jackscrews for jig

[Monte Bloyd]

I watched an interesting video in which the operator used a jig to hold a wide board solid. It was too wide for his jointer and the jig allowed him to run the board through his planer in order to flatten it. The video referred to jackscrews being used to hold the board to be planed The local hardware store has no idea what kind of screw arrangement they used.

Do any of you guys have a guess as to what constitutes a jackscrew in this application?
Monte

[Lee Schierer]

I watched an interesting video in which the operator used a jig to hold a wide board solid. It was too wide for his jointer and the jig allowed him to run the board through his planer in order to flatten it. The video referred to jackscrews being used to hold the board to be planed The local hardware store has no idea what kind of screw arrangement they used.

Do any of you guys have a guess as to what constitutes a jackscrew in this application?
Monte

Just a guess, but you could use t-nuts and set screws. Put the t-nuts on the top surface with the barrel pointing down into the board. Put them every few inches in a pattern. Then lay the board to be flattened on top of your "carrier" and adjust the set screws from underneath up until they contact the bottom of the board laying on the surface. Run the whole thing through your planer until you have a flat surface. You might also need a couple of regular wood screws to hold the piece on top down against the setscrews. Just make sure none of this hardware will get anywhere near your blades.

[David Rose]

With several screws to set, it sounds like a real job to get them to all contact at once. It doesn't help with the middle of the board, but I have an old deck of playing cards that serve as spacers which are easy to slip in around the edges.

David, who prefers this method to cutting the boards narrower and jointing... most of the time...