Dado Jig for Router

[diggerop]

I'm in the process of building a triangular corner bookshelf for SWMBO. ( you know how it goes, "now that you've bought all these new toys for your shed, you can make me a .......and a ...... and so on.) Needed to cut dadoes in the three 7' vertical posts, one of which has two 45 degree mitres. Seemed like the best way was to route them, but the mitered post was going to be difficult to clamp guides onto. Decided to make a jig. It's a box structure that clamps onto my bench. The workpiece is inserted into the jig and adjusted to the correct height and also clamped to the bench. The router rides on top of the box , using in this case a router bit with a 1/2'' cut and a bearing. The bearing on the bit is guided by the inside faces of the top boards. Cutting width is infinitely adjustable from a minimum of the width of the router bit up to a max of 4". Seems to be very accurate.

Pics.

[tom]

Nice looking bench, there. It almost looks like a shoulder vise onto which you've clamped. Please put up some more photos of the bench, would you? Tom

[-MIKE-]

Is that the back corner brace?

If so, we think alike. I did the same thing on some corner cabs. Mostly, because I didn't want the corner to go all the way back, because I knew it would never sit against the wall corner.

[diggerop]

Yep. That's it exactly. : )

diggerop

[-MIKE-]

Cool. Funny how different people come up with the same ideas. Not that this particular idea was anything ground breaking, but the concept intrigues me.

Look at how many people get credited for inventing or discovering something, when half way around the earth, someone else was doing the exact same thing, but got beat to the punch.

In any case, I did my corner braces out of 6' poplar 2x6's, and made those cuts on my POS Ryobi TS, a couple months before I got my nice Delta. Timing is everything. :-)

[diggerop]

When it comes to woodwork, I doubt there has been anything much new under the sun for centuries, with the exception of modern machinery.

I cut mine on my el-cheapo made in China 12" ripsaw, which I bought to rip a big stack of 2'' x 7" boards into 3/4" x 7" or 1/2" x 7". I expected to sacrifice accuracy for getting the boards split and figured I could dress them up with my better quality machines. To my amazement, it's dead accurate and the finish is good enough for glue-ups.

I dialed up 45 degrees on the tilt and did a test cut on an 8' length, just out of interest to see how far out it would be. Here's a pic of the result.

[-MIKE-]

Kudos. Looks great. Hannibal: "I love it when a plan comes together."