Page 8 - Jigs, Tips and Tricks

Learn how to make zero clearance throat plate inserts for you table saw. A zero clearance insert or throat plate is one of the best upgrades you can make to a table saw. If you’re having trouble with tear-out on the bottom edge of your table saw crosscuts, or experienced the sudden shock of a narrow piece of drop-off wedging in between the saw blade and the opening in your saw’s throat plate, then you should get a zero clearance throat plate or insert.

Many people think the jigsaw is only good for making curved cuts. We show you how to use a fence and choose the right blade to make straight cuts with your jigsaw.

A router guide collar is a useful accessory that threads onto a router base and guides the router along a pattern or template. The one safety concern with guide collars is that they can loosen and possibly fall off, causing damage to your work or maybe an injury. You can make sure that your guide collar won't loosen by using PTFE ahead tape (also called teflon tape) to wrap around the treads. You can find this special tape in the plumbing section of most hardware stores.

Learn how to cut accurate tenons using a table saw. You can use a regular saw blade or a dado set to cut the tenons for mortise and tenon joints.

When you need to cut multiple cross lap joints with uniform spacing, reach for the Rockler Cross Lap Jig. Screw it to your miter gauge and use it with your table saw and a dado stack to cut the half-lap joints for anything with a wooden grid: lattice, wine racks, grilles/mullions for glass doors, and torsion boxes for your workbenches and table tops.

The best way to store a band saw blade is in a coil, the way it came from the factory. Learn how to fold your band saw blade into a coil.

One of the best ways to fix dents in woodworking projects or furniture is to use heat and steam. Apply a few drops of water to the dent and then apply heat using a scrap of cloth and an iron.

In the long run, dulling teeth will eventually reduce the cutting performance of your table saw blades. But an even quicker and more insidious culprit is built-up, burned-on gunk. It makes dirty blade teeth wear out faster than clean teeth. Here's

Removing screws that have a stripped head can be frustrating. There are lots of reasons a screw head can strip, but one of the easiest ways to remove a screw that has a stripped head is to use a screw extractor bit. An extractor bit features two ends. One end looks a little like a short twist drill bit, and it is called the burnisher. The burnisher cuts away some of the stripped original driver profile, leaving a clean surface. The other end is the extractor, which features sharpened threads that are cut in the opposite direction of ordinary screw threads. The extractor end bites into the screw head and turns it when the drill is run in the reverse direction.

This DIY circular saw cutting guide will help you make straight and accurate cuts with your circular saw. Learn how to make this saw guide. You only need a couple pieces of thin sheet stock to make this guide and it will work with just about any circular saw. You can also make the same type of cutting guide for your jig saw.

In most cases a band saw blade should be square and perpendicular to the band saw table. Here's a simple way to check your band saw blade and all you need is a scrap block of wood.