SCREEN SHOTS CAN SAVE YOU

Sometimes you need to prove that a payment went through. Or capture a dumb tweet for posterity before your friend deletes it. Maybe you just want to prove to the IT guy that you’re not a moron. Here’s how to take a screen shot.

WHEN YOU DROP a tray of small parts, like short screws or plastic wire connectors, it’s a nightmare to pick them up. Things become dire if you’ve dropped them on thick carpet or grass. A classic strategy is to use a magnet to pick them up, but what if the parts aren’t magnetic? Reader Derek Grozinger of Ottawa, Ontario, suggests a shop-vac hack that can help. Find a thin, porous piece of fabric, like an old undershirt, tear off a small piece and stretch it over the end of the vacuum’s hose. Secure it in place with rubber bands. Now turn on the vacuum and allow the suction to pick up the pieces. The fabric allows air through, but keeps the parts at the end of the hose.

Bottle caps protect clamped surfaces

If you’re clamping a surface and you’re worried the clamp isn’t sufficiently padded to keep it from marring the surface, try putting a bottle cap between the clamp and the workpiece.

Tape prevents jagged plywood

On plywood, a table saw can cause the veneer to splinter and separate. A quick fix: along the path the blade will travel, apply masking tape to both sides of the plywood. Remove it when the cut is finished. The tape holds the wood fibres in place.

A better way to remove nails from trim

During a renovation, you may want to preserve old trim or moulding – if it’s exquisite and your house is old enough, it’d probably cost an arm and a leg to reproduce. Once you’ve taken it off the wall, you need to remove old nails. You could hammer the tips to back them out of their original holes, but that would ruin the face of finished trim. Instead, assuming they are finishing nails with small heads, grip the shaft with locking pliers and use a rocking motion to pull them through the back.