Buying old furniture in need of serious repairs can be a bargain for the person willing to fix it up and refinish it. One major hurdle: making new parts match the color of the original parts.

Disassemble the piece of furniture and use wood that matches in species and grain for replacement parts. Reassemble the parts before stripping the varnish or other finish on them. Now, cover the replacement parts with dirty strippings and wipe off. About the third time you do this, you won't be able to distinguish the new part from the old ones.

--Bill Perkins, Roachdale, Ind.
posted by CityRat 0 comments

In many shops, finding the right tape at the right time can be a problem. Once located, it's often covered with sawdust, wood shavings, and other debris.

To keep various types and sizes of tape in one handy location, use scrapwood and a piece of dowel or broomstick to make a tape dispenser. An old hacksaw blade reinforced with a wooden strip makes an excellent cutting edge.

--Dwight Blakeney, Seaford, Del.
posted by CityRat 0 comments

The slick metal surface of a miter gauge often is the culprit when wood slides into the tablesaw blade.

To prevent wood from sliding, use double-faced tape to affix medium- or fine-grit sandpaper to the face of the miter gauge of any power tool. You can easily replace the tape and sandpaper whenever it's necessary.

--Bill Roberts, Angola, Ind.
posted by CityRat 0 comments

Shortening toy axle pegs doesn't seem like it should be a troublesome job. But you can't lay the axles on the saw table for a safe cut because of their mushroom-head ends, and their small size makes them hard to hang on to.

Construct this simple jig. (We show one for trimming two different axle lengths or diameters; you could make a jig with only one notch for just one size.) Slide the peg to be shortened into the appropriate hole, inserting it from the notched side of the jig. Then, holding the peg end against the inside of the notch, cut it flush to the end of the jig with a bandsaw, scrollsaw, or handsaw.

--David R. McClellan, Markham, Ontario
posted by CityRat 0 comments

A keyhole hanging slot routed into the back of a wall-mount project sure makes it easy to build and hang up. But, if you're working with thin stock, you're out of luck.

Try this procedure to make a keyhole hanging slot in stock as thin as 3/16". All you need to do it are two Forstner bits and a circle cutter. First, using the circle cutter, cut a 1"-diameter disc from material about 3/16" thick. Then, elongate one side of the pilot-bit hole with a file, forming a keyhole shape.

Next, bore into the back of the project with a 1" Forstner bit to a depth equal to the thickness of the disc you just made. In the center of that hole, bore 1/16-3/32" deep with a ½" Forstner bit. Now, glue the disc into the 1" counterbore, pointing the elongated portion of the center hole up.

After the glue dries, you're ready to hang the item over an appropriate screw or nail. The void left by drilling with the 1/2" Forstner bit will allow room for the fastener head behind the hanging slot.

--James Upham, Midland, Texas
posted by CityRat 0 comments

It's difficult to make good, clean cuts in thin metal, plastic, or veneer with a scrollsaw or bandsaw because the flimsy material may bend or even get caught in the saw blade. And, your fingers can easily slip on the thin stock as you maneuver it. As a consequence, you might ruin the stock or possibly injure yourself.

Place the thin material between two pieces of plywood or similar thin stock, held together with dabs of 5-minute epoxy or hotmelt adhesive as shown. Before assembling the sandwich, drill 1/16" holes at the corners of the thin material so you'll know its position inside the plywood pieces. Tape or glue the cutting pattern to the bottom side of the assembly as shown in right hand photo, and then flip the piece over before you start cutting. If you've made vertical cuts, the pattern portion should drop out cleanly.

--From the WOOD® magazine shop
posted by CityRat 0 comments

Sometimes, you just can't get into a tight curve or follow an irregular edge very well when sanding.

Grab an old, dull scrollsaw blade and a piece of sandpaper about three-fourths the length of the blade and 2" wide. Wrap the paper tightly on the blade and secure the ends with thin strips of plastic electrical tape. Use it for hand-sanding, or if you really have some smoothing to do, put the blade into the scrollsaw and use it as a power sander for tight places.

--Chris Lyles, Hereford, Texas
posted by CityRat 0 comments

Suppose you have to determine the diameter of a piece of pipe or dowel, but calipers aren't to be found in your shop. How can you take the measurement?

Slip an adjustable wrench over the piece, tighten snugly, and then use a tape measure to determine the jaw opening.

--From the WOOD® magazine shop
posted by CityRat 0 comments

You can't rout assembled box or drawer edges very well with a hand-held router, especially inside edges. The narrow edge doesn't support the router properly, so you end up with a poor cut. A table-mounted router does the job, but what if you don't have one, or if the work is too cumbersome to handle on a table?

