Simple wedge tip

[David Falkner]

This is more of a tip than anything else but this is as good a place to post this as any, I guess -

It occurred to me this afternoon as I reached for a couple of the wedges I keep handy that maybe this isn't a normal 'go-to' for some folks so I thought I would share this. Often I find myself needing to support a long piece for driving screws, chiseling, drilling, etc. and sometimes there just isn't a convenient way to do this. So, a long time ago (eons) I cut a dozen wedges of Maple to use for jacking a suitable block to support another piece. The photos below will far better explain what I'm rambling about -

42" long piece of Walnut and needing to chisel out for hinges but to support the piece I would have to cut a block to fit. Or, I could grab a block, two wedges, and the block now is very tight and exactly the right size for support -

001 - Wedges for support.jpg

002 - Wedges for support.jpg

003 - Wedges for support.jpg

If you already do this then great; if you don't it doesn't take long to cut a handful of these hardwood wedges to have ready for when you need them. There are other ways to do this, of course, but this is quick and easy and doesn't require any cutting or tools - just grab what's handy and go on to the task at hand. I keep a few of them on my tablesaw fence because they also come in handy if a board is trying to close up on you and pinch the blade. You can probably go back and look at some of the photos and videos I've posted and see them right there and handy.

David

[Doug Garson]

Good tip, I also keep a supply of cedar shims and hardwood wedges in the shop and use them all the time.

[Mike Henderson]

I use the wedges that you can purchase in a pack for adjusting door frames. Really low cost.

Mike

[Keith Weber]

As others have mentioned, I have a box full of leftover hardware store door shims from installing doors that work great for stuff like that. I probably reach into that box every few days. It also contains a bunch of thin strips of varying thicknesses that I save from my table saw cutoffs. They come in handy for similar purposes.

[Eduard Nemirovsky]

Nice tip.
Talking about wedges, on another forum I found that for best holding power angles for wedges needs to be like 1:6 ratio. Anybody can comment on this? What angle from your experience will hold better?
Thank you,
Ed.

[David Falkner]

Nice tip.
Talking about wedges, on another forum I found that for best holding power angles for wedges needs to be like 1:6 ratio. Anybody can comment on this? What angle from your experience will hold better?
Thank you,
Ed.

I just checked mine and they're all over the map. The two in the photo are more like 1:15 and 1:12 but they work great.

David

[Keith Weber]

Talking about wedges, on another forum I found that for best holding power angles for wedges needs to be like 1:6 ratio. Anybody can comment on this? What angle from your experience will hold better?

That's an odd claim!

If by "holding power", you mean the greatest resistance to the weight of the object kicking the wedges out, then the ultimate holding power would be wedges with essentially zero taper, or basically two boards under the load. It would stay in place indefinitely until an external side load came along and pushed the load off the "zero taper" wedges. As you progressed from zero-taper towards high taper, the "holding power" in this sense would decrease.

There's a lot of things that come into play with 2 wedges being able to hold -- the weight of the load, the angle of the taper, and the friction between the wedges. The holding power would be maximized with light loads, shallow angles and high friction between the wedges. Steep-angled, highly polished and oiled metal tapers will be practically useless to hold anything.

You don't want them too shallow, mind you, because it would really limit the height range that you could get out of a pair of tapers. Any old door shim or something that looks similar to it will work just fine.

The real answer for this purpose in woodworking is that it's probably not going to matter unless you really push the steeper angles and use slippery wedges.

[Eduard Nemirovsky]

That's an odd claim!

If by "holding power", you mean the greatest resistance to the weight of the object kicking the wedges out, then the ultimate holding power would be wedges with essentially zero taper, or basically two boards under the load. It would stay in place indefinitely until an external side load came along and pushed the load off the "zero taper" wedges. As you progressed from zero-taper towards high taper, the "holding power" in this sense would decrease.

Are you talking that two parallel edged board would have more holding power? Or I misunderstood your statement?
Ed.

[Keith Weber]

Are you talking that two parallel edged board would have more holding power? Or I misunderstood your statement?
Ed.

Yes, when the wedge angle decreases down towards 0°, you basically end up with two parallel-edged boards under the load. That's the most stable. As the wedge angle goes from 0° towards 90°, the holding power of the wedges decreases continually from max holding power to no holding power (at 90° wedge angle). Sorry, my physics degree and math background in university always taught me to look at problems as variables approached the extremes. I think it's a calculus thing.

[Frederick Skelly]

I use the wedges that you can purchase in a pack for adjusting door frames. Really low cost.

Mike

Me too!.....