When you process wood in your shop, it is helpful to make notations on boards so you remember which have been cut to length or run through equipment like planers or jointers. Instead of using pencils for the notes, use chalk. Chalk lets you mark the wood without marring it so you can be more liberal with your notations. An inexpensive children’s sidewalk chalk set will provide several colors so that you can color-code your marking system.
Glue squeeze-out can be wiped up with a wet rag, but this can drive some of the glue into the wood’s pores. A method preferred by many pros is to allow the squeeze-out to form a thick skin (usually about 15 minutes), then use a sharp chisel, paint scraper, or cabinet scraper to remove it. A 1/2- or 3/4-in. chisel is handy for glue removal inside corners or next to mouldings.
If you will be building something which uses small parts produced on your tablesaw, you can let your shop vacuum pick up the pieces for you. It’s fast, efficient, and safer than getting your hand close to the blade. Clean out the vac, then wire or clamp the suction hose so that the small pieces are drawn in as you do your cutting. Then, when you are done, simply open up the vac and collect the parts.
One way to help either screws and nails penetrate wood without splits is to use beeswax on the fastener. In fact, some carpenters will drill a hole in the end of a wood hammer handle to fill it with beeswax. An alternative is to buy a wax seal for a toilet. It’s made of beeswax processed to stay soft, and costs much less.
When sawing wood, take time to consider which side of the material to having facing up. Keep the good side up when you are using hand saws, scroll saws, bandsaws, tablesaws and radial-arm saws. Keep the good side down when using a portable circular saws or sabersaws. The principle is to have the tooth of the blade first break through the rough side of the board or panel.
Always give wood flooring and paneling a chance to acclimate prior to installation by storing it properly on the job for a 5-7 day period.
During construction, get the building stabilized with regard to temperature and humidity prior to installation of finish materials and interior trim.
Hot dipped galvanized nails have a rougher and more durable galvanizing while electro galvanized nails are smoother and often more prone to rust.
Carpenters who do rough construction get very proficient at “close-enough” measuring. For example, to quickly draw a line parallel to the edge of a board, you can place a pencil at the end of a combination square and move both the square and pencil along the board. Some combination squares have a hole in the blade for this purpose.
If you’d like your project to turn out as strong, solid, and lasting as if a professional woodworker built it, do what they do…use your tri-square to check for squareness after each cross cut. Edges on boards that will be edge-joined must be absolutely square, so carefully check all sides. If a cut is not exactly square, use a block plane to trim. It takes a little extra time, but the improved results will be well worth it.
