Woodworking Techniques 99% of Beginners Don't Know

Woodworking is less about the tools you own and more about the techniques you know. When we’re beginners, we might manage basic cuts and fasteners, but it’s the techniques we pick up over time that truly expand what we can build—and how well we can build it.

In the past, this knowledge was passed down from one generation to the next. Today, it’s easier to find information, but easier to skip fundamentals too. Classic techniques like mortise and tenon joinery often get replaced by quicker modern methods, even though they’re still among the strongest and most reliable options available. The techniques I want to share here are ones many beginners miss—but mastering them can instantly level up your woodworking.

Technique #1: Cutting a Mortise Using a Drill Press

The traditional way to assemble furniture—whether it’s a dining chair, a table base, or a workbench—is with mortise and tenon joints. Most woodworkers aren’t afraid of cutting the tenon. The part that intimidates people is cutting the mortise.

And that’s understandable. Cutting mortises by hand with a chisel is slow, physical work, and it takes practice to get clean results. There are dedicated mortising machines that make this easy, but they’re specialty tools, and most home shops don’t have the space or budget for one. I don’t have one either.

What I do have is a drill press—and that’s all you really need.

Turning a Drill Press Into a Mortising Machine

With the right attachment, a drill press can cut square mortises quickly and accurately.

The setup uses a two-part mortising bit:

• An inner drill bit, similar to a brad-point bit, that removes most of the material
• A square hollow chisel around it that squares the corners and forces waste into the drill bit

The drill bit does the bulk of the cutting. The chisel cleans up the edges.

This mortising attachment mounts to the drill press and locks the chisel in place so it cannot rotate. The drill press spindle turns the drill bit inside, while the square chisel stays fixed.

Setting Up for Accurate Mortises

The most critical part of this setup is the fence.

You need a fence mounted to the drill press table that is perfectly parallel to the face of the chisel. That’s the trickiest part of the whole process. Once that’s dialed in, everything else is straightforward.

In this example, I’m cutting a ½-inch mortise centered in a 1½-inch-wide workpiece. I set the fence so the bit is exactly centered.

To cut the mortise, you simply make a series of overlapping plunges. Each plunge creates a square hole, and together they form the mortise.

The Results

The result coming off the machine isn’t pretty. The sides will be scalloped, and the bottom won’t be perfectly flat. That’s completely normal.

A few minutes with a sharp chisel cleans up the walls easily.

The bottom of the mortise will still look rough—and that’s fine. A mortise should always be cut slightly deeper than the tenon anyway. That extra depth prevents the tenon from bottoming out and allows the joint to pull tight.

If you take apart old antique furniture, you’ll see this exact approach. The mortises were deeper than the tenons on purpose. Perfection at the bottom simply isn’t necessary.

Technique #2: Cutting Tenons on a Table Saw

Once the mortise is done, the tenon is actually the easy part.

You can cut tenons accurately and repeatably on a table saw using a simple tenoning jig. This doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated—in fact, mine is made from scrap plywood and took about 15 minutes to build.

A Simple Shop-Made Tenoning Jig

The jig rides over the table saw fence and holds the workpiece vertically. There are two things that matter here:

1. The jig must be square to the table
2. The workpiece must be held square and securely

As long as those two conditions are met, the cuts will be straight and consistent.

The jig needs to fit snugly over the fence: tight enough that it doesn’t wobble, but loose enough that it slides smoothly.

Setting the Saw for the Tenon Cuts

There are two critical measurements:

• Blade height, which determines the tenon thickness
• Distance from the blade to the jig’s backboard, which determines how much material is removed

I set both to ½ inch for this example, using a digital height gauge and a steel rule. This is one place where accuracy really matters—tenons should fit snugly in their mortises.

After clamping the workpiece to the jig, I make a cut on one face, then flip the board and make the same cut on the opposite face.

That creates the cheeks of the tenon.

Cutting the Shoulders

With the cheeks cut, the tenon is almost complete. The remaining step is cutting the shoulders.

