If you ever grew up with siblings, mischievous friends or spent the night at a sleepover camp, you probably know what a wedgie is.

Yeah, it’s a prank that grade school kids often pull on each other which leads to humiliation or even – if done with enough force – discomfort or pain. I’ve had it done to me – a danger of wearing loose-waisted jeans without a belt in grade school.  I’ve also given my fair share of ‘em – mostly in retaliation.  Ya know…

Thankfully, I have grown beyond that phase in my life now.  Although the urge to give a wedgie to the guy who cut me off in traffic does pass my mind… but I don’t act on the impulse…

Instead, I am here today to propose that a wedgie is a good thing,  Something that woodworkers should come to embrace to make your work more efficient.  Something that can save you money while solving a number of problems.

Oh, I mean a wedge!  Yes, that simple triangular mechanical device that has been in use for the past 9,000 years or so. By tapping a wedge into place, you can solve a number of difficult woodworking conundrums for a small investment.

One of the best uses I have recently put wedges to are as a clamping tool. As you can see, it’s a simple arrangement.  Any bar type clamp can be clamped in place on the cabinet body, and a wedge – this case, a commercially available shim – is driven in under the bar to put pressure on the piece until the glue dries.

On the  cabinet project that Paul and I are building, we wanted our face frame to be unified… you know – one solid top and bottom rail with individual stiles covering where the cabinet boxes meet.  I  think that arrangement looks better.  We were able to join the pieces with pocket screws, and we were able to use pocket screws to attach the top and bottom rails to the cases.  But, those stiles needed to be snugged down until the glue locked everything into place.  Most importantly, Paul and his wife didn’t want to have to see filled brad holes when they looked at the piece.  We employed this strategy… and it came out pretty darned nice.

This is a great little trick, but it’s not all that the wonderful wedge can do. Many woodworkers fail to realize one of the best uses for a wedge at the workbench.

While working on a workbench, the most critical thing to remember is that the work needs to be secured for you to do what you need to on it. A vise becomes an important piece of equipment, but, with the economy the way it is and the price of premium bench vises, not everyone can afford to put one in their shop. Other issues, such as the set height of a vise’s jaws can also make planing a tough task. You don’t want to whack your plane iron against a metal stop, unless, of course, you would rather sharpen than woodwork.

But, with a bench dog or two and a wedge, you can easily secure a piece of wood at your bench.  Just set up the dogs and use a larger wedge – cut from a piece of your scrap pile – to lock the board in place. A tap or two on the wedge secures the piece, another tap can loosen the board so you can move it.  You can also make the wedge any thickness you want. So, if you need to hand plane a 3/8″ thick board, you can easily cut a wedge out of 1/4″ thick  material.  Should your plane’s iron hit the wedge, it’s no big deal. Remember it is made out of wood.

It’s surprising how often we overlook the basics.  However, if you want to give your woodworking headaches a wedgie, going with wedges isn’t a bad idea.

Did you ever hear the expression never buy a pig in a poke?

That  was a very strange one for me – a kid growing up in New Jersey where a poke is what the Three Stooges did to each others’ eyes.  I had heard people use the expression, but, in an age before Google, I never understood what the heck it meant.

It turns out that the expression was first used in the middle ages by less-than-reputable merchants. Basically, the scam artist would be holding a poke – a colloquial term for a sack – and tell his potential victim that it contained a suckling pig that would make a very tasty dinner. If the customer was an idiot, he would say ‘sure’, fork over his hard-earned money and get the sack with the ‘wriggling piggy’ inside.

After the merchant beat a hasty retreat, the dupe would open the sack and, to his surprise, see that it contained a cat. Not exactly the best eating. This also led to the creation of two other well known idioms, to let the cat out of the bag (something the scam artist never wanted to happen) and to be left holding the bag (to get nothing for your hard work).

Now that I have impressed the heck out of you with my Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and Language, what does this have to do with woodworking?

Glad you asked. Woodworkers are very sensory-driven people. We need to see the wood we are going to use in our projects in order to match the grain and colors. We need to feel the wood to see if it is soaking wet or ready to work. We need to smell the boards because hey, that’s what we do.

