Talk to me about templates, routers and double-stick tape

[Greg Guarino]

That's the one I used. It worked well.

I read somewhere about making the strip wider at one end, or in the middle, to change the natural shape of the curve. (it curves more tightly where it is narrow).

We used those in drafting class back in junior high. I can scarcely imagine the trouble I could get myself into with one of those now. :)

particularly when

My first thought was to search around the house for the proper-sized object. :)

Cutting thin flexible strips is not my strong suit, but you've given me some ideas.

I thought of that, but the material I used was pretty thin. I also thought of gluing sandpaper onto the side of the block.

Definitely the tool I knew I was making up for the lack of. I had considered jury-rigging a drill with one of those cylindrical sanding attachments through a hole in a piece of scrap, but doing it by hand worked out pretty well for now.

As I mentioned, the process was much easier than I had expected, which "inspired" me to make the second attempt.

Thanks for the tips. Now to try my hand at the stopped dados. Good thing I still have the template; I may need to remake the parts. :)

I had considered making the dados first, by the way, so I'd be working on rectangular stock. Time will tell if that would have saved me some grief.

[dadiOH]

Actually, templates don't HAVE to be square. It is nice if they are but as long as the template has a continuous diameter/shape for the bearingto ride on, you are good to go...it is going to follow the most outward part of the template, isn't going to wobble in and out if the template isn't square. That assumes you are keeping the router flat and not tipping it.

[Greg Guarino]

I really am having a productive weekend, by my standards anyway. Yesterday I cut some project parts using a router template that I made, a first for me. Today, another new adventure.

As suggested by Swingman, I redesigned my kitchen shelf unit using stopped dadoes.:

My task for today was to figure out a way to make them. I don't have dado blades, chiefly because I don't have a saw to put them on. I make dadoes with a router and a jig I built a couple of projects back. I decided to try to modify the jig with some sort of "stop". Here's what I came up with:

I made a stop that would fit in the channel of the jig out of scrap:

The "tab" is to support the stop above the work. Note also the screw in the end of the stop:

That was to provide some fine adjustability. The screw butts up against a fixed block that I screwed in at the far end of the channel. I used one of the shelves that will mate with the stopped dado to set the length:

I screwed the whole jig into the work surface and screwed in a "fence" to the left of the jig for the work pieces to butt up against (for repeatability). Too bad I could only "repeat" twice with that setup; the other two pieces had to be mirror images, requiring me to reconfigure the "fence" on the other side.

I also (re-)discovered what I assume is an unavoidable part of woodworking. I spent the better part of two hours thinking up, building and modifying the jig. Then 2 minutes actually making each cut. I guess that's a good thing; it means the setup was easy to use. Here's video of the brief, most rewarding part of the process:

Hey, you can even see me almost make a big mistake. :)

Next up: squaring up the ends of the dadoes.

[Greg Guarino]

[Oops, the previous post had a bad link]

I really am having a productive weekend, by my standards anyway. Yesterday I cut some project parts using a router template that I made, a first for me. Today, another new adventure.

As suggested by Swingman, I redesigned my kitchen shelf unit using stopped dadoes.:

My task for today was to figure out a way to make them. I don't have dado blades, chiefly because I don't have a saw to put them on. I make dadoes with a router and a jig I built a couple of projects back. I decided to try to modify the jig with some sort of "stop". Here's what I came up with:

I made a stop that would fit in the channel of the jig out of scrap:

The "tab" is to support the stop above the work. Note also the screw in the end of the stop:

That was to provide some fine adjustability. The screw butts up against a fixed block that I screwed in at the far end of the channel. I used one of the shelves that will mate with the stopped dado to set the length:

I screwed the whole jig into the work surface and screwed in a "fence" to the left of the jig for the work pieces to butt up against (for repeatability). Too bad I could only "repeat" twice with that setup; the other two pieces had to be mirror images, requiring me to reconfigure the "fence" on the other side.

I also (re-)discovered what I assume is an unavoidable part of woodworking. I spent the better part of two hours thinking up, building and modifying the jig. Then 2 minutes actually making each cut. I guess that's a good thing; it means the setup was easy to use. Here's video of the brief, most rewarding part of the process:

Hey, you can even see me almost make a big mistake. :)

Next up: squaring up the ends of the dadoes.

[Swingman]

Well done!

[woodchucker]

Cool. Welcome to the wonderful world of jigs, and now you will find out how quickly your space will fill with them :-0

[dadiOH]

There is certainly nothing wrong in doing that but there is no particuar reason to do so as whatever goes into the dado can hide the minor gap if the dado end is left rounded.

