Tips & Techniques

When assembling trim or cabinets, I often need to clamp 135° mitered corners together for gluing. Bar clamps alone don’t work because the compressive force from the clamps needs to…

On many renovation projects, I have been faced with repainting old cast-iron radiators. Some of these old warhorses are laden with lumpy paint and scaly buildup that is almost impossible…

Controlling excess job-site moisture during winter months is hard. Excess moisture reaches the dew point and condenses on the coldest surface of the job site, which is usually an expensive…

I had a bunch of pipe plugs to install, and after cranking home the first few, I started wondering what tool I could use other than a wrench to run…

It’s always useful to have wheels under bulky tools and materials that need to be moved around. The drawing shows how I took advantage of my scaffold frames with wheels to…

On straightforward roofs with rectangular shapes, snapping chalklines on the sheathing is easy because chalkline hooks are designed to grab at 90°. When a roof becomes more complicated, with hexagonal…

The on/off switch on my tablesaw is the style with the on button recessed and the off button proud of the faceplate, but I still often find it hard to…

Woodpeckers made some awful 1/2-in.-dia. holes in my red-cedar sidewall shingles. After replacing more shingles than I care to admit, I came up with an easy, effective solution. I simply…

Before I remove a mirror that has been glued to a wall, I cover it with carpet protector. This is an adhesive-backed clear plastic sheet. If the glass should fracture,…

Rare-earth magnets increase the holding power of a standard magnetic screw bit.