Top Woodworking Gadgets - MUST HAVE ITEMS

hi I'm Rob Koz and welcome to my shop top woodworking gadgets bit of a corny title however there are certain things that are not necessarily wood related that after 35 plus years of doing this I have come to rely on in fact they even give them top billing in my drawers in the cabinets behind me I'm gonna walk you through each one of them and give you a brief on how they're used maybe something you're interested in they do I'm Rob gozman and welcome to my shop I started woodworking in a serious way in the 1980s and I actually aren't living from it now over the years I've fallen victim to gadgets like anybody else but I've actually found some items that have really been coming become a critical part of how I work I'm gonna go through them I'm gonna give you the top 10 I'm gonna show you and explain to you how I use them and I've tried to prioritize them in from from 10 down to the mine number one so you're gonna have to stay to the end to find out what my number one gadget is but I think this is going to benefit you and you may find some things that you never thought about using in somewhat in an increment unconventional way they have become critical in how I do my work I'm gonna start at number ten number one is my favorite number ten is its whatever number ten is compared to number one I don't like sandpaper try not to use it very much but there are times when you have to and I find the very best product is this stuff made by Porter cable it's a little bit expensive but you know what it's worth paying for the convenience the nice thing about it is it's got a just sticky back so I make sanding blocks I do so I have every imaginable sanding block take a piece of MDF just stick it on there trim it all the way around the nice thing about it is if you're having to get right into a corner you can simply stick it on set it down against something that you're not going to cut don't worry about cutting and then trim that right along the edge so you can get right into that corner eye or keep the 120 the 150 220 and 320 is the highest grit that I think they make but like I said it's it's expensive way of buying sandpaper but it is so convenient and you get to use all of it it probably is actually cheaper in the long run number nine is shim stock now I bought this when I was teaching out in Seattle several years ago and it's a one thousand steel shim stock I'm down to that last little bit but I'll show you how I use it nice thing about it is that at 1002 a thousand a half you can easily cut this with scissors and probably the one area where I use it the most when I'm fitting a drawer and trying to get that final fit so it's perfect and I'm trying to determine where it might be hanging up I'll take a shim stock like that and move it along just to make sure there isn't any spot that's tight I find it invaluable for doing that probably should be even higher on my list but the other stuff is really good too so one thousand stock feeler gauge this actually should be a little bit higher than I placed it but I'm gonna show you how I use it nice thing about this one and typically they only go down to a thousand a half at least the ones that are commonly available this one goes up to 35 and on the small end it's it's hour and a half two thousand and a half three and it goes one time increments up to oh I don't know 15 or 20 but here's how I use it or at least one of the ways back to drawer construction when you're taking that and fitting that drawer back to the opening the opening isn't always perfectly square and your shooting board is designed to cut square sometimes you need to pull it out so what I'll do is use my feeler gauge in there and I obviously can good whatever number I want but then that'll allow me to cut whatever angle I need on that piece and instead of trying to find a scrap of wood that's just right and then if I need to I can record it so I can do the next one the same way so I think these are invaluable as well this is number seven and it's really not fair to call this a gadget because it's a legitimate plane small as it is this is the Lee Nielsen squirrel tail and what I like about it is smaller than a block plane and does that job that's just so convenient when based on the size I keep this in my shop apron I like the squirrel tail because this squirrels tail goes up into your palm index finger sits right on that little depression hold it with the two thumb and middle finger on the side sometimes I'll go in and set the blade so that it's on a bit of an angle that way if I need to come in here and cut a chamfer and I want to get it done quick if I'm working on the left side I can take a much heavier cut if it's needs to be refined to a finish I can just go to the opposite side which is taking the much lighter cut I actually did that in the opposite that's the heavy cut on that side and the lighter cut is on this one they actually look the same don't they well I do in there tap it no actually it isn't if you sight down there you'll see it's actually sticking up higher on the right side so that will give you your hurry up and get it done and then you can go over to the other side just to refine it get a little better cut it is a pain to sharpen because the blade is so small it's also a pain to adjust because you got to get in this little hammer and tap tap one side of the other but considering how we could use a sharp blade we'll stay sharp for a long time so that is probably one of my more valuable gadgets number six our dowel centers so what these are are little steel pins so this is a half-inch if you're using dowels as a means of joining whatever it is you're building you can be at these in different sizes I actually have them in half seven sixteenths three-quarter quarter might even have three six I have three sixteenths as well and you're gonna want several of them now I'm going to show you an example I do a lot of non-traditional stuff so in attaching this top section to this standing desk we're building what I did I used a whole bunch of quarter inch dowels this is not put in place yet and then after