I think the best ideas are discovered by accident. I was removing an organizer insert inside a drawer recently with my cordless drill. The drill was just small enough to fit into the drawer and onto the screw. Without thinking, I pulled the trigger on the drill and immediately pushed off the front of the drawer and gave my hand a lesson in drill etiquette.
The drawer came apart so effortlessly that the incident stuck with me for application at a more opportune time. I had the assignment of fixing an antique chair, which required that its legs be separated from the rails. I had tried this before, with little luck. It can be hard to pull tenoned rails out of chair legs without doing damage. Then I recalled my drawer lesson.
As shown in the drawing, I ran a screw into a block of wood, and placed my drill and another block of softwood between the chair’s front legs. Then I pulled the drill’s trigger and watched with satisfaction as the withdrawing screw pushed the leg right off the rail’s tenon. I was so tickled that I almost forgot how dumb I was the first time.
Randy Northern, Visalia, CA
