Tag: jigs

A Little Jig

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn WorkshopLeave a comment

One day last year, my wife and I were driving through Amish country when we stopped at a yard sale. The Amish woman had a long cedar log she was selling for $10.00. We had one of those IKEA storage cube cabinets with cloth drawers the size of milk crates in my truck. We were planning on donating to St Vincent DePaul but asked if she wanted to trade for it. The woman had a few kids, and we figured she could use it for storing away all the kids’ stuff. She agreed to the trade, so I took it out of the bed of the truck and put it by garage. She was tickled to have it.

The log sat in my basement for months until Anita asked me last week if I could cut it up into chunks so she could use them in her booth to put topary plants on them. The different heights add visual appeal to the booth, and it helps her sell more plants

I sliced the log into small pieces as best as I could on the band saw, but the irregular shape of the log made it tough to cut the top and bottom parallel to each other. I sanded the bottom on my oscillating edge sander and then tried to sand the top parallel to the bottom by eye as best as I could. It didn’t work the best, and I figured there had to be a better way.

I looked at my go-to jig book, “Making Woodwork Aids & Devices” by Robert Wearing, but I didn’t see a jig that would work for my task so I kept thinking about it until I came up with this.

It’s basically an 1 1/4″ cube with a 1/2″ hole drilled through the middle. Then another 1/2″ thick piece of wood with 1/2″ hole drill in it and a slit cut to the hole so that a bolt could tighten the piece onto a 1/2″ dowel. At the end of the piece is a 9/32″ hole drilled so that I could shove a pencil into it.

After I assembled the jig, I set the pencil to the lowest part of the top of the log and gently scribe a pencil line all around the log. It’s the same principle as leveling chair legs but on a larger scale.

Once the line is scribed all around the log, I carefully sanded it to the line on my oscillating edge sander. I’m sure a random orbital sander will work, but this thing makes quick work of it.

After a few minutes, all of the log pieces are flush and level. It’s a stupid simple jig, and I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere, I just can’t remember where.

Here are the stumps in action. Makes the display of plants look much nicer, which increases her sales.

Roy Underhill’s Bench Hooks

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Workshop2 Comments

Last Sunday morning I was searching YouTube looking for a Woodwright’s Shop episode to watch but everyone I found was really grainy on my TV. So I kept searching Roy Underhill videos when I ran across a nice high definition video he did for Lie-Nielsen Tool Works making a couple of bench hooks. I used to have a bench hook that I made based off of Robert Wearing’s book Making Woodwork Aids and Devices about 30 years ago. It was super simple jig. Just a piece of 6″ wide plywood with a piece of wood nailed on each side. But I liked Roy’s bench hooks so much I decided to make a couple, except I made mine using some power tools.

I found this piece of scrap cherry about 12″ long and 13″ long and knew it would work.

I scribed a 3″ line down the piece and cut a couple of chunks off on the band saw.

Then I milled all four faces smooth with my bench plane.

I ended up with two pieces of 2″ thick cherry, 3″ wide by 12″ long.

I then raised my table saw blade to 1″ and set my fence 2″ from blade. I cut a groove on the side of the piece, then flipped it over and ran it again on the other side.

Next I drew a line from the corner end of the piece to the bottom of the scored cut line on each side of the piece. Because these lines diverge at less than 90 degrees, it makes the top of the bench hook bite into the workpiece holding the wood secure.

Then I cut the waste off at my band saw giving it the classic bench hook shape.

I cleaned up the rough face left by the band saw with my bench plane and card scraper.

I then rounded over the ends of the bench hooks using my edge sander. I taped the off cuts to the face of the bench hook in order to keep it flat on the table.

I broke all the corners of the bench hooks with a bastard file and sanded them smooth.

I simply applied two coats of shellac and drilled a hang hole in each one. They’ll eventually be beaten up and dirty so I wasn’t too concerned about using a durable finish.

I finished making the bench hooks in about an hour. They’re nearly a necessity when it comes to using a back saw as it allows your hand to hold the workpiece more securely.

These bench hook are nice but they may be little over kill. A bench hook doesn’t have to be anything more than scrap piece of a 2×4 like on the side of the workbench shown in the picture below. If you don’t have any, make them. You’ll wonder what took you so long.