Aid for making thin rips

[Dan Forman]

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

[Alfred Clem]

You are certainly on the right track to enhancing safety of this common operation. I cannot tell from your photo, but presume you have a zero-clearance insert in your table saw. When cutting thin pieces or small bits, a zero-clearance insert is just one more step in preventing kickbacks.

Love the Victorian appearance of the handle -- bravo!

Al Clem
Sedona, AZ

[Tyler Howell]

That should do a real nice job.:cool:
Beautiful stock
Thanks for sharing

[Jim Becker]

Beautiful job, Dan...and the handle is wonderful!

[Mark Singer]

Dan , Very nice...great handle.

[Roger Wilson]

One of the most interesting thin strip jigs I've seen is Jim Tolpin's in his book Table Saw Magic.

Its basically a small box (up against the fence) with the face toward the blade made of peg board (providing holes). A shop vac pushed into a hole on the top gives the suction necessary to keep the strips solidly against the fence.

With any thin strip jig a feather board of some kind is still a useful safety addition.

[Montgomery Scott]

Malcolm Tibbet's book on segmented turning uses a similar concept but uses masking tape along the length to secure the piece to the jig.

[glenn bradley]

Very nice idea and it's never a bad thing to beautify our lowly shop jugs.

[Mark Marzluf]

Nice jig.


I use this little one I made a few years ago to rip them to the left of the blade. Acts as a feather board, it's ajustable, and it locks down inside the miter slot. I just slide my fence over till the piece is against the finger then let it rip.

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL96/791874/1396915/87555233.jpg

[Dan Forman]

Thanks all for the kind comments. It was a fun project, and I now have more confidence in wielding the rasp for shaping.

Alfred---Yes, I do have a zero clearance insert, makes a big difference.

Roger---That does sound interesting, have to get hold of that book sometime.

Montgomery---Sounds like that would work.

Mark M---That's a cool solution too, hmm...

Dan

[Nissim Avrahami]

Very nice jig Dan

I'm using the same (not nice as yours) but with some "feather rollers" and hold-down roller

niki

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/avrahami/Strips/S5a.jpg

[Lloyd McKinlay]

consider something like the Grip-Tite magnetic featherboard. Keeps the fingers on your left hand in one piece.
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=51234&cat=1,43000

[Dan Forman]

Nissim---That is a really interesting rig you have there.

Lloyd---I have one of those, but I would like to find a way to hold down the stock all the way through the cut, which would have to go under the blade guard, hence the thought of using a second push jig on the left. The Grip Tight would have to be a fair distance from the blade in order to use the DC guard. To be honest, I felt a lot safer, like I had more control of things without the guard, but I still want to collect the dust.