July 30, 2016

Practicum: Application of Skills Part 2

Time got away from me last Sunday, and didn't make it out to the shop again until today.  It's probably a good thing as the tapering jig ended up posing a lot of difficulty, and it alone is nearly an article in and of itself.  Today I made the adjustable stop and the tapering jig, which primarily used rip and cross cuts to complete.

Adjustable stop

Tapering jig
Once again the voice activation on my phone's camera was acting up again, so I didn't get as many pictures as I would like.  I get into a flow when I'm working, and forget to move over to the tripod and snap a shot, or I forget to move the tripod entirely and it's in completely the wrong location.  I'm pondering some different options to bypass this difficulty, but it will be a little bit before I'm able to do anything with them.  Soon!

Adjustable Stop

The adjustable stop is made from 2x4 and 3/4" ply wood.  I "milled" the 2x4 on the table saw, and it's pretty darn close to square.  John Heisz has a really great video demonstrating a good way to do this.  He also has a much more in depth article about the process.


After cutting the side pieces, I placed them loosely to either side of the fence and measured across to determine the length of the top.  Since I have the 520 Pro Fence, the dimensions given in Power Tool Woodworking For Everyone don't work, as they are for much smaller fences.  I ripped some scrap plywood to width, then cut it down to about 5 inches.

Cross cutting the side pieces

Pretty good!

Taking measurements for the top piece

Ripping some plywood to width for the top

Cross cutting to length


I drilled pilot holes for the screws, and then laid out the marks for the threaded T-nut, and used a 1/2" spade bit to drill it out.  I hammered the T-nut into place, and used some scrap wood and c-clamps to finish pressing it down nearly flush with the wood.

Pilot holes drilled, now preparing to drill for the threaded T-nut

Hammer it home!

Hammered into place

Top attached with screws only

Then it was a simple matter of screwing the top on to the sides, and threading in the eye-bolt.

Locking eye-bolt threaded into T-nut

In position!


Tapering Jig

Next I moved my attention to the tapering jig.  I originally planned to use plywood for this jig, but all of my scrap of sufficient size are slightly bowed.  A couple of weeks ago, I got some really nice hard country maple, and thought I'd use that instead.  I only have a small amount, so I ripped and cross cut the two smallest boards.  They were somewhat rough, and one of them was slightly bowed, so I thought I'd try out my jointer.  This was an utter failure.  I'm going to have to read up on jointer functionality and dealing with slightly bowed stock.  I should have stuck with the table saw method.

The piece that was sad
I'll be able to salvage some usable stock from this, but it was not suitable for the jig with the skills and tools I have available.  I dug deep and managed to find a piece of plywood that was in good enough shape, so I used that instead.

 I ripped the stock to width, then cross cut to length. 
Ripping to width
There wasn't much cutting for this project.  Mostly it was hardware.  After cutting the arms, I cut the stop block to size, drilled a 1/4" inch hole through it with a 5/8" counter sink on the bottom to accept the carriage bolt, then glued it to one of the arms taking care to keep it flush with the back edge.

Gluing stop block into place
After the glue dried, I laid the arms end-to-end and positioned the hinge.  I marked the screw positions, and carefully drilled pilot holes, and screwed the hinge in place.  Self-centering bits are definitely a purchase I will make soon!  

Hinge placement
 The cross-tie is made from a small piece of 1/2" plywood that I found in the scrap bin.  Using the plans, I measured and marked a 12"x2" blank for all the cuts and holes.  I used a 1/4" bit to drill the two end holes of the slot, drew some connecting lines, and cut out the rest of the waste with my jig-saw.  I cleaned it up as best as I could with a file, but it's a bit rough.  It works fine, though, so that's good enough for a shop jig!  I then set up the bandsaw and cut the tapers...for the tapering jig...Mhm.

Cross tie in place
I measured 12" down from the hinge end, and made a square mark across both arms, made corresponding marks on the cross-tie at the 1:12, 2:12, 3:12 points.  At full extension, this jig cuts a taper at just under 3.75":12".  It is also much larger than I thought it would be!

Set up at a 3":12" taper
Marks at the 12" point for calibration

In the process of making this jig, I made an unfortunate discovery regarding my cabinet.  While preparing the stop, I needed to bore a 1/4" hole through the center of the wood.  I was going to use the horizontal boring function, but much to my chagrin, the cabinet top stops the table's support tubes from descending far enough to position the table below the level of the drill chuck.  I will have to make some adjustments.

After all is said and done, though, it was a productive day.  I have now finished the 4 jigs that I thought would showcase the skills that I learned in the first five assignments of lesson 1!




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