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Workshop tips

By Bruce Wiebe

From The Family Handyman

Sanding belt recycling

Save those “used” sanding belts to make specialized sanding tools. All you need is the belt, a pair of scissors, some two-sided carpet tape and a little imagination. Here’s a couple of ideas to get you started.

Stick two-sided tape and a piece of sanding belt on the outside of a hole saw to work like a drum sander. We recently made some decorative scallops on a board by drilling evenly spaced 3-in. holes with a hole saw, cutting it lengthwise to create “half holes.” We then used our hole saw drum sander to finish sand the scallops in just seconds while preserving the contours of the scallops.

Add two-sided tape to paint stir sticks and pieces of dowels or molding, then apply sanding-belt strips for all those project corners and shapes a power sander can’t touch. Sanding belts are tough, unlike sandpaper, and the files and sanders you make from them can last for years.

Bridge clamp for routing

Here’s a slick way to clamp boards for edge-routing courtesy of reader Ken Peterson. It’s a “bridge clamp” that lets you rout the length of a board without stopping to reposition clamps as you work. You need a ratty workbench top you don’t mind driving screws into, a few 2-in. drywall screws and a couple of scrap boards.

Lay the workpiece and a scrap board side by side with a 4-in. gap between them. Set the “bridge board” on top so it spans the gap, then drive screws through it into the tabletop until the workpiece is clamped down. You’ll find this clamping method useful for other applications as well, such as ripping a board to width with a circular saw or holding boards for biscuit joining, drilling and sanding. It works especially well whenever your workpiece is shorter than the workbench.

V-Block for drill press

Try veteran woodworker Ed Bernadou’s classic tip: It’s a V-Block made from a piece of 2x6 that’s great for drilling holes in round workpieces like dowels, pipes and furniture components. With a table saw or circular saw, saw a v-shaped channel 7/8-in. deep midway along the middle of a 2-1/2 ft. 2x6. (Make an even longer V-Block for extra support on longer workpieces.) Place the V-Block on the drill press table, and align the drill bit with the bottom of the v-channel. Clamp it to the table, then clamp the workpiece in the channel and drill the hole. You can also drill angled holes in chair legs—just place a shim under the workpiece on one end to create the desired angle, then clamp firmly and drill.

Pizza box spray paint booth

Take reader John McDonald’s order: Build a spraypaint booth from large-size pizza boxes for small projects. Raise the lids, tape them together at the seam to create a corner and begin painting. Be sure to wear a paint vapor mask, but eat the pizza first!

Fence-straddling push stick

Here’s a way to saw strips as thin as 1/4 in. on your table saw with near-zero risk of kick-back or hand injury. Cut a 3/4-in. board to the width of the fence, then screw notched side pieces of 1/4-in. ply-wood to each side as shown. Cut the notches to match the thickness of the board you’re sawing into strips—we made our push stick with a 1⁄2-in. notch on one side and a 3⁄4-in. notch on the other so we can cut two different board thicknesses with a flip of the wrist. The upper edge of the notch holds the workpiece down while the heel-shaped end pushes it through the blade. Cut a hole for a dowel handle in the top of the push stick to keep your hand safely away from the blade.

Editor • DAVID RADTKE

Art Direction • DAVID FARR

Photography • MIKE KRIVIT

From The Family Handyman - October 2002