Finishing small pieces is frustrating. Using your fingers to hold the pieces is messy, and the finish may stick to your work surface. Build a finishing box. From 3/4" stock, cut the sides, top, and bottom of a 4 x 10 x 20" box. Clamp the top and bottom pieces together and drill 1/4" through holes simultaneously to ensure alignment. Unclamp the assembly, and epoxy 3" lengths of 1/4" steel rod with sharpened points into the bottom holes. Enlarge the top holes to permit free up-and-down movement of 8"-long sharpened rods. Now you can coat small pieces without fear of making fingerprints and smudges. --W. P. Locke, Huntington Beach, Calif.

Bench dogs are great for holding straight-sided work, but they tend to lose their grip when you ask them to hold curved surfaces. Cut shallow V notches on one edge of your bench dogs, as shown in the drawing right. These extra contact points will grip irregularly shaped workpieces much better, including those hard-to-hold curved and circular shapes. --Billy Gene DeSoto, New Iberia, La.

A tight collet prevents your router bit from slipping up or down, and ensures safer routing. But those tight collets don't loosen easily. When tightening or loosening router collets, you can gain more leverage with one hand than if you used two. Position the two wrenches so they fit within your grip. Now, squeeze the handles together to tighten or loosen the collet. This way you won't bang your knuckles together. --From the WOOD magazine shop

You need a solid edge to butt your workpiece against. But clamping a stop to your bench is awkward and time-consuming. Mount a stop that slides up and down on the end of your bench. Make the stop from a piece of 3/4 x 2 x 10" plywood, and cut the slots at a 10� angle. Then, install two lag screws to guide the board on the angled slots. Loosen the lag screws whenever you need to raise or lower the stop. Tighten the lag screws when the stop is in position. --Curran Johnson, Canton, Conn.

Sometimes you just don't have the right size clamp for clamping odd-shaped projects such as ring bowls and vases. Use your drill press. Center the workpiece on your drill-press table. Apply pressure with the quill, using a scrap piece of wood in between to protect the project. Then lock the quill in position. This works well when ordinary clamps aren't deep enough to fit. --F.F. Kuhn, Cedarcreek, Mo.

If you allow a skin to form over varnish, paint, or other finish stored in partially used cans, you're wasting good materials. Put a layer of kitchen-type plastic wrap on the surface of the liquid, pressing its edges against the sides of the can. You want to make sure that little or no air is trapped between the surface of the finish and the plastic wrap. --Lloyd Murphy, Oak Ridge, Tenn.

The large cabinet sides you've made from expensive walnut plywood look great. The dadoes and rabbets are straight as a string, and the dimensions are right on the money. Unfortunately, they're both left sides. Masking tape can keep you from making the right cuts in the wrong places. Mark the good face, top, or back of the panels with masking-tape labels. The reminders or special instructions that you write on the tape prevent cutting errors and also will prove helpful at assembly time. --From the WOOD magazine shop

On many biscuit joiners, setting the fence height for various thicknesses of stock can be time-consuming work. It sure would be nice if you could quickly set the fence at predetermined heights. Another tricky task: keeping the fence parallel to the workpiece. Solve both problems by making a set of gauges from scrap. To start, place your biscuit joiner on a flat table so its base rests flush with the surface. Use a piece of material of the desired thickness and set the fence for a centered cut. For 1-1/2" and thicker stock, it makes sense to center two slots. Mark the blocks for material thickness and number of biscuits. To set the fence, place the joiner on a table, loosen and lift the fence, place the correct block under it, and tighten the fence locking screws while holding it against the block. --Bob Hockenberry, Rochester, Minn.

How many times have you smoothly finished new wood, only to have the grain raised by stain, paint, or varnish? Here's how to bust that fuzz. Before you apply the first coat of finish, wipe down the entire project with a damp sponge or cloth. Allow the wood to dry, then remove all the fuzz with fine steel wool or sandpaper. (Be sure to use a clean tack cloth to remove the sanding dust before applying stain or finish to ensure smooth results.) --From the WOOD magazine shop

Touching up small areas with aerosol finishes can be tricky. If you aim the spray at one spot, the paint globs on the surface. Through the center of a folded newspaper, cut a hole the size of the spot to be sprayed and center the hole over the spot, as shown right. Peak the fold slightly above the surface, and make several quick spraying passes across the hole. The moving spray prevents finish from accumulating in one spot, and the raised paper allows some of the residual spray to creep beneath the edges and feather out over the surface. --From the WOOD magazine shop

How many times have you stared at a drill bit, dowel, bolt, or one of a million other workshop tidbits and tried to guess its diameter? Drill holes of graduating sizes, as shown above, into a piece of scrap plywood (1/4x1-1/2x18" works fine). Now, you can quickly determine the diameter of all those odds and ends. Don't forget to carry this handy gauge to the hardware store to help you make the correct purchase. --Jackie Ramirez, Long Branch, N.J.

You can buy lots of fillers for disguising the holes that remain after countersinking finishing nails, but these often leave telltale results. From a piece of scrap that matches your work stock, use leather hole punches to cut tiny plugs to match the size of the nail holes. Set the nails slightly below the surface, and dab a little glue into the indentation with a wood sliver or a paper clip. Then, press the plug into place, making sure the grain of the plug matches the workpiece. It takes a sharp eye to spot these plugs. --Bill Blain, Edmonton, Alberta

Getting the right amount of glue into hard-to-reach spots is a messy operation. Inject glue with a medical syringe equipped with an 18- or 22-gauge needle. Keep the apparatus clean by flushing the syringe and needle with warm water and storing them in a closed container of water. --From the WOOD magazine shop