A discussion on squaring the end of boards.

[jaguarrh]

Ever since getting back into woodworking a couple of years ago, I have continually encountered the recurring nightmare that is "squaring the end of a board".

Firstly, let me set the scene. I am a consummate hack. I have a limited (but growing) set of tools and my desire for progress is outgrowing my tools and abilities. I have a cheap mitre saw that, despite my efforts to improve it, will not cut a square (perfectly square) end on a board. The slop in the pivot hinge can account for sufficient error to render it useful only for rough chops to length.

Now I know that the first few replies to this post will probably go something like this:
"Make a shooting board, it is a foolproof way of getting good clean square ends on boards"
and trust me, I have made a shooting board. It was one of the first things I made after sorting out my bench and making some bench hooks. However, I am struggling with the shoot for a number of reasons. I am still on the flat of the learning curve with respect to sharpening. This, I feel, is the largest limiting factor when it comes to success on the shoot. I upgraded my sharpening equipment from a cheap oil stone, through scary sharp sandpaper on glass with an "eclipse" honing guide, to finally getting a combination Japanese waterstone and Veritas MkII guide at the Sydney show this year. The sad part of this is that the kit I bought at the show is still in it's boxes. I am not confident to just dive in with the waterstone as I feel I need to hollow grind my blades properly first and I don't want to dish my stone by working my badly ground blades to death. I have yet to purchase a bench grinder or wet wheel grinder.

All of the above considered, I am not having much success with "shooting". I am either bashing with a blunt blade or gnarling my hand in an old Stanley no4 trying to push my blunt blade through end grain.

I feel dirty making the above confession, I promise to improve my sharpening skills and will make a better shooting board one day after Derek Cohen's fine example.

Let's now move on to more power tools. When I got my first router I was amazed at the potential. With a straight edge clamped to a piece of ply or mdf it creates a better edge than the factory edge. Yet when I go to use it to square up ends of boards using a straight edge, I struggle again. I always seem to have problems securing the work. Clamps impeding the travel of the router, improperly secured work moving during cutting, double sided tape trying to wreck my work or my substrate when attempting to separate the two. I am thinking that one of those strange looking template routing work holding devices that I have seen on the router forums, with a pegboard kind of look and cams or wedges might be the go, but I have yet to get my head around that.

Probably the third thing I built, after my bench hooks and shooting board was my router table. I have recently over hauled it by flattening the top better, installing a woodpecker plate and making new fence faces from some Laminex toilet partitions. Easy, you say, just get a bit of mdf with a 90 deg corner, butt one edge against the fence, grip the work piece against the opposing edge of the corner and pass it through the router bit on the table. I gave this a shot today, only to be disappointed. I can't seem to grip the work and sandwich a bit of scrap between it and the mdf "square" without the router moving the work slightly during cutting. I could not see a good way of clamping things to help this problem.

Another idea I came up with involved a sandwich type arrangement for a bearing guided flush trim bit. I had a mdf base that rode on the router table, The work went on top of that, then a straight edge of aluminium channel was bolted down above that to act as a guide for the bearing, squashing the work. I could make sure the work was square to the guide channel, let the work protrude a mil or so, and use the flush trimmer to square the end of the stock. However, sometimes the mdf base bowed up as the channel was tightened down, and it made the whole thing a bit wobbly.

Finally, I would like to see how you tool challenged folks (ie no kapex or accurate table saw) deal with this issue. I would like this to be a discussion thread showing ways to attack this problem. However if you just think I'm a winging pom who is having a moan because we lost the last test, that is ok.

Where I am thinking of going now is to create some kind of jig to work with the router table method described above but with integral clamping ability for one or multiple boards of varying width and thickness. I NEED a versatile accurate solution to this problem.

Help me please!

PS sorry for the verbose rant.

[Pat]

Rob, welcome to the problem solving exercise . . . If I have to have dead on 90 angles, it's best to start with a square square for marking, then 90 on the drop or table saw and then shooting board with the LV LA plane.

No wonder I went saw the light and started turning:U

[Glennet]

If you use a honing guide there is no need to hollow grind your chisels. My good chisels and plane blades aren't ever going to go near a grinding wheel if I have anything to do with it.

When you are sharpening you have to flatten your waterstones every few minutes to get good results anyway, so don't worry about wrecking them. Just flatten them again. I use the David Charlesworth method (I suggest getting his DVD).

I use a sled on my table saw to get boards square. If I want to use a router I get a bit of MDF with a straight edge but wide enough so the clamps don't interfere with the router. I have a couple of squares cut from sanding belt material that I fold over and put between the MDF and the board to stop it slipping.

If you want to be real fussy you can put a straight edge against the MDF and use that to guide the router, no need to clamp it.

