How To Effortlessly Make A Secret Compartment In A Book

Secret compartments are great for hiding things whether you are a child or an adult. People are fascinated by secret doors and hidden compartments.

With some basic woodworking tools you'll learn a new way how to make secret compartments in books very fast and easy.

  There are other ways to do this that require utility knives and rulers and cutting out a few pages at a time to get your desired  depth of the compartment. It does not always look nice and takes a lot of time. 

  This way is different and requires a few basic woodworking skills and tools. It can go very fast and you can do a few books in a very short time. If you have a drill press it will go even quicker.

     Tools Needed -  Drill, Clamps, Wood and Hole Saw

                     
 A cordless drill will work for the holesaw but some care must be taken.  Some corded drills may have too much power and it would be harder to control. Always be careful for kick-back. Of course the drill press at a slow speed would be the best.

 The items and steps shown below can be used for both the cordless drill and drill press.  

   Wooden hand screw clamps are inexpensive and are a very handy tool to have. These clamps have a deep throat  and can hold odd shapes easily.

   















  Two pieces of wood are used to hold the pages, they should be large enough to cover the whole page. This will give you best results by keeping everything tightly clamped and also give you enough room for the hole saw. 

                

Hole Saws or hole cutters are a saw blade that cut holes in a workpiece. By securely clamping the wood to the pages the saw will cut through the top board the pages until it hits the bottom board.
  

Keep an eye on the pilot drill since it will go through the bottom board.  



Here is the first test using the drill press-





This was the first test and it turned out great. It was done with a 2.5" hole saw. Now it is time to move to a bigger hole saw and bigger books to make larger compartments. 


Second Book with the Cordless Drill-

         

  This time the cordless drill is used and three holes will be drilled. To get an idea where to drill roughly draw the page and a couple of circles where you want you holes. Here is the  first cut with the cordless drill and hole saw.                                               

  

















This is hole number 2 for the second book. The hole saw should be checked frequently to inspect the depth  and the papers inside should be removed. 

     The book has three holes drilled in it and it turned out great. A gold necklace was placed inside the secret compartment.

Third Book with the Drill Press and Timer-

The third book is done with the drill press and a 3.5" hole saw. The whole process took about 11.47 minutes. The clock was stopped a few times to empty the paper in the hole saw, but you get the idea.

After one book is drilled out a next book would be ready to go. This is a very fast way to make secret compartments of different sizes and shapes. 

In one hour many books could be drilled out.



If you find this easy to make let me know, and will you try it?



See also:

       Towel holder                         Make a Hovercraft                   Bending wood

  
                                            

Wooden Candle Holder

Easy woodworking project


Wooden candle holders are an easy project to make and are great for gifts. I wanted to make them different so I added an extra hole and this will be for the matches.

To start I found different types of wood in my scrap pile and cut them to size.

The types of wood I found were oak, brazilian cherry, yellow cedar and the last one I did not know what type it was. If you know please let me know.

Some of the blocks are glued and clamped together to give me the right height. After the glue had dried I cleaned them on the saw and belt sander.

A 1 1/2" Forstner bit was used to drill the hole, this will be the right size for the tealight candles. 


Note;
Make sure to measure the candles, I had an assortment lying around the house and found they were all different sizes. 

                            The depth of the hole  should be the same as the height 
                      of the candle. I use my  vacuum setup  to keep the                                         sawdust under control.

  I needed to  drill some holes at an angle so I came up with this jig for my drill press. It sits nice on the table and easy to set at any angle. Drilling these holes turned out to be quite easy with this jig. I may make a video on this jig.

    These holes are drilled with a 3/4" Forstner bit. The angle is not important         as  long as the matches do not fall out. The depth should also be measured     to fit  the length of the matches.  

                       To round the edges a bit I used my small block plane. I
                       always thought these things looked like toys but after 
                       using it I found it to be a very handy tool.

You can also find me:                                   

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See also:

Wooden scroll holder       Kitchen utensil box         Spray can rack