And, I’d be willing to bet that’s what’s holding some folks back from buying their wood online.

“It’s something we do see in woodworkers,” said Eric Poirier of Bell Forest Products. “For first time buyers, we notice a lot of anxiety when they believe they aren’t going to have control over the board selection process.”

To help put wood shoppers at ease, reputable online wood dealers take great care when selecting boards they sell to customers. “No, we’re not going to select the worst of the lot and ship them off to our customers. That would be about the worst business practice ever. We have built our reputation on providing quality wood for woodworkers to build their treasures, and any shenanigans would ruin us.”

For those who may want additional control over the process or who may want to find a board with particular characteristics for a project, Bell Forest Products also offers a program where customers can hand pick their boards. “OK, I’ll admit that customers will handle their mouse to select their board, but what a selection they will have to pick from.”

Yes, customers can actually look board by board from some choice pieces for their projects. “We feature burls, boards with unique figure and boards with live-edges. Exotics and domestics. If you are looking for something special to feature in a project, it’s not a bad place to start.” Selecting the hand-picked board link provides photos and descriptions of nearly 500 different spectacular boards to choose from.

And, if you can’t find something that tickles your fancy? “Just give us an idea of what you are looking for. We’ll keep an eye out for you. Who knows? That dream piece of wood may be coming out of the kiln right now.”

No, it doesn’t have the gorgeous grain and strength of premium hardwood.

Nor does it have the beautiful veneers and screw holding capacity of cabinet grade plywood.

It doesn’t even have the smooth, fine texture of MDF that makes painting easy.

Instead, it forms the basis of all uber-cheap, mass produced big box discount store ready to assemble furniture.  It’s frequently covered in a pseudo-wood-looking plastic contact paper like substance and is assembled with cams, dowels and other bizarre hardware that requires an allen wrench.

Attempting to lift a sheet of it by yourself can cause you to make an appointment with your chiropractor.  Shelves made of it bow with the lightest of weight and sides exposed to the smallest quantity of water swell like a sponge.

Yes, it’s particle board, and it’s the most beautiful substance you can have in your shop.

Born of the refuse of lumber mills, the lowly particle board (or chip board) consists of fairly rough sawdust treated with a resins, waxes and other goodies and heat pressed into standard sized sheet goods.

During the construction of this large cabinet project, I have come to appreciate some of the finer qualities of this oft maligned material. No, the boxes themselves are being made out of some high quality 3/4″ plywood – either prefinished birch or A-faced cherry.  The cabinet shelves will be made of the same materials as well. The base the cases are standing on is made from 2×4 fir lumber.

So, where’s the particleboard?

Glad you asked.  A while ago, I had bought a sheet of particleboard to create a bending form for my Mars and Venus Rising table.  I was going to stack and cut pieces and use them to clamp the thinly sliced ash and walnut leg pieces around while the hide glue dried.  However, I was having trouble getting the pieces to work on the press and opted for a different method of bending.

So, I took the sheets of particleboard and hid them behind my clamp rack.  I probably figured I would find them three or four years later and just throw them out.

The fates were on my side when the project started.  Those ugly, edge-abused sheets hidden behind the clamp rack called to me. With my old big ugly bench, I would have just cut the sheets up on the bench top, figuring that any grooves that formed on the bench would have added character.  But, with my current bench, that was out of the question.  No way was I going to slice  up my new bench’s top.

That’s when I fished those sheets of particleboard from behind the clamp rack and set them down on the bench as a sacrificial top. My friend Paul was a little caught off guard by my wanton disregard for the particle board’s safety, but I forged on. In fact, after the cutting, it also served well as a sacrificial base when I predrilled the screw holes to reinforce the dadoes and rabbets, saving my bench tremendous abuse.

Today, the cabinet pieces are cut, the particle board pieces are showing the wear and my bench top has never looked so good.

So, today, I ask, dear friends, that each of you reconsider your opinion of the lowly particle board sheet. Truly, it’s not the material of fine woodworking, but I boldly contend that it is one of the substances that makes fine woodworking possible.

Organization is not my strong suit.

Navigating my desk at work is an adventure.  I’m getting better, but I routinely  find some important note from a few months ago  – say – about a task I had to do back in March.  Not a good thing, especially when my boss was really counting on that task being accomplished by – say – the second week of July.

