I would like to cut many pine or spruce square pieces of 6, 7, 8 mm and length about 50 cm (more or less).
I do not have a table saw or band saw and I do not have plan to buy one soon.
Please, how can I cut fast small square pieces for example 7 x 7 x 500 mm?
Is a Japanese saw with rip cut a good solution? (blade length 210/240 rip cut to cut along the grain) A western saw?
I would like a vice or guide suggestion for the particular job.
The pine I purchase is 30×20 mm and 2,3 meters long, or bigger.
I was thinking about a small electric tool like DREMEL DSM20, but I have no idea how precise and clean is the cut.
Thank you all for your time and your help
Replies
Greetings,
As I read you note, I would need more information. Wood pieces 6 mm x 6 mm are really small. I am also confused by the thickness mentioned in your third sentence. "7 x 7 x 500 mm" are tiny square pieces that are really thick. Is that what you need? Also are the pieces cut to width when you get them or do you have to do that yourself. Frankly I would be uncomfortable cutting 6 mm strips on a table saw if the thin strip was against the rip fence.
If the strips are already cut to width, you could make a jig to slip strips against a stop then cut. A Japanese pull saw has a narrow kerf and may produce more parts for a given length of stock.
We look forward to more information.
Tom
Thank you for your answer.
6 x 6 or 7 x 7 mm are width and height. 500 mm (50cm) is the length.
So, the pieces are long but very thin.
The pine I purchase is 3 x 2 cm or more. So I have to cut all the sides.
So, you want to end up with 50cm long square dowels, correct? If so, find a friend, a club, a school, someplace that can rip them for you. It's a five minute job.
You are going to struggle keeping a hand saw precisely on line for accurate cuts over that sort of length. It can be done, but probably not well.
I don't think the dremel is the ideal tool either. You won't get good control over longer cuts and they are at best a niche tool.
For the same cash as the dremel you could buy a very nice cordless or corded skilsaw with a narrow kerf blade. These can be fixed to a board with a few screws through the plate and used much like a small table saw. When you have done with it, you will still have a nice circular saw for other projects.
Your biggest issue will be safety - it is tempting to neglect guards when making your own tools and you should always be particularly careful when modifying any tool for a purpose other than that for which it was intended. At your own risk...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhORUN6oCUc shows the process - you should add a guard over the blade - this can be plastic and fixed to the fence.
You could also buy a mini table-saw, but those often have blades that are not really capable of doing what you need, and are no safer than a good home-made version.
Rob_SS, I am not sure you are providing the OP with a clear picture of how potentially dangerous this operation is. A skill saw inverted through a piece of plywood with or without a blade guard is far from able to safely rip strips that are ¼" square or less. There are questions about an accurate fence, thin strip guides, etc that make such a tool arrangement very sketchy I'm my opinion.
I'm not sure you realize how difficult and potentially dangerous what you propose is to do.
As an owner of a DSM20 I can tell you without a doubt that it is not the tool for the task. Handheld power tools in general are not suited to this task for one reason or another.
Since you in no uncertain terms say you won't buy a bandsaw or tablesaw and seem to want to do this on the cheap it's not likely a very specialized tool like a Bridge City Tools Jointmaker will appeal to you, although it is designed for just such things. You may find one on the used market for a more affordable price.
As for handsaws a decent Japanese Ryoba Saw with both rip and crosscut teeth sets, in conjunction with some shop made saw guides might do the trick if used with care. I find the Japanese style saws better suited to fine precision work with smaller workpieces, compared to Western style back saws, plus there is no Western equivalent of the Ryoba than has both rip and crosscut teeth in one saw. I would look for a smaller model since they can be quite large sometimes.
Thank you for the information about the Dremel. I believe you. Of course, I do not want a band saw or table saw. I work as a musician and in my case my fingers are priceless. So, the problem is not so the money but the safety.
I am more on making a plywood jig and using a Japanese saw.
