A slab Gage for the Band saw log slicer/Resaw Jig

Not long ago I reported on a method to "re saw fairly large logs on the band saw":http://lumberjocks.com/projects/2400.
The system works great with one exception:
It takes too long to orient the next cut.
To improve this situation I made yet another jig that I place the BS sled on and Line up.


As you can see there is a vertical fence that can be adjusted from zero to about 4-1/2"

I can now parallel the cut face to the fence , and quickly set the width of cut and keep the cut face parallel with the saw blade.


This last shot shows a piece of wood slabbed off at 5/4 thickness . I will plane both sides now and split it again on the bandsaw to get to my final width of 1/2".

Finally, a Shooting Board of my very own!

After seeing the neat job that "MOT/ Tom did with his shooting board":http://lumberjocks.com/projects/3003 I was enticed to make one of my own.
I am in the middle of milling some wood for small boxes so I will needed something to handle these small gauge materials.
I am a pack rat and wood hoarder by genetic make up so when I dug through one of my precious piles of scrap I found an old poplar plywood shelf, a piece of arborite (Tom's idea) and a piece of 3/4" fir flooring plywood.
The rest were off cuts of oak walnut etc that would have been firewood.
Once I milled the stops to dead flat and square the rest went fairly quickly.
You have to get the stop lined up with the shooting edge at or very near 90 degrees and the shooting edge should be almost perfect in length and vertical as possible.
The reason I split the stop in two pieces was to allow for an alignment should the need occur.
I can shim the walnut piece on either end to shift the workpiece to plumb.

Once the board was assembled I could use my plane to flush trim the stop block and align the guide edge up to the stop block. Tom was right about the arborite under the plane ,it really reduced the drag, I had to cut a 1/2" relief under the top board to let the arborite slip under for a good fit.

Next I tested with my low angle block plane. Not a really good one but it does the trick.
It cut the African black wood like a butter knife and gave me a nice sharp 90 degree angle.

Next I made the 45 degree attachment for lining up flat boards as per picture frames and box corners etc.
These have to be dead on so take your time if you are making one of these.


The final shot was a jig to get 45's on the bevels . I have always had a problem with this cut and spent many moons sanding the wood until it was too short. I'm hoping this jig will eliminate a lot of that.

The next step is to get some decent plane irons so Mr. Hock will be getting a call soon.

Here are "references for the plans I used":http://www.woodskills.com/Tutorials/ShootingBoardPlan.html   http://www.woodskills.com/Tutorials/ShootingBoardPlan.html

Enjoy

Bob

Simple divider for centering cuts on edges of common boards.

Finding center can be frustrating when you are in the shop and need a quick way to place a biscuit or dowel or mortise.
This simple math trick does the job for you.

Drill two holes in a piece of 3/8" thick stock that are 2" a part and exactly the size of your selected dowel material
The center hole should be the diameter of your favorite pencil stock.
All the holes must line up along a straight pencil line for this to work.
Drill a hole dead center between the previous dowels for the pencil.
If it's a bit loose set a screw through the side of your wood to hold it .

That's it!

By placing a dowel on each side of your wood and running down the stock with the dowels touching the sides you will draw a line dead center on the work.
You may want to stack more layers up to hold the pencil so the sharp end doesn't protrude as much.

Enjoy Bob

A larger centering jig for wider stock

After I made the small "centering gage last week":http://lumberjocks.com/projects/3023 I decided yesterday that I could use a larger one as well for drawers and the odd cut on plywood .
I picked up a package of 1/4" brass threaded inserts from Lee valley tools last week as well as a knurled set screw to hold the pencil in place.!http://www.leevalley.com/images/item/hardware/jigfixtureparts/44z0201s1.jpg!
I had a piece of mahogany lying about that had the height and width i needed so I cleaned it up with my fore plane and proceeded to mark the stick out to recieve the inserts and hole for the pencil

 The centering of the inserts was easy using the drill press and a fence to line things up on the center mark from my smaller gage.
To make sure the hole were equidistant from the center I used stop on the fence and drilled the first hole them fiipped the stick round and dropped in it's mate.
the layout took about 15 minutes because I wanted to check everyting but the actual drilliing was only about 5 minutes.

