Safer Way to Rip Bevels?

[Harvey Pascoe]

I have a lot of 2" wide x 12" x 7/8" thick cherry scraps that I need to cut one inch wide 25 degree bevels on, with the workpiece in the vertical position. Frankly, it gives me the creeps to rip these on the left side of the blade which is safer than on the right, but not by much.

Does anyone know of a safer way to do this? Don't want to end up like that guy who just got a dent in his forehead!

[Marty Paulus]

Do you have access to a Bandsaw?

[Sean Hughto]

Perhaps I don't understand, but if you are cutting bevels on the ends of the pieces, why not just use a miter saw with the piece inthe horizontal position?

[Jeff Monson]

Perhaps I don't understand, but if you are cutting bevels on the ends of the pieces, why not just use a miter saw with the piece inthe horizontal position?

Sean, I think he is trying to rip them. I like my Gripper for that operation.

[Kent A Bathurst]

I am assuming you have a right-tilt TS, yes? In that case, yes, to the left of the blade. If it is a left-tilt, then no - to the right of the blade.

Horizontal featherboard just in front of the blade to hold workpiece against the fence. Vertical featherboard above the workpiece - not sure exactly where you should place it without seeing your featherboards, but if it was me, I'd put it between the blade and the fence.

The featherboards act as anti-kickback, as well as aligning the workpiece.

Then, a longish pushstick to get the workpiece past the blade. Since you have a "a lot", seems to me that you should be able to run them through butt-to-butt, so #2 is the push stick for #1, etc. - just a continuous ribbon. Then a push stick for the last one in line, or consider the last one as sacrificial, and just turn off the TS when n-1 clears the blade.

[John Nesmith]

"with the workpiece in the vertical position".

I'm confused by this part of your explanation. You mention ripping, but this comment seems to imply you want to bevel the end(s) of the piece. Maybe you can clarify.

[Harvey Pascoe]

"with the workpiece in the vertical position".

I'm confused by this part of your explanation. You mention ripping, but this comment seems to imply you want to bevel the end(s) of the piece. Maybe you can clarify.

That would be with the board standing on edge, not end, so you see in cutting the bevel I'm removing half the base it is resting on, The first half of the cut is fine but toward the end the piece becomes unstable. The danger is for it tilting into the blade. A feather board cannot hold it because I would be cutting the contact surface.

I normally use a tenoning jig with a 10" wide piece, run the bevel then cut the piece off. But these pieces are too narrow to be held by the jig. I'm beginning to think that short of making a special jig, there is no safe way to do this.

[Sean Hughto]

Okay, yeah, you need to make some sort of sled that will secure the piece and support it throughout the cut.

[Harvey Pascoe]

Thanks and screw it, its easier to just junk the scrap and cut new boards. :-) Sometimes trying to save a buck costs more and it sure isn't worth risking my hand.

[Lee Schierer]

If you can make a tall "h" shaped saddle for your fence with the tall face on the blade side you attach you pieces to this saddle with double sided tape. Make the saddle at least as long as your pieces if not a bit longer. Stick on a piece of your wood that needs beveled and make the bevel cut, pry the piece free of the tape, flip it and stick it back down. With a zero clearance insert in you saw it should be very stable and safe.

[phil harold]

Okay, yeah, you need to make some sort of sled that will secure the piece and support it throughout the cut.

Thats the ticket!

Jig it! always makes life easy, and usually safer

[Peter Aeschliman]

Does anyone know of a safer way to do this? Don't want to end up like that guy who just got a dent in his forehead!

HA HA! It makes me really happy to see that my injury thread has made others think twice!! :D

A 12" long piece is pushing it it for sure. And being only 2" wide, it will be hard to push it through the cut safely, especially with the blade at a bevel. Either you should use a jig or you shouldn't use the TS. Trust your instinct man... or you and I will end up being twins!