you've drilled the holes in this piece you put in your dowel Center and what I do is just simply put a piece of masking tape over top of them and what that'll do is to prevent it from falling out especially if you're gonna use it upside down like that is the point will go through the tape quite easily but instead of having to balance things things falling out that'll just sit down there like that and then you put it in position get exactly where you want it I would usually have a block on both sides and on the back get it exactly where you want it and then just take a rubber mallet and tap it when you remove it it'll give you your little points you can go in there with a brad point and drill a hole and it's precise there's lots of applications for it but I would consider these to be really critical dowel Center points and remember make sure you get enough so that you're not needing eight and only get seven number five this is a little self-serving because we actually supply this but I'll show you why you might want to get one and that's plain wax when you're planing wood whether it's soft or hard it's nice to be having your effort applied just to pushing the blades through the wood instead of overcoming the friction between the sole of the plane of the wood and I've always used just used a piece of wax like that but what I find nice about this keep it in my pocket just take the cap off give it a long squiggle and then we actually worked with the manufacturer to four or five different formulas before we finally found the wax that was hard enough that it didn't smear but soft enough to leave a little film on there and the way that that reduces the friction is really amazing it probably cuts the effort in half now people always ask what about it effecting the final finish well I typically would not wax my plane prior to the final pass other than that it'll have worn off long before and you just rotate the bottom to bring them wax up higher as you wear it out number four is a little artist palette knife and the way I use this is for applying glue and dovetailing some brush it on but I find that the brush leaves it all over with the little palette knife I can put a little bit on there and I can place it exactly where I want it especially when you're getting in if you've got small pins getting in on both sides it's just invaluable nice thing about it is it's steel so if you forget to take the drop of the glue off before it dries just take an old chisel and scrape it off and you're good to go you've got to have one of these if you're doing any kind of joinery works mortise and tenon anything like that all right this is number three now this is something you probably wouldn't associate with woodworking and they're vernier calipers these are actually the dial version I find it much easier to understand and here's the best example where I use them when we a car would hinge boxes that hinge actually starts off as a dowel and the closer it is to the exact size the better so we make our own dowel back this is actually made out of tiger or fiddleback maple but we want that to be right on the money so using vernier calipers you can go in there now that needs to be too 5-0 it's actually - five - that would be acceptable I sometimes use it when I'm dimensioning lumber by hand if it's a drawer side and I want to be exact I'll use it to measure both sides to see how close I am so a set of vernier calipers I think will go a long way to helping up your game all right we're down to number two now this one is so important in our shop it actually gets top billing in my tool cabinet this top drawer is full of tape everything from green painters tape blue yellow automotive refinishing tape though the nice thing about this these two are for thousands of an inch in thickness this one is five so when we're making handles sometimes we have to have very precise adjustments so what I'll do is I'll just use any combination of these layers of this tape to build up exactly what I need we're also hockey-stick tape I've got double-sided tape I've got regular packing tape I've got heavy strapping tape I've got duct tape back there the foil kind as well as the gray that everybody knows about let me show you a couple a couple of examples of where we use it stick tape is exceptional for improving the grip on something like the handle of an F clamp in fact I actually did a video on showing you how to wrap these just like hockey sticks top end of a hockey stick check out that video and it'll walk you through it I also use it on my fret saw in fact we sell our fret saws already taped like that so that you can improve your grip I want to show you a couple of examples of how we use this that I think are really phenomenal I don't remember who showed me this but this is probably one of the best tips I found in the last year toe using blue painters tape now you know this stuff does not have a ton of grip it's very easy to remove but if you need to have a temporary handle I'll show you the example we're in the process of building this standing desk on our online workshop and you can check that out over here but we were just trying to decide what we were going to do for a handle so we needed something temporary so that in the process of fitting it we could get a hold of it here's where I ran across this put a piece of tape on there take what's going to be your handle and tape it as well now this involves using something called sign acrylate or Krazy Glue and I'm going to use the medium consistency one and you just put that on one side you don't want it smearing so be careful with it now I'm using what's called an accelerator that just speeds up the curing and I'm gonna spray the opposite piece position it and just be a human clamp for a few seconds that accelerator will cause that to dry a lot quicker than it would normally now as far as a temporary handle that actually works incredibly well I was amazed at how strong it is and when it comes time to getting it off all you got to do is just break the seal between the two pieces of tape and then peel off your tape doesn't leave any mark doesn't leave