20 unusual uses for workshop tools

If you’re one of the many DIYers who has an excessive amount of leftover PVC pipe cluttering your workspace, don’t worry! There are a surprising number of unusual uses for all that PVC pipe, one of the best of which is transforming it into a sander.

Trim one side of the PVC pipe and adhere sandpaper to create a curved sanding tool for curved surfaces. Get the full instructions here.

Another great use for PVC is to use it as rollers, allowing you to move and position large or heavy items with precision and relative ease.

Using the same techniques employed by ancient builders in the construction of stone works, this clever use of PVC pipe permits items like landscaping stones and lumber to be moved with minimal stress and strain.

Check out these PVC storage ideas.

Tools such as bench grinders and vises are tremendously useful, but can take up valuable space, especially in a small shop. If you have more than one bench tool, you can quickly find yourself at a loss for work space.

Try this: mount your bench-based workshop tools on a wooden bench hook and use clamps or a French cleat to create swappable space for your bench tools.

This clever hack will extend the life of a blade and prevent cuts to errant fingers. A simple length of garden hose with a slit down the middle can be slipped over the blade of a bow saw to add a layer of removable protection.

This trick works with a length of PVC as well, but a garden hose is easier to slice, and its flexibility makes it easier to slip on and off.

Find out how to protect garden tools from rust and corrosion.

Pegboards are a common organisation tool found in DIY garages and workshops worldwide. But why limit the peg hangers to the simple shapes that manufacturers provide? In true DIY fashion, standard peg hangers can be bent and formed to hold specific objects.

When used in this unusual fashion, peg hangers hold workshop tools more securely, and their custom shapes make it easy to see what tools are in their place and which ones are not.

Everyone knows vinyl gutters are a robust and cost-efficient method for water redirection, but there’s a surprising way that they can also be part of workshop organisation. A spare length of vinyl gutter, trimmed to the length of your workbench and capped on either end, becomes a catchall for often used workshop tools.

And when it’s time to wipe the bench clean, simply sweep sawdust or other debris into the gutter, pop off one of the two caps, and dump all the waste into a bin or suck it up with a shop vacuum.

These garage organisation ideas will change your life.

A common frustration for DIYers is dealing with the irregular shapes of furniture legs and spindles. Avoid the headache of sanding or staining intricate shapes by using PVC pipe as a dip tube. Just be sure to glue a cap to the bottom end of the tube to avoid leaks!

Want to know more about refinishing furniture? Learn all the secrets from a seasoned pro.

Precision demo work can be a real pain, and one of the worst offenders is cutting out PVC drains, especially when flanked on either side by supply lines. Avoid risking damage to the supply lines by using a very unusual substitute for a demo saw: a loop of sturdy string.

Cut a small notch to give the string an initial “bite”, then wrap the string around the pipe and pull back and forth to cut through the drain line. Another tactic is to wrap the string around the pipe in a full loop, and pull back and forth, increasing pressure slightly with each tug. This has the advantage of making it easier to keep the cut flat and level.

A braided mason’s line makes a good string saw, but if you’re in a pinch, you can also use the string from a plumb bob or chalk line.

Most guides on how to deal with clogged drains jump right to plungers and drain snakes. But if you have a simple clog that isn’t too far down the drain and don’t want to break out the standard plumbing workshop tools, try using a grabber tool instead. Simply insert it down the drain, and actuate the grabber to clutch onto any clogged debris.

This is also a great method for reclaiming small items without dealing with the hassle of disassembling the trap. Just keep in mind that you’ll want to scrub the grabber clean after you’re done!

Don’t miss these 30 secrets your plumber won’t tell you. 

If you need to ease the strain on moving parts but don’t have any graphite lubricant on hand, just grab a pencil. Since the “lead” in pencils is really just graphite, the powder from pencil lead is essentially the same as store-bought graphite powder. This trick works great on things like door hinges (as shown here) or in locks, by loading the teeth of a key with pencil lead.

A carpenter’s pencil works especially well for this, with the wider lead allowing for faster and more efficient coating.