Do you think a Ryoba 210 is a good size for 3 - 4 cm pine? I have 2 crosscut Katabas (240- 270) and 1 dozuki universal but are not good at all along the grain.
Please don't turn a circ saw upside down. Learning to use a tablesaw is dangerous enough without removing all of the things that make it safe to use.
7mm square pcs almost 20 inches long will be nearly impossible to produce with a handsaw. (Cue the handtools-only gasp) those parts will be like wooden linguini. To have them come off the saw ready for whatever the intended us is you need a tablesaw.
Those are not "small" parts. They are thin, but 500mm is 500mm.
You are right, of course, I do not want circ saw upside down. As I wrote before, I work as a musician and my fingers are important.
Is there any alternative from a table saw or bandsaw?
I know many cases of friends (carpenters with many years of experience) with serious accidents -even lost fingers from such machines. Thank you
Any power tool capable of doing what you seek will involve risk.
Most of the risk though occurs when people have not thought sufficiently carefully before making each cut, or were rushing.
You seem to be an experienced tool-user so I suspect would be quite safe.
The safest power tool for this task is a drum sander (or a planer if you want a lot faster but slightly higher risk), but that would waste most of your wood.
For a hundred dollars and change you can buy a 8 inches Ryobi tablesaw including the blade and easily, safely and quickly execute the job. A hand saw is nowhere as fast and will require additional jigs or drawing a straight line and trying to follow it on very bendy small pieces, and it’s not free either. An upside down circular saw was my first taught also but why not get the real thing for just about the same dollar and be ready to go right out of the box?
I would not go with a bandsaw, assuming the finished parts need to be smooth. Cleaning up should not be needed (much) coming off a tablesaw.
Make non-through cuts about an inch deep in both edges of your boards to make as many 6, 7, or 8mm "fins" as you can and then rip them off so they fall away from the blade. (Not trapped by the fence as is tempting) start with a board about 6" wide to keep those fingers well away from the danger zone. Don't mix sizes when making the fins, they will all come off together.
Thank you for the clarification about dimensions.
If you have to break down the stock thickness, I would suggest a Japanese rip saw. Cut it a bit thick. Build a jig with a 6 mm or 7 mm cavity as required. Insert the strip into the cavity and hand plane to thickness. Then build another jig to plane the strip to width. Do a search for a shooting plane set up to see how this would look. I think you could just use the original hand plane for this. Now the part is the correct width and thickness. Finally build another jig with a stop block and edge for the required length, ie 6 mm or 7 mm. Slide the strip against the stop, saw against the edge and use your pull saw to cut the blocks to length.
Other members may suggest alternate or better plans. And they probably will. . . .
Good luck, Tom
Understand about the fingers. I'd pay someone else to do this.
There are lots of good ideas above -- good, for woodworkers.
Not so much, in my opinion, for someone with no woodworking experience.
He's wanting to make square dowels 1/4" square and 20 inches long. Most of us could go to our shop and rip a few dozen in the time it takes to read this post.
I would not want someone with no experience to rip pieces like that on a tablesaw. I wouldn't let a newbie do it on my saw.
And handtools are skill. I could rip 1/4" squares by hand, but I've sawn miles of wood. A first timer, doing this with his first saw, and no bench or vise? I'm not optimistic.
I'd suggest they find a friend, or pay a shop a couple of bucks to rip these. If the OP is really interested in becoming a woodworker and this is just a first project, I'd react differently. But if the only goal is to get these oversized chopsticks, just buy them.
Thank you for your answer. I have made many guitars and mandolins. My ancestors were instrument makers too. But I do not use power tools except drill and scroll saw. Many generations survived without electric tools.
Simple questions are not always for beginners or amateurs.
That is because you buy your wood to size, power tools were used to get you there.
Other options here: instead of using your existing pine boards, shop for square dowels. With a Japanese saw, a block plane, and the right thin-planing jig, you could hand plane the square dowels down to thickness.
