Part 4: Learn All The Things!!! Flat Miters and Tapers

I spent the holiday weekend traveling around AZ with my wife, which necessarily removes me from the shop and my computer.  We had an amazing time seeing some of the high country and small towns in northern Arizona, and it was a necessary breath of fresh air from the city that recharged us both.  I foresee many more trips to the Prescott/Jerome/Sedona area in the near future.  I continued on Lesson 2, completing Assignments 8,9, and 10, but ran into some difficulty with my video editing software, and was unable to properly export.  I've since switched to KDENlive, but had to learn how to use that.

A short planter, with some math problems

Wait...I did this already!

Consider this a mitered rip cut.

Assignment 9 was the creation of a tapering jig.  It's slightly different than the one I made a few weeks ago, and frankly, I didn't find it to be as usable, so I skipped this Assignment in favor of the jig I had already completed.  Hooray for over-achievement!

Assignment 8 continues the concepts of Assignment 7, in that it's still basic mitered cross cuts in flat stock; however, this builds on that concept by taking the cut pieces and making a short, tapered planter instead of a frame.  Sort of a 3D application, which is important when considering design elements.  There was another bit of math oddity in this assignment, though, which had me scratching my head for a few minutes, wondering if I was crazy.  In the picture above, the dimensions for the mitered pieces are shown as 8" tall and 8.75" wide; however, following the directions starts with creating 4 8"x8" squares which then have two sides cut on an 85 degree angle.  Since you can't cut wood longer, I concluded this was a typo, but it threw me off for a minute since I'm apparently a little slow sometimes.

Assignment 10 demonstrates a similar concept. Rather than a mitered cross cut, however, it is a mitered rip cut.  This is more conventionally called a taper.  There are many different jigs you can make for cutting tapers, Jay Bates made a really neat one.  It is the second one on this list of table saw jigs. There's another interesting one by Garage Woodworks.  Mine is much more simplistic, but it works well enough.

This video demonstrates the process for both the mitered cross cuts, as well as the tapered rip cuts.

When cutting tapers on opposite sides of a piece of lumber, it's important to remember to double the angle of the jig when cutting the second side.  This is because the board references against what is essentially a modified fence.  When you make your first cut, there's no problem, but if you flip the board over, you're now referencing the cut side against the angle that created it.  This cancels out the angle, so no material will be removed.

This assignment called for four 16" long pieces cut with a 1/2" per 12" taper.  On the taper jig, I have squared reference lines across the top edge of the jig at 12" from the hinge end.  By setting those points 1/2" from each other, I established the correct angle.  I set the fence so that upper left corner of each board just came into contact with the blade when seated in the jig.  After all 4 boards were cut, I doubled the angle on the jig to 1" per 12", then cut the opposing side.

After all the cuts for the the flat miter and tapers were made, I glued and nailed the pieces together making a short and a tall tapered planter (without a bottom at this time).

Short sections ready for glue and nails

Gluing up the tall planter

Stretch and Stumpy!

 Missed what's come before?  Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 are here!