I reset the blade height and use the miter gauge (or a sled) to remove the waste from the shoulders. This defines the final tenon length.

For the last cleanup cuts, I often switch to a hand saw. A small Japanese saw works well here, especially because it cuts on the pull stroke and gives excellent control.

A simple L-shaped block makes a great guide to keep the cut square.

Once those cuts are done, the tenon is ready to fit.

Technique #3: Jointing Boards Without a Jointer

The whole purpose of jointing boards is to get straight, clean edges so we can glue boards together properly. Most lumber you buy at a home center has already been jointed, assuming it hasn’t warped. But if you’re buying hardwood from a hardwood supplier, that lumber usually comes rough—and it’s not jointed.

The traditional solution is a jointer plane. A long jointer plane does a great job of removing waves and flattening an edge. It worked 200 years ago, and it still works today. But it takes time and effort, and not everyone wants to do that by hand.

So what do you do if you don’t have a jointer?

You use your table saw.

The Two Things That Must Be Right

Before you even try this, two things matter:

1. Your table saw must run true, without excessive blade wobble
2. Your fence must be perfectly parallel to the blade
   

If either of those is off, you won’t get a clean, straight edge.

Creating a Straight Edge from Nothing

Let’s say neither edge of your board is straight. That’s fine—you only need one straight reference.

I take a board that I know is straight and temporarily attach it to my workpiece using double-sided masking tape. This is one of my favorite shop tricks.

If you look at the offcut afterward, you’ll see exactly what was wrong with the edge—thin shavings in some spots, thicker ones in others. That tells you the edge was never straight to begin with.

Now I remove the reference board (and the tape—don’t gum up your blade), reset the fence, and cut the opposite edge. At this point, I have two straight, parallel edges that are square to the face because I already set the blade square to the table.

The board is now jointed and ready for edge gluing.

Fixing a Bad Glue-Up with the Table Saw

This trick is also incredibly useful after a glue-up.

If you’ve ever glued boards together and ended up with tiny gaps at the ends—even though the middle looks tight—you’re not alone. A lot of people try to fix that by cranking down on the clamps. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it just builds stress into the panel that shows up later.

The better fix is simple: Rip right down the glue line.

That gives you two freshly jointed edges that match perfectly. Reglue them, and the panel will close up cleanly without stress.

Technique #4: Cutting Perfect Miter Joints (Every Time)

Miter joints are simple in theory and frustrating in practice.

Being off by even a fraction of a degree is enough to leave a visible gap—and when you’re making a frame with four corners, those errors add up fast. You usually end up with at least one ugly corner.

The problem isn’t the cut itself. The problem is setup.

Every miter requires two setups, one for each angle. If we can eliminate repeated setups, we can dramatically improve accuracy.

Why a Miter Sled Beats a Miter Saw

I’ve cut good miters on miter saws and radial arm saws. They can work. But even with detents, you don’t always land exactly on 45°. A miter sled on the table saw solves that.

The difference between a crosscut sled and a miter sled is simple:

• Crosscut sled: designed for 90°
• Miter sled: designed for two opposing 45° cuts

Building the Miter Sled

The sled itself is built like any other sled: runners in the miter slots, a base, and a back support. The key part is the reference triangle, which must be a known perfect 90°.

I make that reference from plywood—either the corner of a sheet or a carefully verified square piece.

I make the runners slightly proud so the sled rides on the runners instead of dragging on the table. Less friction. Then I wax the runners with beeswax to make everything glide smoothly.

The base of the sled must be square to the blade. That’s easy to verify with a square against a raised blade.

Next, I attach the reference triangle so each face sits at exactly 45° to the blade. A speed square or drafting triangle makes this easy.

The Trick That Makes This Foolproof

Here’s the part most people miss. You always cut mating pieces on opposite sides of the sled.

One piece gets cut on the left face. 

The mating piece gets cut on the right face.

When those come together, the joint will always close to a perfect 90°, even if the sled itself isn’t absolutely perfect—because both cuts reference the same known square. That’s how you get tight miters.