Here's another shot showing how I made the centering pins from some 2-1/2" bolts with the heads sawed off.
I was going to use brass rod for the pins but the Borg needs $18.50 for three feet of 1/4".

What they don't know will kill them.

I layed out the top curve with a french curve and ran it through the bandsaw.

It took about an hour and half of piddling and about 20 mins actual work to make this.


Question... Am I anal enough to put a finish on it?

p.s. The complete project is in shopnotes VOl 15 issue 86 page 24...

Cheers Bob

Box joint jigs for the router table

I don't know wether I should be praising the merits of the Grr-ripper today or explaining the build of my new box joint jig.
This picture shows how useful the Grr-ripper can be when working with small stock and needing dead on accuracy.

The part cut is oak and will be the guide bar for my 1/4" box joint template.
I cut it in a matter of seconds in complete safety and it measures 1/4" on both ends of the stick. That's first for me as the saw usually creeps up on the loose end of a piece like this. I would not attempt this without a grr-ripper on a table saw.



With the Grr-ripper I was able to cut 3 keys for the jig in less than 3 minutes including set up time.
I set the saw gap with metal lathe cutting tools that just happen to come in fractions so I have a range of them from 3/16" to 1/2" and use them instead of measuring. (look for them at any tool shop that sells metal lathes.) Thes one came from BusyBee tools in Canada and range around 2-4 bucks each.
The Grr-ripper allows one leg to sit on top of the wood while the other leg can be adjusted to balance the rig when passing over the blade.

I left the keys full length for the glue up so they would rest on the base of the jig and be parallel to the sliding table
I'll cut them off long enough to hold a series of boards for gang cutting the box joints. Incidently, that is why I abandoned my other style of jig. This seems like it will give me more control over the cuts.

The way I positioned the keyway is shown here.
I cut the first a slot in the jig dead center and just slightly higher than 1/4".
I want the ends of the joints to be just proud of the sides for finishing.
The method for getting the keyway position is simple now.
Just put the first keyway in the first slot and and a suitable key spacer next to it. ( in this case the 1/4" measuring bar stock.
Lock the jig at the back and run the slot.


What I have now is a "carriage" with the keyed jigs mounted on the front.
The carriage follows the outside of my router guide bushing allowing me complete freedom to push and or pull the stock past the cutter.
I don't have to line up the router bit anymore as the brass bushing takes care of it as long as the router dosen't move in the table. ***** a caution for those of you that pull your router out for other tasks.*

Here's a shot of the bushing I used. I used a fairly large one - (3/4") in anticipation of also using this jig to cut my pins for dovetails. ( more on that later)

Today I had time to run some 5/16" stock and test the jig for spacing and accuracy.
It took a bit of getting used to so I ended up cutting about 5 joints before I got the hang of it but here's what you should be able to get with this jig:

I will now make notes in my log book for future reference. This generally shortens my setup time next time I use the jig.
p.s.
This is the jig I made first , then realized it used a lot of materials up for each size change.

A picture showing the front of this jig:

A chess set

I built this a while back but never got around to posting it .
The chess board is made from maple and walnut and finished with poly.

From New Album 12/23/08 9:29 AM

From chess set

The chess pieces are made from holly and cocobolo and finished with turners polish.
Each piece is drilled a lead weighted with old lead from tire balancers.
The base were then felted to prevent scratches.

From New Album 12/23/08 9:29 AM

Each piece was turned and then hand finished for detail.

From New Album 12/23/08 9:29 AM

From New Album 12/23/08 9:29 AM

I estimate I put about 40- 45 hours into this project.

Make your own lathe tool rests for less

From turning tools

Here's link to a series of steps I annotated for construction of lathe rests and similar tools.