Hope that is useful.

[jaguarrh]

Thanks for the tip Glen, I will look into David's video.

Pat, erudite as usual, :q

did u check out those logs in Bellambi?

[yowie]

The very best advice I can give is save up and buy the more expensive tool the first time. I have learnt this lesson a few too many times and now always wait a bit longer to get the tool that will perform the job accurately for many many years, rather than the peice of crap that you hate as soon as you take it out of the box.

[Pat]

Thanks for the tip Glen, I will look into David's video.

Pat, erudite as usual, :q

did u check out those logs in Bellambi?

Rob, I didn't get there. I spent Saturday arvo reorganising my wood storage to take the pack from The Lumber Bunker . . . I think I better turn sometime soon to make some room:U

[Lumber Bunker]

Sorry to waste your weekend Pat, ;)

[kman-oz]

I think I fit your request for semi-hack guidance Jaguarrh. I have a shop built table saw made from MDF and a 7 1/2" circular saw, a shop built router table, a not so accurate SCMS and a fair collection of hand tools. My favourite method for squaring boards it to rip them to size, joint two sides flat and square, thickness, then square the ends. I used a router and various methods for this work in the past without much satisfaction.

Ripping and crosscutting the ends is done with a table saw and sled, everything else is done with hand planes and a shooting board. In the absence of a table saw I would still use the mitre saw to square the ends roughly, then move to the shooting board.

Regarding happy shooting, you're better served to use a large plane rather than a smoother. When it comes to using the waterstones, continue with scary sharp for the major grinding work and move to the stones for the finer honing. Don't worry about buggering them up, just jump in the deep end, you'll soon learn what's right and wrong. Use some W&D on a flat surface to flatten them regularly and the Veritas guide will do a lot of the work for you.

You sound a little anxious about the whole thing. I find the simplest solution is to jump in with both feet and learn the hard way. It's amazing how much you can learn by doing something wrong. :)

Dave.

[munruben]

I use TS and sled to squarer the ends of my boards. I think its the quickest and easiest way to do it. If I didn't have the TS I would use the mitre saw and tune up on the shooting board although I haven't got round to making a shooting board yet. Always intended to but just haven't done it.

[jaguarrh]

thanks for the considered reply kman.

I was having a bit of a rant last night.

It does seem that a shooting board improvement is in my future. With regard to the sharpening, you are right. I am pussy footing around with that. This is not my usual MO, I normally do just jump right in and have a go, but the stones are so white and pristine... i just need to get them dirty once and i'll be away.

I still think I am going to try to come up with a jig for the router table to do this operation as well. In fact I was hoping someone would have posted an ingenious design for such a thing already, alas not...

okay so for now I am going to break the seal on the sharpening kit at the weekend and have a go with the shoot, but I am also going to get heath robinson with router table jig on sketchup.

I would still be interested in hearing other peoples methods though.

Oh! and I am picking up a table saw from Ruddy at the weekend, so hopefully a sled made for that might ease my pain. Here's hoping.

Cheers, Rob

[Groggy]

One small tip to make the shooting easier is to wax the plane, less friction and the effort goes to the blade instead.

[Gunnaduit]

I'm still traumatised by the abomination of handplane and shooting board from Grade 11 woodwork classes 35 years ago.

Since I bought a ProGrip (an aluminium fence that clamps across the board) I've used a router. That's precision.

[Johncs]

It does seem that a shooting board improvement is in my future. With regard to the sharpening, you are right. I am pussy footing around with that. This is not my usual MO, I normally do just jump right in and have a go, but the stones are so white and pristine... i just need to get them dirty once and i'll be away.





I have some ceramic tiles, flat, about 200mm square. I've glued (spay, temporary contact adhesive) some sandpaper to them in my chosen grades. I labelled the backs of the ties.

Wet & Dry is good.

When he grit wears out, it's easy to remove the sandpaper and glue more in.

The purpose of a hollow grind is so you can do the later parts of grinding/sharpening more quickly. If that's not a problem, then you don' (yet) need to worry about a hollow grind. When you do, you can do it on a sander, as Derek outlines.

[jmk89]

OK. Here's how my Dad showed me:


mark your square end line about 3mm from the end (use a square that is square - DAMHIK:doh:)
plane a chamfer exactly to the marked line
now plane the end grain
when you have planed off the chamfer all around - STOP it's now square:2tsup:
The advantages of this method are that the chamfer shows you where you need to plane more and also helps ensure you get a smooth cut by taking off the last fibres at the end of the cut. Also you don't need to set up (find :B:roll:) your shooting board for one or two pieces.

Even if I am using a shooting board, I still make the chamfer cuts - as well as meaning I get cleaner cuts, I find accuracy is improved because I have the chamfer to show me how I'm going. Also I get the pieces to "Blind Freddy" stage using Dad's technique first and then just do a couple of final passes on the board.