any residue fantastic for some things like that I have a good friend named the Med in Southern California and and when we make a small would hinge box like this sometimes we actually might of the joint instead of dovetailing that's just a fancy way of what we did but what he will do he showed me this stretch out your piece of tape upside down sticky side up and then take all of your pieces lined up carefully so point the miter to point of the miter you're gonna have four pieces all laid out with a little extra on either side glue your miters and then just fold it all together and take the outside pieces and fold that over so you now have a box and that pressure of folding that miter together having been glued on both sides with this tape it acts as an amazing clamp and holding that together so impressed with that so tape of all things different types of tape you'll find hundreds of uses for it don't pass up on this one drum roll number one this you'll appreciate as you age and these this I call it my headgear so these in conjunction with my glasses I wish I could tell you what the numbers mean something about a diopter I don't know but the nice thing about it is when you're doing small work like that and you want to be able to get in and see exactly what you're doing there is no substitute for that they're not terribly expensive and you can change these lenses I just have a second pair these ones have a number five on them so I know it has something to do with where the focal point is these ones are gonna get you a little bit closer these are the ones that I use the most but for aging eyes nothing like it so here are the honorable mentions number one is gonna be Renaissance wax this stuff is incredibly expensive but it's great wax you can use I use it for finishing on small pieces or adding a little bit of luster after something has been oiled this it's not the glue it's the applicator that little bottle comes in so handy when you're trying to place glue in a tight spot or for just feeding my palate knife when I'm buttering dovetails next one would be you already saw it but we never mentioned it really sign acrylate which is a super glue for wood it comes in three consistencies this one is the thin like I said this is consistency of water this only works if the parts are tight and I want to show you the best example when we when I make my would hinge boxes especially the ones that are finger jointed put the entire joint together and then on the inside just run a little bead of this water thin glue it'll it'll capillary action will pull it all through there and sets up it's incredible trying to put that together with regular glue is a nightmare the medium you saw how I use that and the thick and whatever application where you need something isn't gonna run out on you that's where you want to use it and the accelerator just sets it up a little bit quicker this these are called hand blocks and we use these a lot in fact I usually have them store it in here that's what's left of it what it is it's a silicon abrasive in a rubber compound so instead of like sandpaper where the abrasive simply sits on the top side this is actually all the way through it so as the block wears away you're always you always have abrasive to use and I'll show you how fast it works this is a bronze side of a plane so if I want to clean that up it doesn't take much and that'll bring that right back to what it was like new now there's three different consistencies or grits the green package is medium the red is coarse and the yellow is fine and most woodworking planes and tools have a final grind that is equivalent to the green so if I were to use the red this would make scratches if I would use the yellow it would make shiny spots but by using the green it'll just blend right in with the rest of it a great way to clean up any kind of surface rust or oxidation finally is our Tajima tape and we found these a couple of years ago so impressed we now stock them they are so accurate they've got features in there that I've never seen on other tapes first of all is it's very easy to see black on white not a whole lot of extra information actually has the writing on the back you'll notice that the clip has three pins in there so it's and by the way that moves so that when whether you're measuring from the outside or from the inside that slides to compensate for the thickness of the clip itself and you can see how heavy that is and typically what happens to a measuring tape you drop it on the floor and when it hits it bends that clip well these actually have a little shock absorber right there so that that is protected now this one has an exterior case I take that off because I keep it in my shop apron but if you're looking for a great measuring tape that's extremely accurate that's the best one to guess so here's what I want to hear from here's what I want to hear from you if there's something that you use that's what we might call non-traditional love to hear about it for my own use and also help share it with others hope this has been helpful we'll see you in our next video if you enjoy my method of work and like my style of teaching click on any one of these videos to help take your woodworking to the next level now I've always said better tools make the job so much easier if you click on the icon with the plane and the chisel it'll take you to our website introduce you to all of our tools that we actually manufacture right here as well as their workshops what was in-person and online good luck

Channel: RobCosman.com

Views: 199,951

Rating: 4.9166174 out of 5

Keywords: top woodworking gadgets, top woodworking tips, top woodworking tools, top woodworking tools 2019, top woodworking tools 2020, woodworking, top 10 hand tools, top 10 woodworking tools, woodworking hand tools, woodworking tools you must have, best woodworking tools, amazing tools, best hand tools, diy tools, hand tools, ingenious tools, rob cosman, top 10 woodworking gadgets, woodworking gadgets, gadgets, cool tools

Id: y995af2QM_U

Length: 18min 23sec (1103 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 29 2020