I'm not sure why so many of us are fascinated by woodworking tips and tricks. I love finding easier are more efficient ways of doing things and sometimes just experimenting with who to do something is reward enough. I have also learned a lot from other woodworkers and through friends at woodworking clubs and guilds, they are a warehouse of knowledge.
Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/KEE2d2XV4vI
One of the highlights a guild I belonged to many years ago, was a kind of show and tell where some would show off their work while others show how they achieve certain woodworking techniques, like sharpening of <everything>, cutting difficult angles, and all sorts of cool and interesting ideas.
I'm not sure if it was a guild meeting where I learned about using a plastic pail lid for cleaning saw blades, but you don't have to use that, there are many other things, even just a plastic sheet works fine, what really matters is cleaning bits and blade because depending on what you are cutting and sometimes the moisture content of it, you can reduce or even eliminate burning of the wood.
If any of you have experienced burning you will know how HARD it is to sand out and how time-consuming that is. Anything we can do to reduce or eliminate burning will automatically save us time in the workshop to do other things.
I will add one note here as well, back in the day, it was communicated that using oven cleaner worked well on blades, it also works well at etching the brazing of the carbide teeth to the steel blade and if you do it enough, and let the oven cleaner sit on the blade you will compromise how well the carbide teeth are attached and with cutting, they can come off ... so spend a couple of bucks on blade cleaner, it is also more environmentally friendly.
One of the tricks I learned while taking carpentry (house building) class was how to quickly measure the width of a board to find a center point for cutting it in half. This method works very well just make sure you use the same side of the tape or ruler each time. It's a quick accurate way to find centers and if you are decent a math, you can find thirds, quarters, etc. too.
I don't go through a lot of those little "acid brushes" but they work great for applying glue to dowels and other small parts. There are 2 things I do with these, first of all, I almost always cut them down because the long bristles are no use to me, I need shorter bristles, so I cut down a few at a time so all I have to do is grab one when I need it, not stop, find scissors and cut it off. The other thing I do is wash them off with water, these little brushes clean up amazingly well so a package can last me a couple of years ... and they are cheap to buy.
Check out the Harbor Freight Ones at Amazon 
Here's a trick I adopted many years ago when I first discovered those anti-skid pads. I use one on my sand bench and it works great for 3 reasons, it stops the wood from moving around, it helps prevent the wood from getting banged or wear on the underside of the wood and the kind of anti-skid material with the holes tends to trap a lot of sawdust that would otherwise get up into the air. I NEVER sand without one.
To read more about this material, here is the Amazon Store
There are lots more tips and tricks to come and if you have a woodworking trick, send it in so we can share it with everyone
Copyright - Colin Knecht
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