Cutting small parts without cutting me.......................

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Last June I bumped into our former (retired) family dentist. He said he'd heard I was a woodworker and he was wanting some help with a project. He showed me a rosary he had in his pocket. He asked if I thought I could cut the parts for the wooden cross. He wanted to make rosaries as gifts to family members, friends and donations at his church. I looked at it and said I thought I could come up with what he needed. He indicated he was going to spend the summer in Montana fly fishing ( I gave him no sympathy!). He said he'd call me when he got back.

The 2 pieces to the cross are 5/16" wide, 3/16" thick. One piece is 1 1/8" long....the other piece is 1 7/8" long.

I thought I could cut them in a similar fashion as I cut plugs to plug holes......ripping, and cutting on the face of piece of wood...then stand the block on edge and ripping them free. It worked but getting a consistent depth due to having to move the t/s fence produced a lot of failures and a very low success rate.

I take two woodworking magazines....FWW and Woodsmith. I found a free plan for a jig at the Woodsmith website. It basically serves as a stop to set the width of the rip and you don't have to rely on measuring each time you move the fence. I spent Tuesday running around town looking unsuccessfully for the parts. I ordered what I needed from McMaster-Carr and found some usable temporary substitutes at my local Ace Hardware.

Yesterday I spent the day assembling the jig only to find out I couldn't get repetitive thicknesses. I was stumped.

Last night I studied the problem a little closer and decided to check the alignment on my t/s fence and to change my technique a little by using less pressure.

Today after aligning the fence, changing my technique....it worked great. I was ripping 3/16" pieces with no problem.

Then I made a zero clearance backstop/table top for my SCMS. I was able to accurately cut off the 3/16"x 5/16" pieces without any chip out while keeping fingers away from the blade.

Tomorrow I will make a sled to notch the pieces with a notch 5/16" wide and 3/32" deep......

Then start producing some pieces for him........

Jigs for repetitive accuracy and safety!

[Todd Burch]

You, Ken, are a genius.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

You, Ken, are a genius.

I have been accused of a lot things and called a lot things.....most of which would violate the TOSs. Genius......isn't one of them.....for obvious reasons....

[Bruce Wrenn]

You could make a cut off sled for your TS that uses a blast of air to get cut offs away from the blade. Or you could take shop vac hose, put a "knee high" hose (don't tell your wife I suggested this,)over end of hose. Turn on vac, and knee high will be drawn into vacuum hose. Knee high would serve as a catch bag for cut offs. Place hose on sled just to right of blade. I think it would be safer than using the SCMS.

[Michael Moscicki]

Honestly for pieces that small I wouldn't feel safe with anything other than a scroll saw, that is if you have one of course.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Michael.......believe me when I say.....my fingers and hands won't be anywhere near the pieces or the blades........I use push sticks and hold downs religiously. I am even one of those guys who uses the blade guard and splitter on my table saw UNLESS..I am not doing "through cuts".

I do have a Excalibar 21" scroll saw, however. I am not comfortable getting enough accuracy with my scroll saw due to my inexperience....

[Jacob Reverb]

Gotta love it when a plan comes together. Jigs can be a pain to make but once you finally bite the bullet, you kick yourself for not doing it sooner!

[Dan Hintz]

Sounds like an excellent project for a laser, Ken... :)

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Dan....I agree....but neither my friend or I want to spring for that amount of cash and Moderators aren't elgible for the "Free Stuff" drawings....:(

[Rich Engelhardt]

Moderators aren't elgible for the "Free Stuff" drawings....:(But,,,think of all the money you save by getting to use the SMC private jet to travel instead of having to use the airlines ;) :D.

Anyhow - IIRC, there's a paper cutter type slicer - Lion Trimmer?? I think it's called, that might work faster than the SCMS.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

But,,,think of all the money you save by getting to use the SMC private jet to travel instead of having to use the airlines ;) :D.

Anyhow - IIRC, there's a paper cutter type slicer - Lion Trimmer?? I think it's called, that might work faster than the SCMS.

Rich...you forgot to mention the free use of the SMC yacht and hunting lodge too!;):D

[Gary Herrmann]

Ken, I assume the pieces that comprise the cross are both long grain. I have some requests for something similar. I was toying with the idea of glueing up two thinly resawed boards and making the cross of the lamination all in one piece to avoid end grain breakage. Haven't decided tho.

And I do like the idea of your jig.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Gary.....when I get the sled and the jig completed and tested, I will post some photos. I am working on the sled now.

