Dan Forman
01-05-2007, 7:04 AM
I''ve been finding it a bit more difficult to do some basic operations now that I have an overhead blade guard with DC. Here is one thing that should help. I got the idea from the Nov. issue of Wood magazine.
Ripping narrow strips is made more complicated with both the blade guard and the fence getting in the way, this push board puts the fence farther away, and provices a little hook to push the material being ripped through the blade, keeping the fingers out of harms way.
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l279/T-Caster/Woodwork/P1010581.jpg
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l279/T-Caster/Woodwork/P1010582.jpg
Well, I guess I may have gotten a bit carried away on the handle (inspired by my Adria dovetail saw, the one in the article didn't look like this), but at some point I want to make a saw or two, and have a couple of old Disston's that need new handles, so I just wanted to try shaping something like that for practice. Of course, I forgot all about some of the time saving steps like using a forstner bit to cut the tight curves, so I just cut it out on the bandsaw and shaped it with rasps and files, finishing off with sandpaper. Once the bandsaw went off, no more electrons were involved in the project. There are still a few scratches that I didn't see until I got some shellac on it, seems some of those little buggers are hard to get rid of. The handle is butternut, which I thought would be easier to shape than the body, which is oak.
I followed the recommendation of making the width of the board a whole number, 7" in this case, so that when I set the fence, I just add whatever the width of the strip to rip to the 7" of the board, and don't have to add any fractions.
When the board that is being ripped starts to get thinner, such as the one pictured, it starts getting a little dicey with the left hand too, so I think I'll make another, simpler hook for the left side, hopefully will figure out some sort of holdown to put on it to keep the piece from launching if it would start to ride up.
Dan
Ripping narrow strips is made more complicated with both the blade guard and the fence getting in the way, this push board puts the fence farther away, and provices a little hook to push the material being ripped through the blade, keeping the fingers out of harms way.
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l279/T-Caster/Woodwork/P1010581.jpg
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l279/T-Caster/Woodwork/P1010582.jpg
Well, I guess I may have gotten a bit carried away on the handle (inspired by my Adria dovetail saw, the one in the article didn't look like this), but at some point I want to make a saw or two, and have a couple of old Disston's that need new handles, so I just wanted to try shaping something like that for practice. Of course, I forgot all about some of the time saving steps like using a forstner bit to cut the tight curves, so I just cut it out on the bandsaw and shaped it with rasps and files, finishing off with sandpaper. Once the bandsaw went off, no more electrons were involved in the project. There are still a few scratches that I didn't see until I got some shellac on it, seems some of those little buggers are hard to get rid of. The handle is butternut, which I thought would be easier to shape than the body, which is oak.
I followed the recommendation of making the width of the board a whole number, 7" in this case, so that when I set the fence, I just add whatever the width of the strip to rip to the 7" of the board, and don't have to add any fractions.
When the board that is being ripped starts to get thinner, such as the one pictured, it starts getting a little dicey with the left hand too, so I think I'll make another, simpler hook for the left side, hopefully will figure out some sort of holdown to put on it to keep the piece from launching if it would start to ride up.
Dan