Personally, I leave them rounded, would rather do something else with the time it takes to square them.

[Greg Guarino]

I'm not sure what you mean. I made the dadoes with a 1/2" diameter bit, thus the corners are rounded with a 1/4" radius. Unless I notch the ends of the shelves (which seems like at least as much work as squaring the corners), the gap will be visible.

Here's the design:

The stopped dadoes hold the small lower shelves.

[dpb]

...

...

It's generally quicker to cut a small rabbet in the end of the shelf than to clean up the end of the dado...all it takes is a dovetail saw and the perhaps a quick cleanup/pare to line w/ a (sharp) chisel. This is all outside work as opposed to squaring up the dado with all chisel work. If the size of the piece isn't too large you can also cut them out on the tablesaw.

But in the end, it's your choice...

[woodchucker]

You should notch the ends. That will be the proper way to do a stopped dado.

[dadiOH]

As everyone else said, right, that's what one does.

It's not, a moment or so with a dozuki or other similar and you are finished. An added benefit is that you can gain some wiggle room viv a vis the dado and what's going into it...dado too long?, notch covers it...dado too short?, cut a longer notch.

[Greg Guarino]

Well then. That's interesting. I may have cut the dado too "perfectly" (lengthwise) to cover it the way you suggest. But your way would have made it easier to set up the dado. Thanks for the tip.

[Larry W]

I also just leave them as is most of the time; an alternative is to round over the portion of the board that fits in the dado. A rasp works well and quickly.

[Swingman]

See the "eWoodShop - Whiskey Barrel Base" just posted.

Was thinking about your original post when I was making the jig to do the curved bottom on profiled trim for the sides of the whiskey barrel bases, so added a couple of extra photos illustrating the above:

[Swingman]

Got this in FWW's email letter this morning:

SUBJECT:Ultimate routing jig

Not that I necessarily think this is, as they say in their email, the "ultimate" pattern routing jig; and I can say with certainly that I don't think it is all that "clever" for a number of reasons - lack of adaptability to size and provisions for backing up edges to prevent tearout are a couple - nonetheless thought it was definitely germane to this discussion and might be useful to have in your bag of tricks:

[Greg Guarino]

I was thinking about a more reusable jig when I made the two different sets of pattern-routed parts. But it wasn't that difficult to simply remake the jig in my case.

I made my MDF templates oversized, with a generous margin around three sides. That made it easy to simply screw in the fence pieces from underneath. I did need to countersink them, which added a step, but it was still very quick.

Here are my (relatively uninformed) concerns about the Fine Woodworking jig.

1. The toggle clamps are at a fixed distance apart. In the picture on this page

the clamps look too close together for the span of the piece, at least to me. I'd worry about something moving as the grain changed. Since they have the clamps on blocks, rather than on a continuous piece of wood, they'd be a drag to move. If I were to make something like this, I think I'd make the clamps more easily movable.

1. There's no "end fence". It seems to me that you'd get more repeatable (or at least quicker) registration with an end fence of some kind rather than lining up the template and the work by eye.

1. The router bit has to protrude further from the table. Does this matter? Or, more personally, does it matter if your router table setup is less than top quality? I'm not sure.

2. You can't see the work, without a mirror, anyway. I'm not sure why, but I liked seeing the work piece itself, at least the top edge, as the router did its job.

Having said all that, it does give me some interesting ideas. Thanks.

[whit3rd]

My favorite is painters' masking paper; doesn't soak up much glue, maintains integrity with any of the glues I could use. The only papers that wouldn't work are waxed, painted, or wrinkled.

It forms a perfect grain line, and splits off SO nice...

[Swingman]

If I understand your question.

Not so much how high above the table, but how much the bit is not in the collet to get the height you need.

Best to go to longer bits, and 1/2" shanks and collets, if you need to get excess height, as you stand a better chance of less flex and run out causing problems, not to mention the danger of a bit coming loose.

[Greg Guarino]

Exactly the things I was wondering about. Someday I intend to build a router table and get a better router to put in it. But for now, it's

1/4" collets. I think I'll stick with my jig method for the moment.

[Swingman]

For years I used an insert, in a flat piece of plywood, between two sawhorses to pretty good effect.

The biggest factors in doing it that way are time and precision.

If you have the time to futz with settings to get the precision you need, than it is certainly an option to get you started on using a "router table".

Two most important things for me, and the way I use a router table, are the rigidity and stability of the top and insert; and the ability to easily dial in the bit height.

Thus, and after finally having one, for me a "router lift" is an absolute necessity to get the most out of a router table setup for what I use one for.

With those two parameters taken care of, you can always build the actual table later.