Some Tips from Popular Woodworking Email

New use for Spring Clamp

While building my workbench, I kept saying, "Gosh, I wish I had a workbench to do this on."

Faced with flattening the 16 sides of the 4×4 legs, I hit upon a way of holding them that was secure enough for handplaning but released them quickly for working the next side.

By simply clamping two blocks of wood to a flat work surface and using a large spring clamp as a wedge at one end, I was popping the 4x4s in and out quickly and easily.

The only bit of fuss is to get the blocks far enough apart so the spring clamp exerts enough pressure to hold the workpiece - but not so much that it's difficult to put the workpiece in place.

The setup is so fast and works so well that it's better than some of the end vises I've used.

Peter A. McLaughlin
Chicago, Illinois