Thin Strips

[Leon]

1/8" thin strips that are about 1/4 thick/tall.

There is what I am going to use for the rail and stiles of the door and drawer fronts for our kitchen redo.

100 linear feet of 1x8 s4s walnut with 2, 1/8" wide white oak pinstripes inlaid.

I have the jig that sets the width of the thin rip to the left side of the blade, the kind that you readjust the rip fence with every pass and hope for a consistent result.

There are numerous jigs out there but I also need to cut this strips up to 42" long.

So this guy has come up with an elegant solution that puts the thin strip between the fixed object on the right side of the blade. So no moving the fence with every pass. This method is not unique but with

90% of these type jigs you are kinda limited to short strips. The jig in the video seems to have all the bases covered regardless of how thing the strips need to be and the fence never moves. And he does this on a tiny Shop Smith TS.

This is the best jig I have seen for this purpose.

Now a question, I will be cutting approximately 72, 8' long thin strips

1/8" wide.

This is what I am going for.

Band Saw or TS? I will for certain cut the 1/8" x 3/4" strips down to

3, 3/16" tall pieces on the BS.

Wood Glue? or Super Glue?

Thoughts?

[DerbyDad03]

If the longest strips you need are 42”, why do you say you need to cut 8’ strips?

I like the jig in the video although the flipping of the stop, the resetting of the jig after each cut, etc. looks a little clumsy. I guess if you get rhythm going, it might not be so bad.

Have you considered a Grr-Ripper (or 2) with the 1/8” leg? Certainly not as inexpensive as that homemade jig, but it should get the job done without the “resetting” after each pass. Plus, after you’re done, you’ll have a Grr-Ripper (or 2) ;-)

Unrelated (sort of) but I’m curious about his comment about the use of the riving knife. Is a 1/4” strip on the inside of the blade really going to cause kickback if the board “closes up”? Somehow it just doesn’t seem like the pressure would be enough.

[Leon]

I have 158 pieces that need to receive 2 pinstripe pieces. The longer the pinstripe piece the more pieces I can get our of an 8' pieces vs. 2,

4' pieces. Some pieces are less than 4" long.

I may rethink that.

The plan is to work with 2'~5' pieces and glue them in place and then cut to length. I need to over size the cuts on the walnut so that the pinstripes stick out each end. I don't want to have to cut the pinstripes to exact length before gluing them in.

I think better than repositioning the rip fence every time.

Yes I have 2 and for many many years, but they do not insure that the thin pieces will not get battered by the blade, the fence not letting the piece be free. With the jig there is room for the strip to be in open space after being cut until the very end of the cut and not possibly being scorched by the blade. The gripper is good but I have had issues with them when needing to do thin material. I need to cut a bunch. Resetting is simply a matter of pulling the jig back, similar to pulling a miter gauge back after each cut and then flipping the arm back down. This jig actually feeds the work through with a solid stop when you get to the end, most other jigs do not.

Yeah I missed that part.

[Scott Lurndal]

The stringing is 1/8 wide, and 1/4" deep, then?

I'd start with 1x8 white oak (although I think a less coarse grain would be easier to work, e.g. maple or cherry both of which contrast well with walnut). Joint one face, resaw a 3/16" slabs, then with a drum sander, sand the resawn (non jointed) face to 1/8".

Then build a jig with a GEM blade (at an angle) and a fence, where the blade is 1/4" from the fence and pull the 1/8" x 8" finished slabs through the jig to slice off 1/4" x 1/8" strips.

[Leon]

1/8" wide and about 1/8" deep. Cutting a bit taller to make handling easier and to have something to sand off to the surface of the walnut.

Agreed BUT white oak is better than red oak. I have build quite a bit with cherry and over 1~2 years it has darkened considerably in our home. That is great but the contrast would likely lessen over time against the walnut. Maple too would be a good contrast but I hate working with maple. Most of the maple down here does not stay straight after being cut. I used it many years ago on a kitchen job and it was always a crap shoot as to whether the piece bowed or not. Same thing on this kitchen, I used maple for the face frames. Some stiles needed a lot of sanding after the cut because they pushed away from the fence as they were cut. With these tiny pieces I would be afraid of them not coming out precisely the width of the grove that they will fit in to.

[DerbyDad03]

No argument there.

That's not how he resets it. Maybe it's because of his guard, but he lifts it off the table almost every time. Look at the video in the background here. There's only one time he pulls it back and then the next time he lifts it again.

Without a guard, yes, pulling it back would be easier. I don't know if you use a guard or if your guard allows it to be pulled back. The guard on my 70's vintage Craftsman has kickback pawls that would have to be defeated but the jig would still hit the guard itself. Not that I actually use my guard, but he claims that one of the advantages of his jig is that it can be used with the guard. With all of the cuts you will be making, lifting that jig every time would be brutal

Yep...saw that. That is a good feature.

Assuming that it can actually be pulled back after each cut, I wonder if modifying it to be an over-the-fence jig would make it even better. Then you wouldn't even have to think about feeding it straight along the fence. It would do that on its own.

[Scott Lurndal]

With the cherry, I'd use sapwood instead of heartwood; the sapwood stays pale and doesn't age like the heartwood.

Have you tested the moisture content? I get pretty good stuff (or have in the past anyway) out here in california, it all comes from east of the mississippi, I had stored the

8/4 stuff that I used for my workbench for several years before cutting it, allowing it to acclimate.

[Leon]

Snip

Yes, I don't use a guard, SS, Having to get repositioned around the guard would be a pia. In my case, I would just slide it back into position and lower the stop lever.

Agreed, see above.

I have thought about having it cradle the fence so that it would not move away from the fence, just move along the fence.

Thinking on your question, it could kick back but not likely to be violently since there is little mass. And it would more likely simply lift up and float.

[Leon]

Gotcha. But cherry is kind of a unique species down here. The sap wood that I see is the thin slivers along the edge of a mostly heart wood board.

Oddly cherry is not a favored wood down here either. It is about the least expensive wood that I have priced out. I do recall cherry being a bit expensive 10~15 years ago. I bought several boards back then. And IIRC today;s prices are the same as what I paid back then, $5~$6 per linear foot 1x8 s4s. Less than 30% more than poplar.

I do not check moisture content. I generally do not stock up with out having a project in mind. But having said that I typically buy an extra board for a job and a couple of days ago I was sorting my rack and noticed that I apparently am stocking up. ;~) I have some really interesting white oak boards that I have had for 15 plus years. All rough sawn from a saw mill.

[DerbyDad03]

Lifting and floating was also what I was picturing. I haven’t look at it too deeply, but it crossed my mind that it might make sense to make that flip arm not just be a pusher, but also a hold down like most push sticks are.

[Leon]

Snip

Ok, So I built the jig and it took 3 minute adjustments to get this to fit the way I wonted it to fit.

These are approximately 1/8" deep and the on nearest the middle was with a different blade, one that cuts flat bottoms.

There was no tendency for the thin strip to come up, it was still attached to the board that it was being cut from and then past the blade I had to look closely to realize that the strip was still against the jig, it did not fall away. And both pieces were similar in color. So this was very stable wood. I'm happy with the results and will rip the strips into thirds, with my band saw to get 3 strips from each 1/8" x

3/4" strip. And hopefully yield 3, 3/16" tall pinstripes.

[DerbyDad03]

Nice find. I saved the link. I’m sure it’ll come in handy..

Good luck with this next phase.