The shop?  It’s not much better.  I am really having trouble finding a good home for everything I have amassed over the past dozen years.

At least in my shop I have one area that stays pretty well organized – my rolling tool chest.  I picked it up during a sweet holiday deal at Lowe’s and call it black beauty. Actually, it’s two stackable units – a four drawer base and a three drawer mid section – topped by my old tool box.

I know what you are thinking… and, yes, you are right.  A glossy black surface in a wood shop?  You betcha. My wife and I used to wipe it down every so often when the dust would accumulate, but now, we just let it get covered and clean it when the layer of sawdust is thick enough to support agriculture.

This rolling chest has been a godsend when it comes to holding on to easy to misplace items.  The top two drawers hold all of my fine measuring tools.  Squares, striking knives, calipers… the works.  It’s nice to know that when I have to measure something precisely, I just have to look into two drawers instead of through boxes of other items to find what I need.

The bottom drawer of the mid section holds my scraping and shaping supplies.  Rasps, files, scrapers and all of the items that go along with them are stored here in one place.  So, when my scrapers no longer do what they are supposed to do, all of the items I need to sharpen are in one place.

Below that in the top of the base cabinet are my chisels.  Yes, I have recently become a collector of chisels.  I have to admit it as part of my 12-step program.  From the Marples Blue Chips I started with to the set of WoodRiver beauties I traded a drill press mortiser for to the ultra sweet Japanese chisels used by my neighbor’s father, they’re in there.  Keeping them in the drawer protects the tips and makes a handy place to find them.

Below that is where I store my fine cutting saws.  One day, I’ll build a proper saw till to display these babies and keep them closer to the bench, but, for now, they are protected from bumps and broken teeth in this drawer.  It does take a little digging around here to find them when I do need them, but I’m good with that.  For now.

One level down, and we’re in the realm of the table saw.  No, this storage drawer is nowhere near the saw itself, but I have discovered that table saws require more accessories than my children did when they were very young and it took us half an hour to collect everything for a trip to the supermarket.  Dado blades, push sticks, featherboards … again, this is a great place to stash the stuff when I don’t need it.

And, finally, there’s the – uhhh – miscellaneous drawer.  My hammers and mallets are there along with my laser level, cold chisel, pry bar… well, everything I chuck in there.  OK, it’s not so organized.  There, I can’t give up all of my bad habits.

Some folks have told me that by storing my tools in enclosed drawers is a waste of time.  That perhaps I would be better off keeping them out where I can see them and find them easier would be a better idea.

Uhhh, no.  This way, at least, I keep my searching down to a minimum – for me.  That allows me more time to do what I really enjoy… building.

Sure, there are lots of vocations that claim to be the ‘oldest profession’ on Earth, but I’d have to wager that woodworker would vie for the title.  Think about it.. even if our distant hunter-gatherer relatives were just using a stick to fend off angry saber-toothed tigers, that would have to qualify as some kind of woodworking.

From there, you had the whole shelter/tool/roasting stick/furniture evolution where woodworking came into its own.  And, all along its development, and number of innovations have taken place.  The development of the mortise and tenon. The development of the dovetail. The discovery that the gooey mess that lac bugs secreted would make a nice furniture finish.

Since there has been so much development throughout the centuries, you might think that it would be difficult to see true innovation in woodworking.

That would be the case if you never opened your eyes. There are many companies out there developing new products or processes that make woodworking a more enjoyable pastime.

One of the companies consistently out in front is Kreg Tools.  From the development of the first practical pocket hole jig to the precision after-market fences and other cabinet-making tools, the engineers at Kreg have truly pushed the envelope.

“We’re always amazed at just how clever the folks are at Kreg,” said Tim Walter of Eagle America.  “I mean, the beaded face frame set up they produced last year was a real stroke of genius, cutting a tremendous amount of time necessary to perform that task.”

Eagle America is a proud retailer of Kreg tools, offering a wide variety of products. “If you are starting your shop from scratch, you can pick up a sweet router table, pocket hole jig – even a whole pocket hole system. And, if you are just looking to upgrade, you can add a precision fence to your band saw or a new miter gauge for your table saw.”  Tim even pointed out that if you are simply restocking pocket screws after building a previous project, you can do that at Eagle as well.