[Chris Parks]

Rob, I didn't get there. I spent Saturday arvo reorganising my wood storage to take the pack from The Lumber Bunker . . . I think I better turn sometime soon to make some room:U

Pat, if you run out of room drop some up to my place, I'll look after it for you just getting ot back might be your biggest problem.:U

[Chris Parks]

okay so for now I am going to break the seal on the sharpening kit at the weekend and have a go with the shoot, but I am also going to get heath robinson with router table jig on sketchup.

I would still be interested in hearing other peoples methods though.

Oh! and I am picking up a table saw from Ruddy at the weekend, so hopefully a sled made for that might ease my pain. Here's hoping.

Cheers, Rob

Rob, If you want someone to help you gain a bit of confidence maybe I can help, just PM me and we can organise something. I just live up the hill from you. Pat, I have a couple of woodturning magazines for you.

[Bitslong]

I don't even have a workbench or real vice yet and have been considering the same thing re sq board ends - my handcut efforts just aren't good enough.

Back in secondary we squared board ends up on a (12"?) disc sander - worked a treat and I'm wondering why no-one has mentioned it....??

Is it a big no-no? Obviously there is the potential to burn but we never had a problem with that.

I'm wondering if it was a cheaters solution for year 8 boys. Ww teacher was a lady, a rather manly lady so I never really questioned her techniques.

[IanW]

......
Back in secondary we squared board ends up on a (12"?) disc sander - worked a treat and I'm wondering why no-one has mentioned it....??

Is it a big no-no? Obviously there is the potential to burn but we never had a problem with that.

I'm wondering if it was a cheaters solution for year 8 boys. Ww teacher was a lady, a rather manly lady so I never really questioned her techniques.

Bitslong, I'm a firm believer in what works, works - there is always more than one way to skin the proverbial cat. However, I'd also ask how square do you want 'square'? I'd be a bit dubious about how true a pair of unskilled hands would get the end of a board on a disc sander, though it would probably look a lot better than a ragged saw cut, I suppose.

In followingd this thread it seems to me there's an awful lot of angst about square ends of boards & I can't really see why. I do a fair bit of solid-wood cabinet work & there aren't all that many times you absolutely must have a shot end. We were taught to do all the layout from knifed lines, which were laid out at the crucial intersections of components. (This WW teacher was male & had been a cabinetmaker in a former life, but I don't seriously think gender has anything to do with it, just how HE was taught).
For parts that have to mate flush with some other component, like tenons or dovetails, it's the shoulders that matter & sawing to just proud of the knife line & paring or planing to the line was the procedure. The end inside the mortice or dovetail is cut to the line & left that way - it just has to be neat enough to stay a tad clear of the bottom. (No-one is ever going to see it again, anyway, unless the joint fails & needs repair - :;).

In other situations like door stiles, you knife the top & bottom lines and either rough-cut or leave a bit until after assembly, then plane to the knife lines during cleanup & final squaring.

You do need to begin with square & true pieces, though, which is where acquiring skill with a jointer & jack are very handy (machines can do the bulk of the work here, if you have them, but for truly square, clean stock, it's hard to beat good hand planes).

I've had a shooting board ever since I was at school, but rarely need it. In fact I lost my old one during a move a couple of years ago, & only recently had to make a new one for a specific job.

Maybe I'm just a sloppy workman.... :U

Cheers,

[rhancock]

Maybe I'm just a sloppy workman.... :U

Cheers,

Hah! Sloppy? (http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=7727)

By the way, how square do you need the board ends for decent dovetails?

[IanW]

Hah! Sloppy? (http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=7727)

By the way, how square do you need the board ends for decent dovetails?

Richard - it depends on how you intend to mark out, I suppose. If I'm satisfied the ends are dead square, I mark the depth with a cutting gauge - quick & easy. However, you could just as easily do it with a square & knife. You will need the end to be straight enough to mark out the tails from, but as long as it's reasonable, the tails are going to be within a whisker of constant (& the tails get marked off those, in any case). The tails should end up a bit proud after assembly, and get planed flush, so it doesn't make sense to sweat over it too much initially. I try to work to reference lines I know are true, & preferebly easy to set out....

Cheers,

Cheers,

[rhancock]

Thanks, I'll have to think about how I set them out. I've been using a marking gauge as that's the way Frank Klaus does it (bet his boards are square!), but using a square on a reference edge would save the unnecessary labour of squaring the ends, when as you said, they'll get planed flush anyway. I'll try it that way.

