Making a table saw jig to cut crooked wood

[stryped]

x-no-archive:yes

What is a simple way I can ensure one side of my rough cut wood is square and striaght? (I currently dont hace a jointer.) Would a piece of angle iron nailed to the board to use as a straight edge work? I saw in a woodworkign magaizine something that looked like two small pieces of angle iron with a bolt running through it but I could not see what was on the bottom.

This wood is not badly crooked, it almost is straight but with a square on it you can see in places 1/16 inch or so gaps. SOme places a little more. The wood right now to a little over 1 inch thick.

Thanks for your help!

[Mike Marlow]

You can produce a straight and true edge, glue ready on your table saw. You'll want to do your due diligence and make sure your saw is well setup - tuned. You'll want a good blade on the saw. You'll want a good fence on the saw that will hold its place. From that starting point you can attach a straight edge as a guide to ride the fence. That guide can be a good straight piece of wood, angle iron as you suggest, or anything else that will ride the fence true. Since you're within a hair's breath of true now, you'd want to make passes that take only shavings off the edge, checking the edge with each pass.

Alternatively, you can throw a hand plane across the edge of the board. Thin, thin shavings. Take a little at a time along the entire edge until you get it down dead nut.

[Doug Miller]

??· you run it through a table saw. Cutting crooked wood on a table saw is just begging for a kickback.

So, to answer your question:

Buy a jointer. Or a jointer plane (honkin' big hand plane). Or buy your wood already surfaced, not in the rough.

[George]

All solutions demand something that holds the piece to be cut firmly to itself and references positively to the saw. Clamping your piece to a board which guides on the fence or in the miter groove are the most common methods.

Snap a best-width line with chalk to find where to clamp. No sense nibbling and fussing if you can make sure of a straight line first thing. I do that cut on a bandsaw, usually, where freehand gets it close enough to work with. Then I run the freehand edge on the fence, flop, then run the new edge to get my glueable.

You can also take your edge and use a jointer fence on a shaper or router table. Keep a good long fence in that, if you plan to make the rough cut, shorter if you're making a cut on an already straightened edge.

[Mike Marlow]

That's not true at all Doug. Fixing a guide to the board such that it provides a good straight surface to ride the fence is a perfectly safe and reliable method of ripping a crooked board.

[Doug Miller]

As long as you *also* have some method of holding it flat so that it doesn't rock, you're right. Easier to joint the wood, though, or just buy it S4S in the first place.

[d. zaret]

i do this all the time - i take the factory edge of a piece of plywood, about 8-10" wide (my long-board straight-lining jig), and just tack it the edge of the crooked piece with screws. use the plywood to reference the fence, and you get a straight edge on the crooked board. very simple, and fast.

for shorter boards, i have a small wooden jig with two clamps that i use to simply hold the piece and reference the straight edge of the jig against the fence. nothing complicated, works great.

--- dz

stryped wrote:

[Leon]

I am in the middle of doing this now.

First off, if your wood is still rough cut on all 4 sides and is not perfectly flat you must first flatten the wood. If the wood is not flat and you try to straight cut 1 edge the wood can rock and bind the blade resulting in burning or worse, a kick back. Also if you are successful in cutting straight 1 edge on a board that is not flat it will no longer have a

90 degree edge after you flatten the board. So first you need to flatten the board on 1 side minimum. I have a plans for a sled to run through a planer that will flatten a cupped or bowed board.

Ripping straight a board after flattening 1 side becomes straight forward and simple from there. I have a very simple sled for doing this. My sled is a 12" wide piece of 3/4" plywood with 2 toggle clamps attached with screws on both ends. The clamps can be unscrewed and moved to any location on the plywood sled as needed to compensate for different length boards and width boards. Set your rip fence to 12" and lay the crooked edge board over the edge closest to the blade and clamp it down. Move the clamps as needed. Run the sled through the TS and cut the overhanging wood off. You have a straight edge.

[Tom H]

Here is a link to a tip on using your table saw as a jointer. I haven't tried it but it may help.

[none]

S.

[Morris Dovey]

| What is a simple way I can ensure one side of my rough cut wood is | square and striaght? (I currently dont hace a jointer.)

I've posted photos of a jig that makes this job quick, easy, and safe on news:alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking.

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

[Mike Marlow]

He said crooked and described a deviation along the saw cut line. That's quite different from a twist which is what you are describing as a potential problem.

[Leon]

He also said rough cut wood and seldom is rough cut wood flat.

[Mike Marlow]

True. Point well taken. Since he didn't mention anything about it rocking I didn't think of that as an issue. Maybe it wasn't an issue. Only the OP knows for sure - or his hairdresser.

[dadiOH]

What you said or use your router...

1. Clamp a straight edge to the wood so that it's edge is barely indented at the worst place. The straight edge needs to be wide enough to support a router.
2. Run a router bit with a top bearing (same diameter as the cutter) along the straight edge.

Alternatively, you could do the same witout a top bearing bit but you'd need to inset the straight edge by the amount you wat to cut + the router plate...you would then run the router on top of the piece being cut with the router bottom riding against the straight edge. You could also do #1 & #2 ut with a bottom bearing bit by putting the straight edge on the bottom of the piece to be cut.

-- dadiOH ____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06... ...a help file of info about MP3s, recording from LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that. Get it at

[Leon]

Yeah. LOL

[Morris Dovey]

| stryped (in [e-mail]) | said: | || What is a simple way I can ensure one side of my rough cut wood is || square and striaght? (I currently dont hace a jointer.) | | I've posted photos of a jig that makes this job quick, easy, and | safe on news:alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking.

In case you can't access ABPW, I've put the photos on a web page at .

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA