cut them on a band saw and sanded them smooth on a drum sander. To see how I use the ramps, go to page two of this tip.

To use the ramps, simply clamp them to the ends of the workpiece, making sure that the end of each ramp is square to the edge of the workpiece, see Fig.2. (You could also tape the ramps down with double-sided carpet tape.) With a jig or edge guide attached to your router, the ramps will help lower and raise the router into the cut, see Figs.3 and 3a.

There's one thing to be aware of. I found that the sharp edge of my router base had a tendency to "catch" on the edge of the ramp at the end of the flute. To avoid this, I simply filed a slight chamfer on the edge of my router base plate.

Simple Router Trammel

Circle cutting is easy with a router and a shop-built trammel. And the trammel doesn't have to be anything fancy. In fact, on the rare occasion that I need to cut circles, I just use a scrap piece of hardboard. Then when the project is complete, the hardboard goes back into my scrap bin.

To make a trammel, first remove the router's sub-base, and trace the bit opening and mounting screw locations onto a rectangular piece of hardboard, as shown in the drawing. (I like to use a piece of hardboard that is slightly wider than the base of my router.) Bore these holes and make sure to countersink the holes for the head of the mounting screws.

Next, install a bit in the router (I use a ¼" straight bit for most projects). Then measure the radius of the hole you want to cut from the inside edge of the bit. Now drill the hole for the pivot pin. I drilled this hole with a ¼" bit and used the bit as the pin.

Always be sure to rout the circle counter-clockwise, which is in the opposite direction of the bit's rotation.

Router Bushing Thread Lock

When I'm routing dovetails or following a template, I use a guide bushing on the base plate of my router, like the one shown in the drawing below. But sometimes I have a problem with the threads of the bushing working loose due to the vibration of the router.

To solve this problem, I use a simple fix. Before installing the bushing on my router base, I wrap the male threads of the bushing with Teflon tape (the kind used with threaded pipe connections). The tape prevents the threads from vibrating loose. (Teflon tape can be found at most hardware stores.)

Rolling Featherboard

When cutting raised panels on a router table, my featherboard attachment does me little good.

With the panel up on edge, my featherboard simply doesn't provide enough support to help steady the workpiece while I'm making the cut. To solve this problem, I came up with a device that works like a featherboard, yet offers much more support in keeping upright panels steady.

My rolling featherboard consists of an L-shaped fence (made with MDF) with a pair of appliance casters attached to one side. The rollers allow the workpiece to glide smoothly along the table while the spring action behind the rollers keeps it snug to the fence. 

First build the fence section. Attach the castors to a length of MDF that matches the width of your router table. To make sure the castors will move in and out of the fence (as the spring expands and contracts) be sure to drill holes for the castor studs slightly larger than the stud diameter. Also, studs on casters can be rather short, so you might need to counterbore the holes in your fence stock (see detail a.) 

Next attach a base to the fence with woodscrews.