Technique #5: Flattening a Twisted Board

Warp comes in many forms—cup, bow, crook—but twist is the worst. You can usually work around other defects. A twisted board is nearly unusable as-is.

Traditionally, twist was removed with a hand plane. Some shops use large jointers with long beds. But most home woodworkers don’t have an 8-inch jointer—and they do have a planer.

So here’s how you flatten a twisted board using a planer.

Creating a Planer Sled

The planer needs a flat reference surface. So the first thing I do is find a board that I know is flat and untwisted. That becomes my sled.

I place the twisted board on top and support the low corners with wedges until the board no longer rocks. The goal is stability, not force.

Once it’s supported, I temporarily attach the boards together using hot-melt glue. The beauty of hot glue is that it holds firmly—but it can be removed later.

Planing the Twist Away

I run the assembly through the planer, taking light passes until the entire top surface is clean. If the board is discolored, it’s easy to see progress. If not, a pencil squiggle works just as well.

Once the surface is fully planed, that face is now flat.

I separate the boards, flip the workpiece over, and plane the opposite face until it’s parallel.

Yes, you lose some thickness—but you end up with a board that’s actually usable.

Technique #6: Domino Joints Using a Doweling Jig

Domino joinery has become incredibly popular, and for good reason. You see it everywhere now—especially in videos where people are joining panels, tabletops, or slabs.

Let me say this right up front though: dominoes don’t make wood stronger. The wood is already strong on its own. What dominoes do really well is alignment.

If you’re edge-gluing a tabletop and you’re worried about pieces shifting, or you’re working with slabs and want everything to stay flush during glue-up, dominoes are very helpful. The problem is the cost. A dedicated domino machine is expensive, and for most home woodworkers, that’s a tough pill to swallow.

The good news is, you can achieve the same result with a simple doweling jig that costs a fraction of the price.

Setting Up the Jig for “Domino” Slots

This jig is designed for doweling, but we’re not going to use it that way.

One of the key features is that it allows you to install two drill bushings spaced 3/4 inch apart. I’ve installed two 1/4-inch bushings here, which will define the width of our slot.

Next, I mark both mating boards. This step is critical. The marks must be identical on both pieces, because whatever holes we drill in one board need to line up perfectly with the other.

Using the alignment window on the jig, I line up my marks with the centerlines of the two bushings.

Drilling the Slot

I start by drilling the two outer holes using both bushings. These establish the ends of the slot.

Once those are drilled, I slide the jig slightly and drill a series of overlapping holes between them. At this point, I only need to use one bushing—the second bushing was only necessary to establish the initial spacing.

After drilling, the slot will look a bit scalloped. That’s normal. The flutes of the drill bit will clean most of that out, and anything left behind isn’t an issue for glue strength or alignment.

Now I repeat the exact same process on the mating board, using the same layout marks.

Making the Domino

Because this “domino” is thin (about 1/4 inch thick and just under an inch wide) you can’t round the edges with a router bit.

Instead, I use a block plane. A few light passes are all it takes to round over the edges. Then I cut the piece to length, and I’ve got a perfectly usable domino.

Once everything is cut, the domino slips right into place, aligning the two boards cleanly and accurately.

And that’s really the takeaway here.

You don’t need an expensive specialty machine to get the benefits of domino joinery. With a simple doweling jig, a drill, and a little patience, you can get the same alignment advantage for a fraction of the cost.

Final Words

If any of these techniques felt unfamiliar, that’s a good sign. It means you’ve just added new tools to your thinking, not your shopping list. These are the kinds of methods that don’t always show up in beginner tutorials or even advanced courses, yet they effectively solve problems that every woodworker eventually runs into.

The next time you face a twisted board, a stubborn joint, or a misaligned glue-up, you’ll recognize the situation and know how to handle it. That’s what these techniques are really about: removing guesswork, giving you options, and helping you work through problems instead of around them.

Overall, these techniques are practical solutions that experienced woodworkers rely on because they’re repeatable, forgiving, and effective. Learn them, practice them, and let them raise the level of everything you build.