I love how innovative woodworkers are, just when we think there is nothing left to improve on, there is a whole wave of ideas and techniques that woodworkers willing share with one another ...
Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/T2xB8nSj0dQ
This episode where are starting off with a tip from Johnny, who is gluing a couple of short - angled pieces onto a wooden base. As we all know this is a near impossible to try clamp a couple of pieces of wood like this ... and yes, there are other ways to attach them, but sometimes those other things aren't readily available, so we make do with what we have ...
in this case, using a long flexible piece of as a clamp and not putting a ton of exertion on the tip, yet putting enough pressure that the wood stays intact and become firmly glued to the base.
Credit Card Glue Spreader
Spreading glue on wide surfaces can be tedious, and if you are working with glue that doesn't have much of an "open time", we want to get the glue spread a quickly as we can before it starts hardening upon us .. so Mike has suggested using old credit cards and glue spreaders. Unfortunately for this video clip, I had no old credit cards around that I wanted to risk getting glue on but what I did have were some plastic laminate cut-off pieces that can easily be cut with tin snips or even large scissors, and make a great substitute credit card for spreading the glue. 
The nice thing with these is that if you forget to wipe the glue off and it hardens, you can just dispose of it and cut another because all this laminate is cut-off pieces from a local countertop manufacturer who would have otherwise thrown out all these pieces,
I liked this tip the credit card spreader is great - quick way of getting a nice even coat of glue on your wide boards.
Tape for Micro Bevel and Blade Flattening
This tip came Rob in Australia, who suggested using tape as an elevation medium for making micro back bevels or for just flattening plane blades.
If you sharpen your own planes and chisels, you will know the first part of sharpening is to make sure the backs are flat. Without a flat back, a plane blade can never be set up properly to give a good even cut. The trick is that we don't need to flatten the whole back of the blade, only the area toward the cutting edge.
To save time in the flattening, or in the case of making a micro back bevel we can use one of those very fine steel rules, or we could use plain old tape, and almost any tape would work. What I like about using tape is that you can adjust the thickness of the tape, which then adjusts the height of the blade. You could even use a steel rule and the tape together. This is a neat idea and a quick way of finding a solution for flattening and back bevels.
Plastic "Take Out Food" Containers for Mixing
Bob has reminded us that there are all sorts of different disposable take out food containers, some recyclable and others not ... that can be used for mixing epoxy glues or even resins.
Good reminder Bob ... thanks
Painter Tape on Clamping Bars
Nick suggested using painters tape on the back of your gluing clamps so that the glue that squeezes our from your glue-ups cannot come into contact with the steel bars on your clamps. When this happens, the water in the glue reacts with the tannin in the wood and the iron in the glue clamps and leaves a black spot that can often penetrate your wood ... not a nice thing to happen, and Oak is especially bad with its high tannin content. The solution ... isolate the glue from the iron by using painters tape, or you could use any plastic waterproof film that will block the glue from touching the iron. Thanks, Nick ... a good reminder on making better glue-ups.
Notching Driver Bits
Over the years I seem to have inherited a few driver bits that don't have that half-round grind at the top where the bit enters the drill bit chuck. These bits were designed to be used in magnetic adapters, so there was no need to notch them. The problem is sometimes I want to use them directly in my drill/driver (usually because I cannot find the magnetic holder) and putting them in the driver chuck works, but he bits come out every time you move to another screw.
Michael from outside Vancouver figured out you can put these bits in your drill ... activate the drill switch so the bits spin, while all being held in your wood vice, then use your grinder to make a notch all around the top of these bits. These notches don't have to be pretty, it seems almost anything will work well and hold the bits in firmly. until you release them with the collar on the driver chuck. Great tip Michael ... I have already fixed up a number of my more popular bits and they still work fine in the magnetic adapter too ...
A lot of great tips everyone ... and if you have a tip or an idea, send it along to me, and if you have a picture, that helps me a lot too.
Copyright Colin Knecht
woodworkweb.com
