I’m making an arts and craft style library table that was presented in a copy of FWW this year. I had some concerns with safely making the 5 piece assembly for each leg. The leg consisted of 4 outside pieces to display the fleck from the quarter sawn white oak with a square center core.
After completing the setup on my table saw (as I saw it in the article) I ran a few test cuts and was uncomfortable with the process. If you look at the article, you’ll see the a bevel cut being made on the left and right side of each leg piece. This leaves a very small surface of wood on the table saw to hold and guide the leg past the blade.
My experience level is on the low side, so this is part of my problem, but I thought the cut was too difficult for me. For safety purposes, I abandoned this and laminated two 1-1/8″ thick pieces and then veneered two sides to provide fleck on all 4 sides.
Any future suggestions on how to safely approach building the legs using the article’s design?
Thanks,
Steve
Replies
Steve,
Er, ah, ahem...I hate to sound like a broken record, but...Do you have a bandsaw? If so you can very safely rip miter cuts on the bandsaw and then plane them smooth. (You would likely have to plane the edges off the table saw anyway to get an acceptable joint.) If you haven't got a bandsaw, it is possible to make these kinds of things with just hand tools.
Alan
Alan,
Yes I have a bandsaw, which I used to make the veneers. I never thought of using it to create the miter cuts. Sometimes I forget that there's always more than one way of accomplishing a task.
thanks for reminding me of this.
Steve
Steve,
This thread has gotten veeeery interesting.
First I should say that as I was selling all my power tools the only one I had left was my band saw--a very cheap and not so hot 10" bench-top saw at that. I made lots of things using that band saw to rip cut miters. I made sure I adjusted the saw correctly: I did not trust its adjustments (I checked them with a square, rulers, and so on) and the miters came out perfectly.
The very interesting part of this thread is all the advice you're getting about feather boards, jigs and the like. (I assume you thought of all those ideas before you posted your question.) It reminds me of the time when Norm was showing off his latest purchase of recycled wood. He raved on and on about how tight grained it was, and how wide the board was, and how beautiful the grain was across that wide board, and how you can't get boards that wide and that stable anymore...But the first thing he did to that lovely WIDE board was to rip it in half, only to run the edges through his power jointer and later on glue them back together the same way they were before he cut it in two. So why did he rip that beautiful, rare, wide board in two? Because it was otherwise too wide to fit through his thickness planer!
There is such a thing as too much reliance on power tools. You've already said you don't feel safe using your table saw to make these cuts. In the first few pages of FWW there is a warning: if a particular operation doesn't feel safe, don't do it. Good advice.
Alan
Steve, what is the issue number?
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
forest_girl,
The table is from issue 149 - July/Aug 2001.
I have always considered feather boards as kick-back control. When used for hold-downs on a table saw off the fence, the greatest problems is the lack of height of the fence. To overcome this I will clamp a wide piece of stock to the fence (sometimes there is a use for plywood cutoff scraps) and then clamp my feather boards to this.
My T-saw tilts right. I consider it much safer on cuts like this to have the fence to the left of the blade so I am not "wedging" the workpiece between the tilted blade and the fence. This way if the workpiece comes up, it is coming away from the blade.
Steve, make a simple holding jig. Something like a flat piece of stock with a cradle to set the piece into. With your blade at 90 deg., cut the first bevel then turn the piece and cut the other one. You can hold the piece down with a push stick. Use your fence to guide the jig.
Steve - in Northern California
Steve, et. All,
I've received a lot of feedback - thanks!
I'll try to add some additional info. My table saw is a cheap table top version - due only to limited space. If I update it, then something has to go to make room. So the table saw is definitely part of the problem. However I've used it for a year now and have worked around it's short comings.
My primary concern was with ripping with such a small surface area against the table top. Test cuts showed that the leg was just too unstable to obtain relatively clean and accurate cuts (using a feather brd to hold down the piece).
I like Steve Schefer's suggestion of creating a holding jig. I've created similar tapering jigs to hold a leg. This provides a much larger surface area to ride on the table saw top. By adding a little additional length to the legs I can also screw the top and bottom of the leg to the jig. I believe I should also be able to come up with a jig to safely clean the surface edge using my jointer.
thanks again everyone.
Steve
I would feel confident (if I did the complete set-up) to rip stock as narrow as 1.5 inches.
The only caveat I should have added to my above post is that I would shim the feather boards so that the pressure they applied was over a flat part of the work piece (rather than applying the force on the bevel).
If I had enough room so that I could place the feather boards and still have room for my push stick, I would do it. If I were working with this narrow of material I would also make damn sure I had an appropriately positioned splitter to insure the front end of the stock did not wander out away from the fence as I fed the tail end through.
I would also use my best thin kerf blade, that generally leaves minimal saw marks, and glue the stock up off the saw. (GASP Oh the sin of it!!) I think it would be very difficult to hand plane the bevels and passing the edges over a joiner would be real tricky. If I were doing a whole production run and I was going to be super concerned about surface smoothness, then I would clean the edges up on my shaper with a 45 degree bevel cutter. The problem with this last approach is correct sizing vis a vis cutting depth. To be absolutely certain of dimensional accuracy, one edge could be run against the fence but the other edge would require straight edge "X" distance from the cutter. For all these additional set-ups, I would opt to bevel rip a few extra pieces and reject the worst.
I saw and read the same article you are talking about and to tell you the truth it scared the living H-E double hockey sticks out of me. I feel very uncomfortable about this set up and would do the same thing you are doing.
Dave in Pa.
I'm assuming if i read it right that you will end up with a piece with a trapezoidal cross section:
/____
you did not say what the short side was but I guess it doesn't matter unless its less than 1/4 inch or something.
Here's a way to do it:
Rip a bevel into the first edge of all work pieces.
Jig parts:
Cut another piece the SAME thickness, as long or longer but maybe 3-4 inches wide, one edge beveled at 45 degrees also.
Need a 3" wide piece of plywood maybe 1/8 thick.
Make the jig. Looks like this:
(end view)
fence side ___________ <-- plywood on top
fence side |_______/ <--- 3" piece
The plywood overhangs the bottom piece by a half inch or more. Nail/glue the plywood over the beveled piece.
Now for each work piece, put the beveled edge against the bevel of the jig and under the plywood. Screw the plywood to the top of the workpiece. Two or more screws; the screw holes will be on the inside of your leg and will not show in the finished project.
Put the jig against the fence and rip a bevel into the other side of your workpieces. Remove the screws.
This 1. makes it easy to control the piece.
2. puts a solid, vertical edge against the fence.
3. gives you a 3" wide piece to push so you can use push sticks and featherboards and your blade guard.
4. puts the blade leaning away from your fence.
Reverse if you have a left-tilting blade arbor.
Loring
Katy TX USA
Edited 5/3/2002 2:21:51 AM ET by LCHN
LCHN,
Yes I will end up with a trapezoid cross section. Don't have the dimensions with me but the smaller side will be ~ 1" wide.
I had a similar idea for a jig with the plywood on bottom. However I didn't think of adding a beveled strip. I'll add this to my tool kit next time I cut these legs.
Steve
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