“The Kreg tools can also break you free from your shop. Many are portable, allowing you to work right on site.  The new deck jig concealed fastening system can get you out on a sunny weekend to help you build that deck you have been putting off for a while.”

To sweeten the deal, Eagle America is also offering a $20 gift card for all Kreg purchases over $149.  “In this economy, every little bit helps.  We’re glad we can do something to help make your woodworking easier and more enjoyable.”

Did I tell you how much I missed being in my shop?

Does this picture tell you how happy I was to get back into it?

After weeks of yard work, stitches, hurricane conferences and all sorts of other ‘issues’, I finally got some shop time yesterday.  First, I had to  get to the bench to clean it up.  Things such as string trimmer spools, extension cords, hedge trimmer manuals (the one that instructed me NOT to put my fingers near the moving blades was fun to read) have this nasty habit of piling up on the bench if I don’t take care of them.  Heck, I even had a plastic tub full of Easter decorations that still had to get put back in the attic.

While cleaning wasn’t what I had in mind, it did get me into the shop and back into the woodworking mindset. As the stuff was put away, more space became available for woodworking.  Which is exactly what I need.

Soon after, I had found the things I was looking for.  The four sides of the box I was working on.  The veneered elm panel. The measurements I had jotted down for the box.  It was almost like I had never left the shop.

I cut the veneered panels to fit the top and bottom and rabbeted the panel edges to fit the grooves I had machined back in April. The fit beautifully… better than I had imagined.  And, it glued up nice and tight.

Now, I still have some more work to do on the box.. cutting some dovetail splines for the corners, cutting the lid free, sanding and finishing.. but, for now, it’s good to be back!

I’ve noticed over the years that people don’t want ordinary.  Pedestrian.  Plain.

Think about it.  Most people decorate their homes.  They paint walls, buy furniture and hang artwork that helps define the space they live in.  People customize their cars, adding pinstripes, special audio components and custom driving lights.

The same holds true when it comes to hobbies.  Woodworkers are always looking to add some ‘signature’ tools to their collections.  Anglers will custom build a rod and reel to meet their individual tastes.

And people who play pool will often look to eventually have a custom pool cue.

There are some sweet looking pool cues out there that go way beyond the ultra-cheapie starter you may have picked up or the heavily abused house cue at a pool hall. Those custom models feature gorgeous wood inlays, bands and other features that make your cue stand out from the crowd.

Of course, a custom cue carries with it a hefty price.  Most custom models start about $300 and can go into several thousands of dollars based on the features offered and the care of the maker.

But, if you are a woodworker and you want a custom cue, there’s nothing quite like building your own.  “By creating your own masterpiece, you can demonstrate your woodworking skills… even if your pool shooting skills aren’t up to snuff,” said Eric Poirier of Bell Forest Products. “We can certainly help you get off on the right foot when you are ready to build your own.”

For the past year or so, Bell Forest Products has been offering some very cool pool cue blanks for sale that just might inspire you to get into the shop.  They offer a line of full-spliced blanks made by master cuemaker Mark Bear. What makes them so special?  Bear makes his cue blanks with two different species of wood cut carefully to meet up a several ‘points’.  These long splice joints allow the wood to be held together by just glue, not the dowels and other joinery methods used in half-splice models.  The result?  Billiard players consistently rate the full spliced cues as easier to play with a superior feel.

These blanks are also made of some gorgeous combinations of wood. “We routinely carry cues featuring figured maples, bocote, purpleheart, bubinga and other exotic woods we sell.  The beauty of these contrasting and complimentary woods is pretty amazing.”

Since Bell started offering the cue blanks, business has been brisk. “We go to a large cuemaker convention to show off our offerings.  We get a lot of traffic at our booth from people who want to know just how we make such beautiful blanks.”

“Besides,” Eric continued, “many of our customers who build their own cues tell us that when they show up to play, they get plenty of compliments from the people they play against.  Not only does the cue demonstrate their artistic ability, but they say that using what they built gives them more confidence when they play.”

Nice shot!