Nice variation on the sawboard idea

Sep 05, 2013 11 Replies

But for dado cuts...



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(don't look harry, your head will implode)



Neat if you've got several to do. I've just had to cut down (height and width) a door casing[1] to fit a small door under the stairs, re-routed the top piece, but working-out how many mm backwards to clamp the guide piece for one edge, then how many mm forwards to move it for the other edge, taking into account wood thickness, blade size etc, I suppose that's all standard fayre for using a router in anger, but mine's sat in the shed unused since it cut the worktops using a jig.

[1] one of the few things what *did* work out cheaper from B&Q than Wickes, £15'ish vs £25'ish

Nice. Pretty much what I do with newel posts.

There is a standard technique using a bearing guided cutter with a router that makes perfect matching dados every time:

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Basically just copying the thickness of what ever you are trying to insert into the dado.

The jig in the video has the nice "made with the saw its used with" attribute of a sawboard that means all the tools specific spacing adjustment you describe are built into it, and so get taken care of automatically.

I invented my own extremely crude way of using clamps and bits of wood to achieve a similar effect - but angled!

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Quite a few years old now - this is the only one which is fully visible now. (The others were either hidden in construction or by vegetation.) Obviously only garden fence quality - none of yer' Chippendale stuff here. :-)

Question about that: why offer the board up first, rather than clamp one guide along the ruled line, then offer up the board, then clamp the second guide?

If you are doing lots you screw the ends together so you just have to line it up, clamp and go.

In cases where you have layout lines already drawn, its probably easier to clamp one first.

Sometimes when laying stuff out by eye its easier to stand it where you want it first, then fix the guides, but obviously do whichever is easiest.

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