[Bruce Wrenn]

Rockler sells a "double height feather board, which fastens in the miter slot. When doing as you propose, I first set a single height just in front of the blade. Then I take a double height, turn the bottom feathers away from the board ( to prevent blade from being pinched), and add upper which bears against board just beyond blade. Because of the way they interlock, with longer screws, you add more than one. You could take a single height, with longer screws and space the board with a block of wood so feathers are above the bevel. Don't use just a push stick, but a push shoe that bears upon the top of the board for some length. (Those little fish mouth fish stick scare the heck out of me) You could add a "drop down side" (like gripper do) to push shoe to help hold board upright. I often have to cut transion strips for different flooring surfaces, and that's how I do them.

[Harvey Pascoe]

HA HA! It makes me really happy to see that my injury thread has made others think twice!! :D

A 12" long piece is pushing it it for sure. And being only 2" wide, it will be hard to push it through the cut safely, especially with the blade at a bevel. Either you should use a jig or you shouldn't use the TS. Trust your instinct man... or you and I will end up being twins!

Peter, I do thank you for that post and it was a great reminder to me. I have great respect and fear of what a TS can do to you, and just how easy it is to get careless. BTW, I've used an icepick for years in pushing small pieces. It gives very good control with no risk of slipping. It also allows one to keep pressure on the workpiece against the fence to prevent the kind of skewing that results in kickback. Frankly, it is push sticks that scare me.

The "H" sled with tape sounds like the ticket, quick and easy enough to make, now that I think on it. Utilization of scrap warms the heart and increases profit! Thank you all.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I just had to do this myself.
I edge glued two of the strips - mine were 1.5" wide - together using Elmer's School Glue, with a piece of newspaper in between the joints.
I ran them through the jointer to get the bevel.
When I was done, I spiit the two pieces apart & washed off the newspaper/glue with water.
Little muss - little fuss & no kickback.

[Joseph Tarantino]

sounds like you are trying to make a panel raising cut. i threw this together out of scrap:

204786

to do this:

204787

the stop at the rear of the jig keeps it from sliding backwards, away from the blade, and by clampling the workpiece to the jig, the workpiece rides through the blade as the jig slides along the rip fence.

[Floyd Mah]

If you are going through the trouble of making a jig, then make the bed of the jig at an angle and keep the blade vertical. Then use clamps to hold the workpiece in place. You could even incorporate this in an existing table saw sled without much fuss. By doing this, you won't have to worry about trapping the workpiece under the tilted blade. Use a zero clearance insert to avoid trapping the cut-off. Having just come back from the dentist this afternoon, I can say that the dentist usually maintains the same work position and tilts the patient or his mirror to accommodate working on the different tooth locations.

[Harvey Pascoe]

I thought of the jointer but I couldn't see how I could get a 25 degree angle when the fence only went down to 45. What you are saying is that you are reorienting the bevel to the base of the workpiece by making a thicker board and resawing it to shape after making the bevel? In other words the edge becomes the face but you have a glue joint in it?

[Joe Fabbri]

I just made a handfull of moldings on a table saw, where I had to cut the spring angle bevels. The pieces were 1x material, so it really had very little base to stand on after the blade of the saw. What I did was flip both boards around, so that the area to be cut would be facing out on both boards, then I made both boards flush together, and nailed them together with some small finish nails (about three nails--they were only 3 foot boards). This way, I made one cut, with full support of the other board, then I cut the other side (keeping the fence in the same setting), and although you end up with less support on the last cut, you still have a fair amount to ride ontop of the table.

It still felt a bit risky on the table saw, but definitely better than running it through individually.

If you have a very steady saw, I suppose you could nail the boards to be cut against an even wider stock, and then have all that much more support.

This is all figuring you don't mind driving a few nails or screws into your finished boards. Mine are going to be painted, so it's no big deal.

I just cut the vital bevel this way (that is, the one that will spring from the wall--the top spring bevel is not nest against anything in my case). For the other spring angles, I planed them down. They might be slightly off, but I have more control with a plane, and less chance of jagged cuts if the boards moves, which it does if your fence isn't so tall, or if you don't use featherboards to keep the base tight to the fence as it's going through.

Joe