Build an extended base for your router from 1/4" plywood and 3/4" hardwood, as shown. The plywood width should equal your router-base diameter. Make it long enough to span your project.

Round one end using the router base as a template, and mark the mounting holes and router-bit opening. Then, drill the opening for the router bit. Drill and countersink the mounting-screw holes. Cut the hardwood stiffening spine, and then glue and screw it into place. Mount the router to your new extended base, and you're ready to tackle those outside or inside edges with ease.

--Ken Seals, Edenton, N.C.
posted by CityRat 0 comments

Drill-press handles seem to loosen by themselves. Constantly having to retighten the handles because of machine vibration can unnerve even the very calmest of woodworkers.

Remove the handles and wind two revolutions of plumber's Teflon tape around the threads. Now, replace each handle and tighten it for a no-slip fit.

--Dave Godlewski, Sparks, Nev.
posted by CityRat 0 comments

Handscrew clamps, your helpers for so many shop tasks, can leave you feeling helpless when it comes time to put them away. They sure fill up a lot of storage space, fast.

For out-of-the-way yet easy-to-reach storage, hang those handscrews high on a wall with the storage rack shown below. Make it out of 3/4" plywood 12" wide in a length to suit your situation.

Allow ½" spacing between clamps when you lay out the ½"-wide slots. To determine slot depth, measure from the front side of the threaded rod nearest the clamp tip to the back of the clamp and add ½". For each slot, drill a ½" hole the proper distance from the front edge of the rack, and then cut to it with a portable jigsaw. Screw and glue a 1x2" strip, on edge, to the topside of the rack at the back edge.

Mount the shelf high, using appropriate brackets. By leaving 3" between the rack and the wall, you can hook large C-clamps over the back for storage.

--Dan Wilks, Gowrie, Iowa
posted by CityRat 0 comments

Locating the center of a wooden dowel can be a hit-or-miss proposition if you try to do it with a straightedge and a pencil. Typically, the smaller the dowel, the greater the chance of missing the middle.

Hit the center by using a Forstner bit of the same diameter as the dowel to bore a hole through a block of scrapwood. Then, insert the dowel into the hole on one side of the block and the bit on the other side. Press in slightly as you twist the bit a few times to mark an indent in the center of the dowel.

--From the WOOD® magazine shop
posted by CityRat 0 comments

You've been successful with a lot of finishing techniques and products, but the combination of finishes used on an individual piece of furniture often escapes your mind.

If you sample many different products, it's especially important to note your comments right on the project. Before finishing (or refinishing), apply peel-and-stick labels or glue paper to an inconspicuous area of the project. Note the date and any important facts about how you did it. The finish you apply over the paper will guarantee that you can refer to your notes in the future.

--Ralph Briggs, Des Moines, Iowa
posted by CityRat 0 comments

A drill press and Forstner bit or circle cutter work great for boring holes with diameters exceeding 1". However, if the workpiece doesn't fit on the drill-press table, that approach won't work.

Locate the center of the hole to be drilled, and with a compass, scribe its circumference on the surface opposite the face side. Next, bore a hole of the desired size in a scrap of 3/4"-thick stock. Then, center the hole over the scribed circle and attach it to the workpiece with double-faced tape or clamps as shown. Drill a starter hole large enough to accept a flush-trim bit for your router, and cut the final hole.

--Bruce L. Hasslinger, San Diego
posted by CityRat 0 comments

When trying to change router bits, the old one won't come out of the collet. You can't get enough of a grip on either piece to get them apart.

Hold a nail set against your benchtop with the tip pointing up. Then, put the open bottom of the collet over the nail set and push against the router-bit shank. Tap the shank end against the nail set until the bit breaks loose.

--From the WOOD® magazine shop
posted by CityRat 0 comments

Sometimes you need to pencil straight, parallel lines along the axis of round stock, such as when you align spindle holes on a dowel rail for a chair back. This can be frustrating without some kind of jig.

On a flat, smooth work surface, snug together the round stock to be marked and a thin wood strip. Draw the first line on the round stock along the edge where the two pieces meet. (You may need a helper to hold the pieces together while you mark the stock.) Rotate the round stock to draw other parallel lines at the desired spacing, as shown in the drawing below.

--From the WOOD® magazine shop
posted by CityRat 0 comments

You can do a lot with a molding head and cutters on your tablesaw. One thing you can't do, though, is put the blade guard in place to protect your fingers.