[Thomas Canfield]

Ken,

I recently had a request to make 30 small crosses that were 1" wide x 1- 3/4" H and 5/16" sq section. I made them by first resawing some 6" wide 3/4" stock on bandsaw and planning to 5/16". I then cut the 5/16" W x 5/32" deep dado across the 6" stock using an auxillary fence to my miter gage and a hold-down to be sure of getting full cut. The dados were spaced such that I could cross cut between the dados for the 1" and 1 - 3/4" lenghts. I then used a "Gripper" to cut the sections to the 5/16" width (Gripper has one hold down 1/4" wide and runs against fence but holds down both sides of cut). I was using Mesquite that had some checks and sapwood, so cut plenty of extras to get 30 almost identical crosses, and had 30 extra. The two pieces were then glued using a timy drop of Titebond glue. Of course, there was a step to drill a hole for a cord and some hand sanding. The Gripper was a big help and they really work to keep your hands away from the blade. Just another way for consideration.

[Kevin Guarnotta]

one alternative option - it may not get you a handmade piece-but a good hobby shop will stock wood in the sizes you are looking for. Or I would look into the tools sold at those shops. They are not necessarily as accurate, but they are designed for cutting really small stuff. So everything is smaller, which allows you to get your hands in there.

[Damon Stathatos]

Sounds as if you have your solution, and a good one at that.

I'm not sure what-all equipment you have, but if it were me, I would have rip-cut strips to rough size as offcuts (to the left of the blade) on the table saw, and then run them all through the planer to finished thickness, stacked those strips and then run them through the planer again on-edge to final width. You could use calipers with each pass through the planer to get to precise sizes.

You're well on your way with your project and wishing you all the best with it.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Damon....I will plane them to the 5/16" width. My planer won't go below 1/4" or I'd plane them to the finished 3/16" thickness. Instead, I am ripping them to finished width. I am using an Infinity ripping blade that provides a great smooth cut.

The parts I ordered from McMaster-Carr arrived last evening via UPS. I am constantly amazed by McMaster-Carr's product quality and service. I live in Podunck, Idaho...order something on Tuesday, it ships UPS ground and arrives on Friday evening. Hard to complain about either the vendor or the carrier!

I need to get a bolt to finish the jig and then screw on one more piece to the sled.

By tomorrow I should have things ready to start making a production run.

[Damon Stathatos]

In the future, if you wish to plane thinner than your 1/4", put a small melamine or mdf board (known flat/parallel surface) on top of the complete span (and width) of your planer bed/table, clamp it down on one (same) side both infeed and outfeed, which effectively raises your planer bed the thickness of the board, and then you can get your planer head down as far as you want it to go. If you somehow go too far, you merely go into the melamine or mdf. I leave my lunchbox planer permanently set up like this because it seems I'm always doing thin stuff, for one reason or another, but I can also do the thicker stuff with the board in place as well. Also, the melamine gives it a nice slick surface for a good long while. Again, best to you on the completion of your crosses.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Well.....First I ripped stock to 3/8" thick and planed to 5/16" final thickness. I ripped the planed stock to 3/16" thick strips.........I made a thinstock ripping jig based on a Woodsmith plan. Then I built a small parts sled for my table saw, installed some t-track, a stop block and some hold down clips. I made some gauge blocks to eliminate measuring. Using the sled, I dadoed the half-lap joints and cut the pieces to length.

My friend assembled the crosses, drilled a hole for the string, stained and finished them. Next he glues on the corpus. He buys bulk quantity wooden beads, and strings them.

My Mother-In-Law is always interested in my woodworking projects and wanted to see one of the finished crosses so my friend dropped by with this one to give to her.

Here's my smallest woodworking project and yet, to do it safely took a lot of planning and experimentation. (This from the guy who had his 14 stitches removed today from his router wound. :o)

252388

[Roger Rayburn]

Last June I bumped into our former (retired) family dentist. He said he'd heard I was a woodworker and he was wanting some help with a project. He showed me a rosary he had in his pocket. He asked if I thought I could cut the parts for the wooden cross. He wanted to make rosaries as gifts to family members, friends and donations at his church. I looked at it and said I thought I could come up with what he needed. He indicated he was going to spend the summer in Montana fly fishing ( I gave him no sympathy!). He said he'd call me when he got back.

The 2 pieces to the cross are 5/16" wide, 3/16" thick. One piece is 1 1/8" long....the other piece is 1 7/8" long.

