Thread: I Made Me A Jigsaw Table.

G'day Kev,

What a great job you have done on this table. It is truly inspirational and a real credit to you - Congratulations mate. Keep up the excellent work and look forward to many more of your posts

Best Regards

Keith

Thanks Keith, I been pretty busy by my standards and it all takes time, I promised a friend that my very first truck (B-Double) will be his. So I eager to get started. I hope to start in a few days time on it so I will put up some posts as I go along. Hooroo Kev.

Originally Posted by KJL1951 aka Kev

Thanks Keith, I been pretty busy by my standards and it all takes time, I promised a friend that my very first truck (B-Double) will be his. So I eager to get started. I hope to start in a few days time on it so I will put up some posts as I go along. Hooroo Kev.

Hi Kev,

That's excellent - I really look forward to your upcoming posts

Regards

Keith

You have done a fantastic job on that setup. Looking forward to the WIP on the B double and others.

Thanks rwbuild, I not fast and it takes me time but I to lookin' forward to share what I can do. Hooroo Kev.

A great little table to use for cutting and glad that you have found a way to overcome the difficulties so that you can start to make toys. Enjoy every moment, I find that woodwork is a great therapy well for me at least.

Hope to see your progress on the up and coming project.

Thanks Dalboy, Geez been that long ago since I made a posting here in the forums I gotta try and work out what in the hell is goin' on . Me emails have taken off a a great rate with notifications and I gotta learn what I forgotten about using this forum site. To be totally honest Dalboy I did seriously a few years ago come close to gettin' rid of all my power tools due to my progress with pd, but then when I sat down and looked at all the problems I now faced to use me tools it dawned on me that no matter what I'd attempt in the future I was gunna have a battle on me hands. Yes when friends visit us here at home or trades people come here to do things that I no longer can handle some of them are horrified at what they see me using power tools for.

One chap who came to put a new satellite dish on our house roof asked the wife what in the hell I was tryin' to build in my shed as he was concerned about what he had seen me using in the way of power tools. She told him that I had built a mini spraying painting booth a few years back and I was now working on a air supply for it. Mrs have you seen him using those tools, don't you worry. She said some times she had watched me and wondered what in the hell was goin' to happen, but she'd now given up worryin' and would only start to worry when she heard me coming from the shed to the house yelling and screamin which would be a clear sign that something had bitten me badly.

Ok that's enough about me pd problems, its a new day and I got much I have to achieve. I make a new thread so that you can follow my first B-Double Truck build, I have already a rough prototype I built some months ago that I'll be working from. So bear with me and please as I go along don't be afraid to criticise my work or make suggestions because I will not be offended. If it weren't for criticism in the last few years since gettin' pd I'd be a lazy ole basket case sittin' around feelin' sorry for me self and being a real pain in the A.... to all.
Hooroo all I got a new thread to start up and I hope you'll come visit me first toy truck build. .Kev.

Great post and a good effort.

Great use of the jigsaw Kev. Now you have a bandsaw without the top wheel and all that goes with it.
Qst, how did you fix the jigsaw to the underneath of the table?
Looking forward to the following your B-Double build.
Geoff

G'Day Kev, I wrote a late reply yesterday saying how good it was to see you woodworking and posting again.
Looking forward very much to seeing your new truck soon, cheers, Peter

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G'Day Kev, I'm a bit late on this one but sir, it's great to see you up and about doing toys....

I'm curtaining looking forward to seeing your truck.. Cheers, Peter

G'day Geoff, Yes mate I do have a band saw another one of me tools that worries the hell outa me these days. Much of what I do now is from a sitting position as the right side of me body right down to the tips of me toes is a little hard to control at times, I'm always thinking up ways to combat me problems and no doubt I'll come up with one for that as well. In the mean time solving all me problems in one go isn't allowing me time to build me trucks and that's what I wanna do most of. I have tried to explain how I attached me jigsaw and made the table top, pretty long winded explanation but I trust you understand it.
Base plate.jpg
Ok here is shot of me jigsaw base plate. Now me jigsaw is an older model about 20 odd years old one of those darn Makita’s that won’t die, well not for me anyways because wife says unless its dead why buy another.

Now I use 6mm thick plywood for me table top, I took the base plate off the Makita and belted hell outa the end of the plate on some railway iron to level out the up turned end of the plate.

I placed it about centre of me table top and drew around it. Now as I have the older model jigsaw the blades have two holes in them and with the standard sized blade I’d get very little blade stickin’ out on the top of the table, so after finding a source of bigger blades I could get a little extra blade to use.

