Push block rejuvenation?

[Fred Voorhees]

Guys, I find myself in just a bit of a quandry for the weekend. My rubber bottomed push blocks that I use to push stock through the jointer have seen better days. While face jointing some stock today after work, I have come to the realization that something drastically needs to be done.

It used to be no problem to run the five minutes up the road to the local Woodworkers Warehouse for such sundry things. However, since they closed up about a year ago, I have pretty much nowhere to "run out" and pick up these kinds of things. The Woodworkers show is just around the corner here in my neck of the woods, and I plan on picking up another new pair of them then, but I need some help right now. I hate to order through a catalog if I don't have to, however, anymore that avenue is one of my few options.

But I need to use these push blocks this weekend for some work and I was wondering if anyone had any ideas about how to get through this right now with some kind of "rejuvenation" of the rubber on the bottoms that will make them grip much better. They have been worn down to a smoother texture and do not grip at all and I don't want to be forcing down with too much pressure as that will cause further problems.

Any ideas, tricks or techniques that I can employ for right now until I can replace these guys?

[Dick Latshaw]

Any ideas, tricks or techniques that I can employ for right now until I can replace these guys?
Hike down to the local Orange or Blue BORG and pick up a couple of rubber based grout floats. Much more substantial than the typical rubber base push blocks, and sometimes cheaper to boot.

[Bob Wingard]

use an old mouse pad

[Fred Voorhees]

Actually Dick, I was going to add to my post that I was going to hit the Orange borg tomorrow to check to see if they might have had some. I didn't even think of the floats. That could be a darned good idea. Thanks.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Fred mine wore out like yours. I peeled all the stuff from the bottom, cleaned it up and glued sandpaper on mine. Still using them and no problems.

[Steve Clardy]

Yes. 80 grit paper works.

[John Miliunas]

What I'd really like is a source for the same material used on the "Grrrrippers"!!! That stuff is like glue!:D :cool:

[tod evans]

r.v. supply houses sell rolls of stuff for shelf liners that seem to grab pretty well and it doesn`t cost an arm-n-leg ??????

[Vaughn McMillan]

Don't know if it'd work on your push blocks, but I've used denatured alcohol to clean my Grrrrippers, and it rejuvenates the stickiness real nicely.

- Vaughn

[Fred Voorhees]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I actually liked Bob's idea also. I sit here at my computer and realize that I have been wanting to replace my old worn out mouse pad for a while now and here is a possible reason to actually do so. The surface that the mouse sits on is heading South, but the bottom sure does grip the desktop. I'm figuring that a new mousepad can't cost that much at the local Office Depot. What, a few bucks. I can get two great new pads out of this old one. Might try that.

[Dev Emch]

Wow, I must be getting old. One of the first projects we **HAD** to do in high school was to make a set of push sticks and push blocks. This was the transition project from hand tools to machine tools. First you learned to make a cutting board (whooopiiieeee!) with hand tools. Then onto push blocks and push sticks with the machine tools. So for years, when you needed a new push stick or push block, you used scraps to make one.

Recently, I have seen these cycadelic (sp?) super colorful plastic versions being sold in the various outlets. Have we as woodworkers really become so out of tune or short on time that we have to purchase these very basic tools?

My suggestion is that eveyone should make up a set of these. Not only that, but modify them to be unique and put your own signature on them. Be creative and use farm animal designs or if your hunter, how about using some deer or elk or duck or beer designs. If you like NASCAR, how about a push block inspired by good old #3.

I fear that we are loosing our olde charm and history. So I will get off my soap box... (a box made of wood and not plastic recently purchased from an orange borg).

[Steve Schoene]

My problem with the foam topped push blocks is that they don't easily distribute the forces where they want to be on a jointer. You want the downward pressure on the outfeed table, just beyond the cutting head. (Or on the fence for edge jointing.) On the infeed table side, you want to be applying force to push the board across the cutting head but not much downward force since you want the board to be registering on the outfield table, not the infield table. With the foam pads you need down pressure on both pads, and the pads move along with the wood so the pressure point on the outfeed table is constantly moving.

Therefore, for face jointing I use a push shoe at the end of the board, and use downward pressure over the outfeed table by hand, though a non-sticky pad would work also.

[Fred Voorhees]

Just wanted you guys to know that the old mouse pad idea worked wonderfully. Steve, I have always simply concentrated my efforts at the jointer to the outfeed side of the cutterhead. I have never really needed to give the stock a "push" from behind as ample downward pressure on the stock on the outfeed side does both jobs of (1) keeping the stock down on the jointer bed and (2)"pulling" the stock through the cutterhead area. I only apply pressure to the stock on the infeed table until there is enough area on the outfeed side of the cutterhead to begin to "pull" it through. From then on, I basically never touch the stock over the infeed side.