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Wednesday, March 19, 2025
19 Tool Tips and Tricks for DIYers
Family Handyman: We sifted through thousands of tips and selected a few that have been most useful on our own projects. Tuck them away in your memory and they'll come in handy for you, too.
New tip number one: I like the tip of using a stop block for a belt sander. It would definitely help when it comes to making sure you don't taper the edge. Clamping a nail? I've never thought about that, but I suppose it would work. An interesting idea for sure. Using cardboard as a way to sort've create a pilot before drilling into harder surfaces or surfaces with less friction is also something I haven't considered before but it makes sense. The tips for checking a level are certainly handy. Sometimes cheap levels get out of wack and making sure your level isn't lying to you is important. Honestly some of the tips here are kinda dumb but a few of them may come in handy some day. This reminds me of the videos with these types of tips that come up on facebook which my technical director would sometimes send to me.
This article is chalk-full of tips and tricks that I will absolutely be using in the future. I have used hand screws to clamp things before, but never thought of using them to keep a piece up on its edge. I will be using that in the future. The trick for extracting a stuck plug I had mixed feelings about, as I've always been able to quickly take off the cutting portion of the bit and push out the plug from the back. However, having multiple ways to solve one task never hurts. The last trick about putting in a circular saw blade on backwards concerns me slightly. It strikes me as something that is not incredibly safe, but I could be wrong. One trick that I know for sure I will be using is the level testing trick. A busted level can be source for lots of frustration, and a quick test like this could save hours of work.
I will be sending this article to my dad. My dad and I do a lot of diy building stuff together, particularly wood. We just finished a project where we built giraffe coin banks, and the hand screws as clamps trick would have been really useful for that because we struggled to clamp stuff together because of the irregular shapes. I really like the drill guide one, thats one that my high school scenic shop used a lot. As an aside, I kind of miss my high school scene shop- the OSHA violations are so nostalgic. The two stage speed painting is really cool actually, I had never thought to layer applicators. But it makes sense to apply your base coat with an applicator that might not have the perfect look, but will cover your surface area quickly. It'll get covered up and made to look prettier by your finishing coat regardless, so you might as well paint the base coat fast.
I love articles like this, they are so fun to read and so interesting to try out for myself. Using scraps to drill a perpendicular hole into another piece of wood is a new one, and I am a little skeptical - though I am sure that in a bad pinch it is very useful to get ‘close enough’. Using a power strip, at least to me, is pretty darn intuitive, but hey - it is useful and necessary nevertheless. The magnetization of tools like drills, screwdrivers, measuring tapes, and more are all very useful in my experience. The belt sander stop block is pretty smart, though I will admit I don’t use a handheld belt sander all that often. Then again, the tip is applicable to an orbital sander and perhaps even other tools. The tip used to stop a wandering bit on a hard surface - to start with cardboard or soft wood - is intriguing, and I’m likely to try it out soon.
I have been DIYing since I was very young, so this article caught my attention immediately. However, the scale and scope of my projects were never advanced enough to necessitate the use of these power tools, due to my age. Within the last few years my projects have advanced to the point where I need to use power tools, so this article is incredibly helpful for my position. Some of these tips and tricks are so simple, such as using a screw as a bottle opener or reusing an old paintbrush, but definitely could come in use. Using a belt sander to peel dried paint off of palette knives is a cool trick that I could adapt to clean the dried paint off of my paint palettes. I’ve been struggling with scraping off paint for years, especially the enamel paints. Finally, I wonder how many of these tips and tricks people discover as they go about their DIY projects, and which ones are more unique to the author of this article.
New tip number one: I like the tip of using a stop block for a belt sander. It would definitely help when it comes to making sure you don't taper the edge. Clamping a nail? I've never thought about that, but I suppose it would work. An interesting idea for sure. Using cardboard as a way to sort've create a pilot before drilling into harder surfaces or surfaces with less friction is also something I haven't considered before but it makes sense. The tips for checking a level are certainly handy. Sometimes cheap levels get out of wack and making sure your level isn't lying to you is important. Honestly some of the tips here are kinda dumb but a few of them may come in handy some day. This reminds me of the videos with these types of tips that come up on facebook which my technical director would sometimes send to me.
ReplyDeleteThis article is chalk-full of tips and tricks that I will absolutely be using in the future. I have used hand screws to clamp things before, but never thought of using them to keep a piece up on its edge. I will be using that in the future. The trick for extracting a stuck plug I had mixed feelings about, as I've always been able to quickly take off the cutting portion of the bit and push out the plug from the back. However, having multiple ways to solve one task never hurts. The last trick about putting in a circular saw blade on backwards concerns me slightly. It strikes me as something that is not incredibly safe, but I could be wrong. One trick that I know for sure I will be using is the level testing trick. A busted level can be source for lots of frustration, and a quick test like this could save hours of work.
ReplyDeleteI will be sending this article to my dad. My dad and I do a lot of diy building stuff together, particularly wood. We just finished a project where we built giraffe coin banks, and the hand screws as clamps trick would have been really useful for that because we struggled to clamp stuff together because of the irregular shapes. I really like the drill guide one, thats one that my high school scenic shop used a lot. As an aside, I kind of miss my high school scene shop- the OSHA violations are so nostalgic. The two stage speed painting is really cool actually, I had never thought to layer applicators. But it makes sense to apply your base coat with an applicator that might not have the perfect look, but will cover your surface area quickly. It'll get covered up and made to look prettier by your finishing coat regardless, so you might as well paint the base coat fast.
ReplyDeleteI love articles like this, they are so fun to read and so interesting to try out for myself. Using scraps to drill a perpendicular hole into another piece of wood is a new one, and I am a little skeptical - though I am sure that in a bad pinch it is very useful to get ‘close enough’. Using a power strip, at least to me, is pretty darn intuitive, but hey - it is useful and necessary nevertheless. The magnetization of tools like drills, screwdrivers, measuring tapes, and more are all very useful in my experience. The belt sander stop block is pretty smart, though I will admit I don’t use a handheld belt sander all that often. Then again, the tip is applicable to an orbital sander and perhaps even other tools. The tip used to stop a wandering bit on a hard surface - to start with cardboard or soft wood - is intriguing, and I’m likely to try it out soon.
ReplyDeleteI have been DIYing since I was very young, so this article caught my attention immediately. However, the scale and scope of my projects were never advanced enough to necessitate the use of these power tools, due to my age. Within the last few years my projects have advanced to the point where I need to use power tools, so this article is incredibly helpful for my position. Some of these tips and tricks are so simple, such as using a screw as a bottle opener or reusing an old paintbrush, but definitely could come in use. Using a belt sander to peel dried paint off of palette knives is a cool trick that I could adapt to clean the dried paint off of my paint palettes. I’ve been struggling with scraping off paint for years, especially the enamel paints. Finally, I wonder how many of these tips and tricks people discover as they go about their DIY projects, and which ones are more unique to the author of this article.
ReplyDelete