My biggest problem was to cut out the shape of the jigsaw base plate into the table top as my tremors don’t go to good with my big powerful Makita Router, so after much playing around I clamped small bits of plywood all around the base plate shape and used my little Dremel tool router attachments to hollow out the shape of the base plate. Again things didn’t always go to plan and after a number of attempts I got a good tight snug fit for me base plate.

I can’t remember the exact thickness of the base plate from the jigsaw, but when I routed out the hole I made sure that the plate wasn’t totally flush with the bottom of the table top. So that when I glued the next 6mm plywood over the base plate and clamped it all down to dry it would give a solid hold on the base plate.

But before gluing in place I had to drill a hole into the table top so that I could get to the jigsaw screw that would allow me to attach the jigsaw later, also I had to get the slot cut into the table top for the blade to protrude through. Most important before gluing on the second piece of plywood.

Now also important before the second piece of plywood is glued into place, take your base plate and re-attach it to the jigsaw and sit it all in the hole of the table top. Using scraps of plywood (which I had much of due to stuff ups) I made up a short of jigsaw puzzle so that I could cover as much of the base plate as possible yet would still be able to get to the jigsaw after it was attached to change blades etc. When happy with that I did me measurements and cut out the hole in my second piece of plywood. When all was glued and clamped into place I had a solid embedded base plate.

The down side is that should I ever want to use the jigsaw as it was designed to be used I’m unable to remove the base plate. That’s no problem for me as its an older type jigsaw I was able to buy some wrecked ones from the local junk mart and have spare plates should I need them.

So that’s the method I used and it works for me. It turn out to be a rather expensive project because I had to use power tools through out the build that I fear due to me tremors, plus while everything appears straight forward I did use quite a bit of plywood to achieve what I now have, so I have plenty of plywood that I can use on other projects.
Currently the jigsaw is held in place just by one screw to the base plate and I’m working on some ideas to support the body of the jigsaw as it hangs beneath the table. Another draw back is that I can not tilt my jigsaw from side to side to do angle cuts because I would have had to make the blade slot wider in the table top to achieve that. Its just built to allow me to do simple cuts on smaller pieces of timber that I’m not comfortable using my big table saw for.

When I started buildin’ this jigsaw table the one thing I had in mind from the word go was the size I wanted the table to be, so I made the top a little bigger than I wanted. Once the jigsaw was mounted and I fitted the blade I then squared off the edges of the table to the protruding blade, this allowed me to get my embedded fence guides nicely set up. I did worry about the slight movement in the blade when cutting my timber but it’s like any type of power tool, take time and don’t force the wood and let the blade do the work and I get a pretty good results.

So that’s it Geoff, long winded I know, but like everything I attempt in my little workshop these days all is long winded and takes time.
Hooroo Kev.

G'day Crowie, mate still tryin' to get use to the way things are done in the forum here, I'm all over the place like a mad woman's/man's breakfast. It sure been one hell of a ride over the past few months but what the hell I'm still above ground and makin' it through each day. Had a visit to Brisbane in mid December to see the Neurologist and on the morning of the visit the wife had a terrible fall, she's coming good slowly all of her brusin' is gone now and we just waiting to see if her fractured and twisted tali bone will settle down or if it'll have to be removed. Ah she's one hell of a tough cookie and it takes more than a fall to keep a good ole Aussie country born and bred sheila down.

Have had a few more problems crop up mate mainly with me tremors and walking ability but I think I got this pd bugger under control for now. Maybe one day I might get down to recording me own rap song and doin' the dance moves me self, but that'll have to wait because I ready now to rock n roll with me little trucks. I have made a number of wheels from that timber you told me about ages ago, buggered if I can remember its name so when I go shoppin' for it its always written down as 'Crowies Timber'.

Good to hear from ya, have made the odd visit to the fourm and been keepin' an eye on all the projects. Is truly fantastic what you blokes are turnin' out, yes me a bit jealous of you blokes from time to time but I'm ready to rock n roll now so look out. Hope to start me build soon so lookin' forward to yours and others advice ok. Hooroo Kev.

Thanks for that Kev. Your a better man than me to do what you do!
Now, start some trucks for us!

G'day Tiny Tool, I could either sit around cry and moan woooooooo is me all bloody day long or try and do want I want to do, I think tryin' to do what I wanna do is the best way forward even if its a bit slow. Hooroo Kev.