There would be a learning curve and many practice parts used in getting such setup to work. Since it also seems you wish to make many pieces, you would also need a setup to keep your blockplane blade sharp.
I'm not being overly critical but you are a real Luddite. You should start off saying that you want to continue to work like folks did before power tools. This puts you into a category of woodworkers like Roy Underhill of PBS fame, and there are few more dedicated to the craft. IF you don''t mind shelling out some bucks Bridge city may still be making a non-electric table saw that works by you pushing the wood past the blade. Last I checked it was about $1200, but is an amazing tool.If you're sensible your fingers are safe. You can also build a jig to hold the blade and guide the wood through along a fence. You will have to make it so that you can adjust the depth between the gazillion passes that this will take. Since you're not doing much more than one operation it doesn't have to be flexible.
If you are really worried about the integrity of your fingers remember that anything that will cut wood will cut fingers. Japanese style saws are razor sharp and I've seen some serious damage done with them even though they don't have a motor.
If you are looking for square dowels, get your board down to the thickness you want, cut it to length, then use a plow plane and keep planing until the thin, square stock falls off of the main stock. I use this method a lot when making small, square, and long dowels. I learnt this trick from Jim Tolpin. See the link below where he is using a plow plane to cut square, walnut dowels.
https://www.popularwoodworking.com/projects/perfect-proportions/
Very interesting! Thank you
You can buy them here : https://www.nationalbalsa.com/Sitka_Spruce_s/249.htm?searching=Y&sort=13&cat=249&show=20&page=1
Thank you for the link.
I don't think the circ saw idea is especially dangerous, it would protrude little and could be made safe by addition of guards and jigs in a way that a large saw could not. If the idea of a rotating blade causes heebie-jeebies then you could achieve the same result with an inverted jigsaw too.
Someone with knowledge of tools would have no trouble making such a device or using it with minimal risk. As with all tools keeping fingers away from the sharp bits is essential, but being aware of the risk at not getting sloppy will prevent most injuries.
If you want to go the hand tool route, then this video will show you how: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaN6gf0gl0A
This would not be a good way to make large quantities of sticks quickly, but then it comes down to what you enjoy really.
This is very interesting. Very precise cuts and nice result.
The circ saw HAS a guard, an effective one that would be circumvented by trying to make it into a tablesaw. It is meant to be be pushed through stationary stock. For any sawing operation to work either ths blade or the stock must be stationary. The mass of tablesaws keeps them from moving. The saftey of the circ saw is the ability to take your finger off the trigger if it doesn't feel right.
You, as someone with a knowledge of tools, might be able to keep yourself safe using such an arrangement but you'd probably avoid it if possible. I think suggesting it to an inexperienced user is setting him up to get hurt.
At some point the resistance of the cut will overtake the weight of the hodgepodge and the stock and the saw with the switch you can't reach will both be moving, probably in opposing directions.
What about the old frame saw? I have one with an old 60 cm blade. If I make a new blade - rip cut - do you think it will work? A blade at tension can give me precise long cuts.
About the circ saws, I would only be thinking something like that: https://www.protrade.co.uk/product/festool-tks80-sawstop-254mm-table-saw/
(I give an example. No commercial reasons at all.)
A high-quality small stop saw, but for now, it is out of my budget range.
£1,395.00 is not too much for 1 of my 10 fingers.
A Festool saw out of your budget range? Mine too!
Out of curiosity, how many of these tiles do you need to make?
50 or a bit more.
Maybe take a look at companies that sell small power tools for modelers and such. Here's one: https://www.micromark.com/mini-powertool/-saws
From the initial post it wasn't clear to me whether you wanted 3 different sizes 6x6, 7x7, 8x8 mm, or just something in the ball park. If the latter, one simple method might be to get some 1/4 inch clear pine lattice molding, a few inches wide, and slice off the sticks using a sharp box cutter and a firmly clamped straight edge. If in fact you do want all three sizes you could still do something similar after planing 1/2 inch lattice down to the desired thickness.
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