- Read Time: 6 mins
- Hits: 51326
I always amazed at just how effective shop made jigs can be. With a small investment in time and the knowledge of how they work to be most effective, anyone can build jigs like this sharpening jig and get good results. Years ago I purchased a somewhat expensive commercial sharpening jig, and it works well and is very versatile, but you know what? When I first set it up to sharpen my blades at 25 degrees angle, I have not adjusted it since then, so all the extra settings and things it will do, I have never used. The sharpening jig I am making in this episode is equally adjustable, but most people who make it will probably do the same thing I did, set it up to sharpen at 25 degrees angle and leave it there because the results are just what we need.
To start off making this jig I used a piece of dowel that was 1-1/4 inche in diameter and 4 inche long. That lenght seemed to a nice size that would accomodate all my blades and still have room for something larger if I ever acquired it ...
- Read Time: 5 mins
- Hits: 24492
Making circles and cutting holes in wood can be accomplished in many ways such as ... the bandsaw, a jig saw, scroll saw, fret saw a hole saw, and even some others that are less common. Making circles or holes in wood is not always easy, depending on the tool, sometimes the circles or holes are not really round and very often the edges are quite rough, which sometime doesn't matter, but in some cases, and nice clean edge and a perfect circle are exactly what is needed.
One of the ways to make holes or circles is using a router fitted with a suitable straight bit. The problem with doing this with full size routers is that they are big and bulky and often the sizes of the cut-out can be quite small, which is exactly why I am making this Circle Jig for my Trim or Compact Router.
Making a Circle Jig is pretty easy and doesn't take that long to make, but there are some procedures to follow to make it easier to make and more functional ...
- Read Time: 9 mins
- Hits: 11800
Featherboards are not used nearly as often as they could be for a few reasons, they are time consuming to make, they often don't work as well as they could and sometimes they are difficult to mount on your machinery. In this video I am taking one of the elements away, which is making, good quality featherboards that will give you consistent and repeatable results with little setup (depending on your equipment).
The biggest problem I have always had is making featherboards with consistently thin fingers that will give me the kind of pressure I need for use on my router table or table saw. This jig solves that problem and speeds up the process too.
Watch this and other similar videos on YouTube - https://youtu.be/UAPWB368sG0
I first tried to use my "Lynn Sabin" box joint jig (kindly provided free, by Leeway Workshop), but the design of it simply doesn't not work well for featherboards. You can see more on the box joint jig I made right on this website here. I decided to try to re-design it using the same principal of using a threaded bar a the indexing component and went about making a prototype featherboard jig. I seldom need to make prototypes but I do find them useful at times when I don't have a clear vision for the end product. The prototype I made worked OK, but not nearly as well as I hoped, but what I learned making it was what I could do to improve it and so here is what I did ...
- Read Time: 9 mins
- Hits: 2758
Featherboards are not used nearly as often as they could be for a few reasons, they are time consuming to make, they often don't work as well as they could and sometimes they are difficult to mount on your machinery. In this video I am taking one of the elements away, which is making, good quality featherboards that will give you consistent and repeatable results with little setup (depending on your equipment).
The biggest problem I have always had is making featherboards with consistently thin fingers that will give me the kind of pressure I need for use on my router table or table saw. This jig solves that problem and speeds up the process too.
Watch this and other similar videos on YouTube - https://youtu.be/UAPWB368sG0
I first tried to use my "Lynn Sabin" box joint jig (kindly provided free, by Leeway Workshop), but the design of it simply doesn't not work well for featherboards. You can see more on the box joint jig I made right on this website here. I decided to try to re-design it using the same principal of using a threaded bar a the indexing component and went about making a prototype featherboard jig. I seldom need to make prototypes but I do find them useful at times when I don't have a clear vision for the end product. The prototype I made worked OK, but not nearly as well as I hoped, but what I learned making it was what I could do to improve it and so here is what I did ...