7 Household Items Essential in any Wood Shop

There are plenty of household items conducive to a workshop. Hot glue guns are great for temporarily fixing a workpiece down, irons can apply iron-on edge banding.

But the list doesn’t stop there. Here are 6 items you have in your house that you need to move out to the garage.

1. Non-Stick Baking Mats

2. Silicone Pastry Brushes

3. Old Linen Towels

4. Yoga Mat

5. Hair Dryer

6. Clear Nail Polish

7. Old Jars and Plastic Tubs

Read on to learn how to use them. If you don’t like reading, watch my video on the topic instead, then scroll down for a further explanation on the uses of these items.

Non-Stick Baking Mats

These come in different sizes and are generally available at Costco during the holidays. When you have old mats looking a bit worse for wear, buy a new set and keep your old ones for the shop.

Glue and finish won’t stick to these silicone mats making them perfect for gluing and finishing small pieces on to protect your workbench. I regularly use them between cauls and my work piece during glue ups to prevent the cauls from permanently attaching themselves to your work.

You can also fold these over a miter to apply a little extra pressure to align a miter and not worry about your clamp leaving a dent or sticking.

Worn, but not worn out. This mat was downgraded from the kitchen to the shop and it performs wonderfully as a catch for glue and finish. Once the glue dries, just shake the nibs off into the trashcan.

Silicone Pastry Brush

Don’t forget to snip the tips. The shorter bristles help spread the glue more evenly.

A pastry brush is an excellent glue spreader. I’ll admit, my normal glue spreader is my finger, but when I’m doing big glue ups it’s nice to have a tool to make the job go a little easier, and to avoid splinters.

Much like the baking mats, glue won’t stick to these. In fact, you can let the glue dry on and peel the brush right out of the dried glue, lickity split. I do like to trim the bristles down to firm them up. The long bristles are a little too floppy and don’t apply the glue evenly. Take a little off the top and leave about half an inch and you’ll stiffen those bristles up and it’ll work perfect.

You can find these brushes at the dollar store, making them the most affordable tool in my shop.

Old Linen Towels

Linen, real linen made from flax, is lint free, making it a perfect material to wipe down finished furniture with or even apply finish. If you want to go down a rabbit hole, look up French Polishing, which is a shellac finishing technic and requires the use of linen to apply the shellac to avoid imparting fibers from a cloth in the mirror like finish.

Yoga Mat

Have you ever been sanding a piece of wood to a perfectly smooth surface, flipped it over and noticed indentations on the back side. Sanded those out, flipped it over again and noticed the same indentations on the side you just sanded?

That’s because your work surface has dust, grit, and lumps of dried glue which your sander is grinding into the back side of your piece. How do you fix it?

Enter the sanding mat. I use an old yoga mat my wife wore out and was going to throw away, but an old piece of carpet or carpet padding will work just the same. I always throw it down on my work bench when it’s time for sanding, or when I have a finished piece I’m doing final assembly and details on which I don’t want to scratch or dent.

Hair Dryer

Ever had to remove a sticker from a piece of wood and get frustrated by how they won’t come off? Alleviate your frustration by grabbing your wife’s hair dryer and use it to heat up the sticker which will loosen the glue and allow you to easily peel it off. I’ll admit, if you have a heat gun, use that, but in a pinch a hair dryer works.

Clear Nail Polish

Very small items, such as jewelry, can be a pain to finish. A couple of years ago I made my wife some earrings and a matching pendant for a necklace. I wasn’t sure how to finish these items so I did some research and found you can finish wood rings with CA Glue (Super Glue). I tried it, and then found out that CA glue, when applied too thick, will bloom which means it will dry cloudy and can even flake off. That’s what happened to me and I had to scrape it all off and try something else.

Enter nail polish. Clear nail polish, specifically acrylic nail polish, is a great wood finish. It’s easy to apply to really small items because it has a small applicator making it easy to get in to small details. Plus it dries really quick and is durable.

Old Jars and Plastic Tubs

Jars make for great long term finish storage. This jar contains my homemade wood conditioner made from 4 parts mineral oil and 1 part beeswax. And yes, it’s creamy.

Probably my most used item on this list are old jars and plastic tubs. They are free and plentiful, come in various sizes, have lids, and are easy to store as they stack nicely (well the plastic does, jars not so much).

Jars are awesome for long term storage of finish. I absolutely hate those annoying metal screw top tins finish comes in. No matter how well you clean the top and the inside of the lid there will still be finish on the threads, locking the lid on so you can’t remove it without bending the lid and ruining the seal leading to you ruining a new can of finish. Do that once and learn your lesson, then start transferring your finish to jars. Yes the jar runs the same problem of the finish locking up the threads, but I’ve found the finish doesn’t adhere to glass as well making it easier to break that thin layer.

Plastic tubs are perfect for mixing up custom stain colors in or putting a small amount of finish in while working. In between coats you can pop the lid on and it’ll stay dust free and ready for a second use without risking contaminating the rest of the container.

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