Every individual woodworker possesses different concepts about woodworking. Those who are beginners or novice, woodcrafting or making DIY wooden products are some kinds of fulfilment of their creative hobbies whereas for the expert professional woodworkers this is a promising business plan to make better career growth. For me, woodworking is the complete stress-reliever. It is an exclusive form of art. As per my personal opinion those who are tenderfoot in woodworking and are not aware of the usage of too many complicated tools of woodworking, rather work with handy tools are more close to this real art form than the woodworkers work in the factories.
Though large factory based woodworking projects are complex enough than small workshop based woodworking plans, DIY wooden projects require much more useful hacks as well as tips by the beginner woodworkers to make a perfect further career in woodworking.
So, keeping those necessities of the fresher woodworkers in mind, we have tried to enlighten our readers as well as the interested beginner woodworkers about a few useful DIY woodworking hacks which would be helpful to them for making their future home based wood projects perfect and successful.
Top seven DIY woodworking hacks
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Make reusable sanding blocks
DIY woodworkers need to work with their hands much rather than machines. Sanding is such a hectic job and wrist-tiring job in woodworking. Moreover, there are chances of getting your fingers and nails injured due to continuous frictions. So, you can ease your work by making some permanent reusable sand blocks that are made of scrap plywood sheets and cut your favourite paper into pieces according to the block size and fix the pieces on each block. You can also use cork for making roller shaped sander and thin metal sheet-like elements to stick sandpapers on them in order to sand difficult areas while working on any project. After use you can remove the sandpapers and place new pieces of sandpapers on the blocks and corks for reusing.
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Prevent extra glues from making stains
It often happens in woodworking that while gluing the wood joints together the excess glues become oozy and can cause permanent stain on the made wooden products. This issue can be overcome by using wax tape on the very joints while fastening them together. For that clamp the wood pieces and place strips of wax tap on the joints before applying adhesives on them. Cut the tape strips from the middle with a shape blade and make them separate. After that apply glues to the joints and clamp the pieces along again. The extra glues would be oozed on the wax tape. After that remove the tape and let the joints dry.
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Technique of clamping small wood pieces without using clamps
It is not always necessary to use clamps in every small woodworking project. Some pieces can be fastened by using hot glues too and the grip would be much more strong then the holds of the clamps especially when you need to clamp small pieces of wood. After the completion of your project untighten the joints that need to be loosen. You can check more on how to use clamps and also make your way around some great woodworking projects on the blog started by Bill Baum who runs theedgecutter.
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Gluing tricks with salt
Any kind of glue is generally sticky and slippery too. It happens quite often that whenever you try to attach the wooden pieces to each other on top and down and side by side, they might slip a bit while trying to clamp them together in one place. To avoid such issues you can sprinkle a little bit of regular table salt on the applied glue of a wood piece and then attach the next one to it. The uneven ground will prevent the wood pieces from sliding and there would not be any movement while clamping them.
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Make your blades sharp
There is a myth that most of the woodworkers use blunt weapons for their jobs. But this is not entirely true. Some tools need to remain blunt for the sake of their utility whereas some of them need to be sharpened regularly after use. Otherwise, it will create nuisance in your project works. All the blade included tools should be sharpened time to time. To make this process easier, you can take a ceramic mug, put it upside down and rub your required blades on it to sharp. This trick is really handy and useful for sharpening home based woodworking handy tool blades. Additionally, you can try the same on uneven rock surfaces, but there are chances of permanent damages to your tools.
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Filling up holes on wood pieces
Wood lumbers are fully natural elements. So it is quite possible that there might be holes or cracks on them. It can also happen that you removed nails from the wood pieces and the nail holes are visible clearly. You can fill up those holes with the help of your regular toothpaste. Apply toothpaste on the holes and make them fill with the same. Let them dry and then apply transparent wood adhesives on the holes. After drying them up apply your favourite stain or mixture of stains on the whole wooden product. No one would ever be aware that there was any hole once. To cover up bigger holes you can fill them with the instant noodles from your kitchen! Yes, you heard right! After filling the holes with chunks of noodles apply wood putty on the holes and let them dry. After drying sand on them properly and stain as you desire.
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Arrange a hand-free light for your DIY wood workshop
There is really no particular time to work on your dream projects. There might be light issues at night inside your basement wood workshop. You can make a light arrangement instantly by using your flashlight torch, a sturdy rubber band and a pair of pliers. Grab the torch head with the pliers’ jaw and tie its handles tightly with the help of the rubber band. It will make a triangular shape that would be easy to place anywhere and continue your work in peace.
