Woodworking Tricks You’ll Actually Use // Helpful Woodworking Hints by Bourbon Moth Woodworking 

 

Today we’re taking a look at some tips and tricks that we can use in our everyday life courtesy of Bourbon Moth Woodworking. Let’s dive in!

 

Sanding 

 

Most people hate sanding, especially by hand. Whether it’s your favorite task or not, sanding is somewhat frustrating if you don’t know how to do it properly. So I will share with you my method for sanding with as little frustration as possible.

 

• I always start at 80 Grit, no matter how clean the wood is. And I work my grit from 80 to 120, 150, and finally 220.
• If you are going to use a mono-coat, sticking to 150 grit will be sufficient. But I tend to go up to 220 with my random orbit sander and then come back to 150 by hand. 

 

You may be wondering why I bother going back to 150 after using the orbit sander. This is because I don’t trust the random orbit sander to get a perfect finish without leaving swirl marks. The only thing that I trust is my own fingers.

 

If you are going to hand sand at all I highly recommend using a hook and latch hand sanding block that has a little sanding disk that hooks onto it. 

 

Now there’s some other thing you might want to consider when sanding a piece to make it go a lot better. 

 

 

A Big Mistake that People Make When Sanding 

 

Sanding the board with a power sander at 80 grit and shifting to 120 grit right away will cause some issues for you. The dust from the first sanding will still be on the board when you move to a higher grit. This means you are taking all that fine dust and grinding it onto the surface of your board. This results in many more swirl marks and scratches that are going to show up in your finished piece. 

 

So what you need to do is in between each one of your grits, you need to clean off your board. Blowing it off is fine. Wiping it down with a rag is great, but the best thing to do is to wipe the thing down with mineral spirits that get rid of all the dust. 

 

It will take a little bit of your time and will slow you down but you will get a really nice finish that would be challenging to get otherwise. 

 

Sand Paper is Expensive 

 

If you are going to throw out your sanding disc every time it gets dirty, you are spending a ton of money. 

 

Here is the trick you can use to make your sanding pads go three or four times farther. You can use the little eraser thing that you would use in a drum sander or belt sander. But you can go ahead and use it on your random orbit sander as well.

 

It will work exactly the same way, just hold it up and place the eraser against it until it looks clean. Using this method you can do a whole tabletop with one sanding disc which will help you save more money. 

 

 

The Proper Way to Drill a Hole 

 

Drilling holes seem easy but most people screw up all the time. Here are a few helpful tricks to make drilling holes a lot easier. 

 

Let us talk about drill bits with spurs, spurs are the little tabs that stick out on the side and have brad points that are very helpful for alignment. What you need to do to get a perfect cut is to turn the drill on in reverse. 

Using the drill in reverse initially will score a nice clean perimeter into your wood, once you’ve scored out that perimeter flip forward and drill your hole. It will give you a crisp clean cut all the way around your drilled hole.

 

If you already have one hole and need to change the hole size into a bigger one. You just need to take a scrap piece of wood and drill a hole into that board. Stick that over your already drilled hole and clamp it down.

 

The board will serve as your guide to keep your drill bit from bouncing. There’s a bunch of other tips too. If you don’t want to get blown out on one side that you’re drilling. Put a backer plate on and drill into the backer. 

 

If you can’t put a backer plate on. You can always drill a small pilot hole and then come in halfway through on one side and on the other side then meet in the middle. It will eliminate blowout altogether. 

 

 

Gluing

 

Glue can be your best friend and worst friend, best friend because you can put any two boards together and it’ll be your worst friend because stain and finish do not take too kindly to glue. 

 

You can create your own wood filler by mixing glue and fine sawdust of the wood you are working with. Mix it together and turn it into a paste. You can fill in a little imperfection or cracks. What’s not great about this is the way that stain interacts with it. 

 

If you fill a crack with the glue and sawdust mixture and then you put stain over the top. There’s a really good chance that whatever you filled is actually gonna be highlighted even more because that glue is not going to take that stain or finish. 

 

Instead of using that method, I will pick up whatever finish I might be using, put it over the top, and mix it with the sawdust. Take note that this will not work with oil-based finishes because they’re not gonna harden. 

 

Anything that actually hardens up like wipe-on poly, lacquer varnish will do fine. Since it is already mixed with a finish you’re not going to have highlighted dust. 

 

Glue Squeeze Out 

 

If ever you’ve encountered glue squeeze-out in tight corners where sanding is almost impossible, do not do anything from the time being, let the glue alone, let it harden up, and let it dry. Then clean it up afterward with a chisel. 

 

Some people take a straw and run along the edge but that will also smear the glue around and still give you a bigger problem. 

 

 

How to Glue Inside a Crack 

 

I will share with you some tricks on how to get the glue inside of a crack and make sure it will stick. 

 

• Take some glue and run it on the top of the crack, Take your shop vacuum. Take it into the bottom of the board and suck that glue in. 

 

You’ll know when you pinch that together, that crack is full of glue and you’re ready to go. 

 

Measuring tips 

 

If you are going to measure the corner, the tape measure will be bent and you will end up having a kind of guess what the exact measurement is. Now, my preferred method is to measure from that corner out a set distance and get a one-foot distance. Measure the other end to mark and add on the one foot equal to the actual measurement. 

 

Finding the center of any board 

 

Finding the center of the board for some reason is still a problem. All you need to have is a ruler. 

 

• Take your ruler (diagonally across the board), pick 2 points to line up with the edges, get the whole measurement, then divide by two, and mark the measurement on the ruler to get the exact center. 

 

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