I thought I could cut them in a similar fashion as I cut plugs to plug holes......ripping, and cutting on the face of piece of wood...then stand the block on edge and ripping them free. It worked but getting a consistent depth due to having to move the t/s fence produced a lot of failures and a very low success rate.

I take two woodworking magazines....FWW and Woodsmith. I found a free plan for a jig at the Woodsmith website. It basically serves as a stop to set the width of the rip and you don't have to rely on measuring each time you move the fence. I spent Tuesday running around town looking unsuccessfully for the parts. I ordered what I needed from McMaster-Carr and found some usable temporary substitutes at my local Ace Hardware.

Yesterday I spent the day assembling the jig only to find out I couldn't get repetitive thicknesses. I was stumped.

Last night I studied the problem a little closer and decided to check the alignment on my t/s fence and to change my technique a little by using less pressure.

Today after aligning the fence, changing my technique....it worked great. I was ripping 3/16" pieces with no problem.

Then I made a zero clearance backstop/table top for my SCMS. I was able to accurately cut off the 3/16"x 5/16" pieces without any chip out while keeping fingers away from the blade.

Tomorrow I will make a sled to notch the pieces with a notch 5/16" wide and 3/32" deep......

Then start producing some pieces for him........

Jigs for repetitive accuracy and safety!

Steve Ramsey's (Woodworking for Mere Mortals) Snowflake video comes to mind . . .

[Keith Outten]

Ken,

The next time you need some of the crosses just let me know. I own a machine that will cut em and my hands/fingers won't ever leave my coffee cup :)
.

[Rich Riddle]

Ken,

The next time you need some of the crosses just let me know. I own a machine that will cut em and my hands/fingers won't ever leave my coffee cup :)
.
Keith,

What kind of machine can do that?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Keith,

What kind of machine can do that?

Rich....I suspect it's a CNC router....the same one he makes signs with....

[Keith Outten]

I do own a CNC Router and although it would do the job the better choice for small parts is the laser engraver.
A laser will cut the crosses out in one piece and then vector cut the intersection at the horizontal connection just deep enough so it would look like the two pieces were joined. At 3/16" thick it would probably cut a cross every 15 seconds.

The machine in the video below is the same one I have in my shop.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0trVW7EOV3M
.

[Brent Ring]

Ken - one thought on planing thin. I put a 24" x 8" piece of prefinished (insert measurement here that is close to 3/4") plywood as a raised based for my Ridgid planer, and was able to plane down to 1/8" of an inch without any problems. I have to hold the plywood, but I suppose I could put a hook on it and it would hold just fine. Just a thought if you want to plane thinner pieces.

[Stan Smith]

...snip...

I do have a Excalibar 21" scroll saw, however. I am not comfortable getting enough accuracy with my scroll saw due to my inexperience....

A scroll saw isn't difficult at all to learn. I used one of those magnifier lights with mine (around $15 at HF). Do it any way you want, but I use for scroll saw for that kind of stuff. Take some time with some scaps and do some practice cuts. I think you'll find that it's pretty easy. Note that even though you want to cut a straight line, it will be at an angle. You can follow the pencil line though. The reason I use the scroll saw for small stuff is that the cut is very smooth (with a 5/7 blade) AND you would have to leave your finger in the blade a long time before it's cut off. With the magnifier light, I never worry about my finger and haven't cut it on my scroll saw ever after 16 years.

[Jim Tabor]

Ken,
A friend at Ozark Crafts in Hardy, AR. makes and sells small crosses by the zillions. He uses a CNC.

[John Piwaron]

Absolutely! :)

Feels great to solve a problem, doesn't it?

[Steve Peterson]

It seems like you have a solution. I would have probably just made them from oversized material and sanded them to the final thickness. A holder for the belt sander might be useful.

Steve

[Cliff Polubinsky]

Ken,

I make small pectoral crosses for new clergy members in our jurisdiction and I use a different method you may find interesting. I make the cross out of a single piece of wood.

The stock is ripped to the width of the cross I want and is as long as I can make from the stock on hand. I print out patterns from my computer and rubber cement them to the stock and then using a flat topped blade, i.e. a rip blade or one side of my dado set, I set the blade height to the length of the cross's arm to the vertical. Then with a sacrificial fence attached to my miter gauge I put the stock on it's long edge and cut away everything but the arms and a bit at the top and bottom to keep the stock from tipping. I'll usually have enough length to cut 3 or 4 in a line, and can stack a number of pieces together so I can cut multiples.

In my case there's a bit of hand work involved afterwards because I'm making three bar Russian style crosses, but if you're doing the standard one arm cross that wouldn't be an issue.

Cliff