Rediscovering the Wheel, repeatedly

Greg Guarino · 2013-01-06T05:06:09+00:00

My recent flurry of woodworking has required a lot of head-scratchingand problem solving; the work isn't intricate, but there's a lot of itto do and my experience is limited. I'm trying to be careful andefficient. Along the way I have made certain discoveries that I'd liketo share. The reactions to my "discoveries" usually fall into twocategories:1. Yeah, people have been doing that since 1942 (or 1492)2. No, that's really *not* how it's done.So here goes:**The Disposable Work SurfaceThese bookcases are my largest project to date, and my bench is toosmall for it. I made a table from sawhorses, 2x4s and a couple ofpieces of MDF. It's a lot bigger than I'm used to, and I've beenkeeping it uncluttered as well.'m finding the "sacrificial" nature of the table a great boon.Besides allowing me to screw down the dado jig to make it stationary,it has spawned a couple of my other discoveries.**Poor Man's Bench Hold-DownsI had to rout out some long rabbets to receive the backs of thebookcases. In the past I'd probably have struggled to clamp the pieceto the edge of the work surface without the clamps getting in the wayof the router travel. But hey, it's just a piece of MDF, so... some quick work with a hole saw and a couple of QuickGrips andvoila! Quick, secure and out of the way.**Extra Surface for Router to Ride OnSince I could clamp the work so that all of it was on the table, I wasable to clamp another strip of 3/4" ply parallel to and a couple ofinches away from the work piece: don't know if steadier hands would need the extra slat, but it mademe feel much more secure to have a surface for the other side of therouter base to ride on.**Mounting Guide Blocks and Strips on the Work Surface clamped down a couple of plywood slats to help with the dry fitting,and it got me thinking. I could dry fit and square up a unit, thenscrew "guide" pieces into the work surface that would help me get backto that same successful alignment quickly during glue up. This soundspromising,...