If you really want to give a group of full-grown adults a hard time, give them a child’s toy. Often it’s the simple-looking puzzles that can be the biggest challenge, and this little wooden puzzle is a great deal harder to reassemble than it looks. However it’s easy to make one. We put together a little walkthrough to show you how to get it done.

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We have fun with woodworking no matter what the project is, but the most rewarding thing for us is making our own furniture.  Let’s say you wanted a solid oak bookcase but didn’t have the four to six hundred bucks a retail store would want for one. You can achieve the same effect for less than half the cost, using a bit of solid oak trim and some veneered ply.

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Many of the project sites we look at take a Julia Childs approach to their holiday wood projects — you know, using materials you don’t have, tools you can’t afford, and plans you couldn’t draw up even if you were a rocket scientist. So to combat this effect we put together a reindeer and accompanying sleigh that you can assemble with a few simple tools and under $15 worth of lumber — in under a day.

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Strapped for cash this holiday season? Replacing an alternator can cost you several hundred bucks at the local repair shop, but it’s one of the simplest repairs you can do at home. With a few tools and about an hour you can swap it out yourself — and keep your dough in your pocket where it belongs. In this case we’re replacing an alternator on a ‘95 GMC truck, however the process is very similar for most vehicles.

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The third time I was attacked by my kitchen cabinets while trying to free a pot from the bottom cupboard, I decided to remedy the situation.  Nursing a bruised foot I went to the local big box to buy a few sliding drawer units to put in the cabinets — and I nearly popped a gasket when the size I wanted turned out to be sixty bucks a drawer.  So I built them myself.

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I love making tile-top projects.  However I’m pretty miserable at making grout correctly.  Maybe I don’t measure right, or I mix at the wrong intervals, but it always seems to go south by the time I’m through — always, that is, until I tried the SpectraLock grout system about two years ago.  Since then I’ve never had a problem with grouting tile, and it involves a great deal less swearing.  Here’s how it works.

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When it comes to decorating for Halloween, any soccer mom can run to the local big box and grab a light-up skeleton or animated rat — but any mad scientist worth his Bunsen burner knows a Jacob’s Ladder is the way to go. They look cool and they sound cool, and you can build one for next to nothing from scrounged materials.

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As Toolmonger cyclists probably already know, a recumbent bicycle offers several advantages over the normal upright sort, but they’re generally rather pricey. We’ve recently posted on tube bending, mitering, and welding, and this project requires all those new tools you wish you had an excuse to pick up.

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You might want to change the chuck on your drill for any number of reasons. If you own an older drill, you may want to add a keyless chuck for convenience or replace a broken or rusted chuck. If you have a newer drill, you could add a keyed chuck for extra bit-gripping strength. These guidelines’ll help you replace your drill chuck.

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Getting started in blacksmithing usually requires a pretty decent start-up cost. But if you want to do it on the cheap, the instructions on Zoeller Forge’s site will show you how to build a gas forge without a welder or a cutting torch. With a drill, hole saw, tap, vise grips, and a workbench, you can make your own atmospheric gas forge.

Atmospheric Gas Forge [Zoeller Forge]

When we’re building stuff in the Toolmonger shop, whether of wood or metal, we often consult plans, and not only to make the project easier — a lot of times the plans’ll spark other ideas.  Though the plan for this shop stool is simple enough, maybe it inspires you to modify the plan to make planter stands, or a bench support, or a workpiece glide for your table saw.  If you look at enough plans, you’ll notice that most projects start from a simple box shape; where you end up is limited only by your imagination.

Shop Stool Plan [Miller]

Why build a giant dinosaur? Kids – and adults – love ‘em. And nothing else spruces up a dinosaur-themed birthday party than a giant wood dinosaur. The best part: you can build your own for around $150 and a little sweat. It’s time to break out your tools for something whimsical. Read on past the jump to learn how to build your own giant dino.

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A few hours of shop time into wearing my new safety glasses, I found that not only were they uncomfortable, but they were scratching up my face pretty good. Disappointed that the glasses I paid the princely sum of $9 for were tearing up my mug, I searched for a way to fix them. To my embarrassment, my 10-year-old niece/helper suggested that I’d been using the tool that could fix them for the last two hours — she was, of course, correct.

I found that with a bit of 320 grit sandpaper you can not only remove whatever spurs and excess molding lines are causing you grief — you can also reshape areas near the nose piece, if you want, to fit your face more comfortably.

Is this a big deal? Most certainly not. But it can be handy if you’re living with plastic safety glasses that are the slightest bit uncomfortable.

This Dodecasub makes a great DIY project for a Toolmonger, but cutting the angles can be a problem. After reading this post on the All-In-One Clamp, and this post on the MilesCraft Saw Guide, I still had no solution for how to cut long, straight lines that’re at odd angles to the edge of a board. A table saw with the guide set at an angle will do the trick, but here’s a way to manage it if your shop hasn’t grown that big yet.

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About ten minutes after humans figured out how to make rope we started devising ways to tie two pieces together. Knot tying is a valuable skill for any Toolmonger, so today I present to you the first in a series of practical knots that you can use in daily life: the Fisherman’s Knot. Often used to re-connect tuna nets, it’s also handy for connecting two short ropes together into a single, longer one. In fact, I used this very knot today to repair to my shoelaces.

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Instructables user Vestus took one look at the high price of commercially-available router lifts and decided he could build his own a lot cheaper. Bustin’ out his shrewd Dealmongering skills he snagged an already-inexpensive Harbor Freight plunge router on sale for $40 and a router base plate on Amazon for another $40. After scrounging around the local hardware stores for a few other components, he assembled his router lift — complete with 1-3/4 HP router — for under $100.

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It’s hard to believe that there was a time in this country when children were encouraged to do risky (and interesting) things. But it’s true! Boys and Girls were given simple items and allowed to experiment with the way the world works by making and doing things that could possibly poke an eye out. Nothing exemplifies this better than The Boy Mechanic, a collection of simple projects that graced the pages of Popular Mechanics during the end of 19th and first half of the 20th century.

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