I am endeavoring to produce 4 corner posts (same cross section as a framing stud) for a cabinet that will be 6’0″ tall.
I used a tapering jig for identicle corner posts on a much shorter cabinet but feeding a 7’0″ tapering jig into a table saw looks inherantly dangerous. Can anyone suggest an alternative and safer method?
Thanks in advance!
Replies
Do you own a jointer?
John W.
Yes, a 6" jointer
What John is getting at (must have "stepped out" for a minute, eh?) is that you can taper legs on a jointer. I haven't tried it (yet) but I saw an excellent description the other day on another forum. While I run that down, you can check out this Google search for other articles if you'd like.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
OK, Tom (who's also a member here at Knots) does it a little differently than the other method I've seen. I don't think he'll mind my quoting him here:
"Instead of using a taper jig on the table saw to make fine tapers, use staggered passes on the jointer. I divide my piece into four sections, then make a pass starting with the shortest, and ending with the longest. If I'm taking 1/32" off each pass, then at the end I have a 1/8" taper, smooth and joined square. And, it's very repeatable." [tms at WWA] forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
FORESTGIRL, That will work if you have 18" from the jointer blade to the front of the jointer bed. A longer infeed bed will require reconfiguring your taper.
i would use my circular saw with the 8' rail...if they all need to be exactly the same size i would cut the first one as the master, cut the others about 1/8" oversized and then trim them off of the master with a router & template bit...you could get them almost exactly the same with just the saw guide, but there is always the potential for a very slight difference...
Bandsaw, then clean up the edge with a longish plane.
Hi Lad ,
My guess that is the taper will not run the whole length of the 6' posts , so you actually may not be running the entire say 7' jig through the TS .
Imo it is safer to use a longer wider larger taper jig as opposed to a shorter smaller one , keeps your hands further away from the blade .
After cutting the taper on the TS , I usually belt sand or you could take a light pass on the jointer to clean it up a bit .
good luck to you dusty
For a one-off like that I would be quite lazy and safe by marking it out clearly and cutting carefully to the line with bandsaw, then I would plane with a #7-even a # 5 is fine for that.
If you did it by power jointer you would still have to play around a bit and make a test piece to confirm that you have got the usual compromise between practice and theory. The jointer method is excellent if there are many to do- preferable to a taper jig with table saw. In both cases there is still the need to clean up- by hand plane and scraper.
I asked the jointer question but didn't follow up. There are ways you can do this with a jointer, basically using it almost like a hand plane, but it would be difficult to teach or explain without a video to show the technique.
Another way to do this is to rip an 8' long piece of plywood or MDF to around 6" to 8" wide on your table saw. Leave the rip fence in place, and mount the piece you are tapering onto the plywood strip with clamps, stop blocks, screws, double sided tape, or any other method you can devise. Attach the stock to the plywood with the part you want to remove hanging out over one of the long edges. Now pass the assembly through the saw again, with the base strip against the rip fence, and you will rip off the overhanging part of the workpiece.
If the saw blade at full height won't cut all the way through the workpiece you can flip it over and reposition it to cut from both sides, or you can finish the cut with a hand saw, or you can use the same approach on a band saw which would have additional cutting capacity.
Hope this helps,
John White, Shop Manager, Fine Woodworking Magazine
John
That is an excellent solution!!Thank you so much.I have just completed a prototype in softwood using a bandsaw and belt sander and it's a bit Heath Robinson - you method sounds safe and effective - just what I was looking for! Thanks again.
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