Make a jointer-type pivoting guard of 1/4"-thick clear acrylic, as shown right. Cut a curved edge where shown on a 6x8" piece of acrylic (or one large enough to cover your cutter) with a scrollsaw or bandsaw. Sand the curve smooth. Bolt the guard to a piece of 2"-wide stock the length of your saw table and thick enough to clear your molding cutter. Attach a rubber band where shown. Clamp the guard assembly to the saw table so that the guard rests against the saw's rip fence and over the cutter.

--Gerald Spalla, Canonsburg, Pa.
posted by CityRat 0 comments

Veneer damage is a flaw you'll find commonly in old furniture, but one you can fix with surprisingly little trouble. "Veneer repair is an easy job for woodworkers of almost any skill level," according to San Francisco furniture repair and refinishing wizard Jim Kull. "It just takes a few tools and some care."

With Jim's encouraging words in mind and his advice close at hand, we decided to give it a try. It didn’t take long to turn up the perfect subject-a little end table in a secondhand shop. The years had certainly taken their toll on the edges of the veneered top. Not only was the veneer itself loose, and even missing in spots, but the crossbanding-the thin layer beneath it-had delaminated from the tabletop, too, as shown in the photo above.

Provide a solid base first

Before we could repair the veneer, we had to get rid of the wrinkles in the crossbanding. We started that chore by cleaning out the old glue, dirt, and loose wood fibers between the crossbanding and the tabletop, using sandpaper, finishing scrapers, and a knife.

Then, using an old business card, we spread liquid hide glue between the layers, as shown above. With waxed paper and then a piece of scrapwood laid over the repair area, we next clamped the veneer and crossbanding to the top, as shown at right. We also added shims-pieces of some more of those old business cards-between the caul and the waxed paper to ensure contact between the crossbanding and the tabletop in spots where the veneer was missing.

Cut away the bad veneer
For a nearly invisible repair along the edge, we needed to cut the damaged veneer back to a straight edge to match up with a new piece. We asked Jim for a foolproof way to make this cut accurately. "Use a router," he counseled.

With a router, a 3/4" straight bit, and a quick-to-make guide, shown in the photo at left, it's easy to make the cut. This setup also mills the surface flat for a smooth repair.

To make a guide like Jim uses, we cut a piece of 3/4" stock longer than the edge to be routed and about 2" wider than the distance from the center of the router base to its edge. We screwed a piece of straight 1-1/2" wide stock atop one long edge.

We then chucked in the router bit. "Any size straight bit will work," Jim advised, "but wider works faster." With the bit extended below the bottom of the guide and the router base riding along the screwed-on cleat, we routed off the edge of the guide base. This resulted in a straight edge that shows exactly where the bit will cut.

Then, we clamped the guide to the tabletop, just less than the bit's width from the edge, as shown in the photo, above. Normally, Jim suggests placing the guide parallel to the damaged edge. But because our tabletop featured a diagonal grain pattern, we decided to align the guide with the grain to simplify fitting the new piece. (See the bottom of the page for another approach.)

With the bit set to just cut through the veneer and kiss the crossbanding, shown in the photo at right, we made a pass along the guide. (If we had needed to remove a wider area, we would have moved the guide back for another cut, making enough passes to remove all of the damaged area.)

Fit and glue the new veneer
All that remained was to replace the missing veneer. Our replacement veneer was the same thickness as the original, so we simply matched up the grain as much as possible. New and old veneer thicknesses won’t always match, though. In most cases, the new veneer will be thinner. To compensate, glue a layer of kraft paper under the new veneer.

Because the table’s edge is shaped, we resorted to more handwork to fit the new piece. We marked the approximate contour of the edge on the new veneer, as shown in the photo at left, and trimmed it.

Then, after gluing and clamping it in, we carefully sanded the edge of the new veneer to match the top. In a future installment, we’ll take on the task of matching the color of the new veneer to that of the old.

Turn a repair into a decorative feature
Instead of matching veneer along straight, damaged edges, Jim sometimes likes to add a border of ready-made banding. Though this may not be appropriate for fine antiques, it can dress up old, everyday furniture.

"Make identical cuts along all edges so the area to be inlaid is exactly the same size all around," Jim advises. "Cut the inlay area slightly less wide than the banding," he adds. Then, glue the banding in, clamp or weight it down, and allow the glue to dry. "Trim off the edges with either a flush trimming bit in your router, or sand it flush with the edges," he says. "Then, sand the surface flat, and you are ready to finish."
posted by CityRat 0 comments