I love my DeWalt Plate Joiner. I have found that I can increase the accuracy of the biscuit slot alignment by screwing the plate joiner to a simple plywood base. DeWalt must agree because there are already holes in the bottom of the tool to do this. Since you are working off the base of the biscuit joiner, the thickness of the stock should be 3/4" plus or minus 1/8", and you should always put the face of the stock down.
When doing end cuts for face frames I use a right angle fixture to hold the stock firmly. DeWalt does not sell a smaller blade for face frames. I made another jig for face frame joinery which keeps the cutter back a little. I use the M (max) setting or the #20 setting with #0 biscuits and knock off a little on the end of each biscuit with a disc sander. This creates a slot which is more narrow than usual, but is still limited to just a little under 2". With either jig I keep the face of the stock down and have marked the jig with a reminder "Face Down!".
I often use my Kreg Jig for assembling cabinet members and making face frames. If the oval hole is not objectionable I leave it alone, otherwise I fill it with the plugs that Kreg sells in several hardwood types. I made a couple of bench hooks to support longer boards. For large panels I use the Kreg Rocket Jig, the smaller cousin of the standard Kreg Jig which is easily clamped to the work.
When
making half blind dovetails
for drawers, I use an old Craftsman
dovetail jig and one of my old Craftsman routers which I keep
set up for just this purpose. I made a couple of through
dovetail jigs using the Stots Dovetail Template Master which
sells for $40. With this template master you can make jigs to
match your project requirements. Shown are fixed spacing single
and double-wide dovetail jigs. I use MDF for the template and
backing plate, and Baltic Birch plywood for the body. The end
result looks and works very much like a Keller Jig.
Whenever I glue up a cabinet carcass or bookcase frame, I find that I need two more hands. I made up a bunch of clamping squares and clamp pads with a recessed hole for the clamp screw face. These were so useful that I made two dozen each in 5" and 7" squares and twice that many clamp pads. This is a great use for left over plywood scrap.
And speaking of clamps, as the saying goes "if on any given project, you don't run out of clamps, then you are not using enough." Here are some shop made wooden hand screws. I made a dozen of these, 3 different sizes using hardware kits with Jorgensen style double threaded steel rods.
I also made eight hand screws from hardware store all-thread and T-nuts in a push-pull configuration, similar to engineer's clamps. The rear rod pushes and the front rod pulls the nose of the clamp together. Although not really necessary, I use castle nuts and cotter pins to keep the floating member in alignment. These clamps are somewhat less convenient than the Jorgensen style double threaded rods, but provide finer adjustment and greater compression and are the ones I use most often.
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