Smoothing Out Rough Edges in Home Shop

Whether you’re a serious home craftsman with the skill to create ornate finished furniture or just someone who enjoys puttering around in the shop working on simple projects, here are shop techniques that can make a job go easier and faster and even help you out in a pinch:

* When trying to use a jointer plane to make a sharp, square edge on a board, a wooden guide attached to the bottom of your plane helps you keep it from tipping to one side or the other. Choose a square-edged piece of three-quarter-inch stock three or four inches wide and cut it about three inches longer than the plane. Cut a notch one-eighth-inch deep by one-half-inch wide in the guide’s top edge to clear the protruding plane iron (blade) so the guide will sit flat against the plane’s base.

Bore two three-sixteenths-inch diameter mounting holes through the plane’s base three-eighths inches from the edge. Attach the guide to the plane with two 1 1/4-inch No. 8 sheet-metal screws.

To use, simply keep the guide flat against the face of the work piece while planing. The guide will keep the edge square and prevent the plane from tipping.

* Sawdust that collects along the fence of a radial arm screw can cause inaccurate cutting. The sawdust forms small mounds that keep the work piece from fitting tightly against the fence. Spacer blocks made from 1/8-by- 3/4-by-1-inch softwood spaced six inches apart along the fence leaves a slot that allows the sawdust to escape.

Attach the spacers to the outside surface of the fence flush with the bottom edge with small nails. Position the fence on the saw so the spacer blocks face forward below the worktable’s surface.