[rrobor]

I have a sheet of MDF, I glue and screw a strip to one side along the edge. Then I get the router without a bit and mark the width and screw and glue another strip. You now should be able to run the router along this chanel. Then I plunge rout a slot leaving a bit for strength each end. Next fit an end stop piece of board to stop the router. Turn the board over and glue and screw a board to the bottom to square, slightly across the end of your routed slot. Turn it over and rout a half moon in the bottom board and the jig is done. Perfect square ends, the only issue is tear out if you hit the open end hard but you can overcome that with a bit of sacraficial waste clamped on if need be.

[jaguarrh]

sorry I have been slow to respond, I have been focussed on getting my shed sorted for a table saw. Oh and a trip to the vet with a sick puppy on friday night.

I am glad this thread is turning into a bit of a discussion though, just what I was hoping for.

Anyway, to answer some of the points raised...

Groggy, I didn't get round to doing any sharpening yet, but when I do I want to try some wax, what is a good cheap wax to use and where from, I don't want to waste my expensive finishing wax and am struggling to find cheap plain paste wax.

Gunnaduit, ProGrip eh? will have to look into that

Mini, I would love to catch up with you some time, it is good to know there are a few forumites in the vicinity. That Pat though??? doesn't he just do the round stuff? :q :doh:

Bitslong, I dunno, I think I would feel like I was cheating trying to do it on the disk sander, and as IanW says, would probably be a struggle to get it dead square.

IanW, I understand what you are saying about the layout controlling the finished product. However I am intending to use my home made tennoning jig on the router table for these parts, and the piece rides on the endgrain vertically. I know I could still cut a bit long and trim the tennon, but I am striving to master this seemingly basic skill.

rrobor, that sounds interesting, but I am having trouble visualising it. don't suppose you have a pic?

with regard to jigs, I am thinking of trying the one in Shopnotes mag (#87). I saw a video of it being used to cut rail and stiles but it should work for this task also. I will post a pic of my sketchup when I work out how to resize pics on this mac.

cheers

Rob

[jaguarrh]

my jig thoughts...

[rrobor]

As you see its a simple set square that locks the router in a slot and as its 2 sided, it keeps it flat. Clamp it to a board andyou get an edge you could shave with

[Glider]

Even if I am using a shooting board, I still make the chamfer cuts - as well as meaning I get cleaner cuts, I find accuracy is improved because I have the chamfer to show me how I'm going.

Great idea, JMK. :2tsup: Looks like you might be a near neighbour.

Although I generally use my Makita mitre saw for square cuts, and there's no slop in it, I still have to set it up very carefully because the default square position is definitely not 90 degrees.

[IanW]

I managed a bit of quality shed-time over the weekend, & was thinking about this topic as I happily sawed & chopped away on some parts for a desk that require a very low tolerance fit. These are the dividers for a drawer & two lopers that separate the desk surface & the drawer runner, both of which are inserted by sliding dovetails. The dividers have to fit very accurately between the upper & lower members, so it is the shoulders that have to be dead square & accurate. In fact, I goofed when chopping the mortises for the dividers, and left them a fraction shallow, so I just nipped the tenons off a bit by eye to get a snug fit, rather than go back over the six small mortises involved - ther is more glueing surface than necessary, anyway. I did cut the bits out pretty square to begin with, but all layout was done from knifed lines that established the distance between shoulders, so the ends never had to be particularly accurate.

In fact, I realise that a lot of the time I work with stock that is fairly rough-cut, & can achieve that by hand saws or, if a slightly better surface is required, by careful setup of the tablesaw, hence my only occasional use of shooting boards. However, if I were to go with a lot of joinery using dowels or dominos or slip tenons, I would most definitely be chasing highly accurate ends on pieces from the start. So it really depends on your principal line of production - a lot of old conventional joinery is more dependant on very accurate secondary surfaces than the primary cuts - just as well, too if you are relying on a bunch of handsaws to do all your stock preparation.... :roll:

Cheers,

[Cruzi]

Great idea, JMK. :2tsup: Looks like you might be a near neighbour.

Although I generally use my Makita mitre saw for square cuts, and there's no slop in it, I still have to set it up very carefully because the default square position is definitely not 90 degrees.

You need to adjust your fence until it is square :doh:

Don't know about drop saws, but almost any SCMS with a good blade, set up correctly will get you a perfect, smooth & square cut everytime, very quickly.

[GraemeCook]

Hi Jaquarrh

Your original rant sounds very much like me three years ago. At that stage I had been wood butchering for forty years, junk tools from B**s, nothing sharpened properly - if a chisel didn't cut I was not wacking it hard enough - hopeless technique, etc. In retrospect I am amazed at what I managed to produce in spite of my ineptness.

Then I decided to do things right. And it was so confusing and frustrating; so much good advice, so many options, I tried to learn ten things at once and got distracted - my high stuff up rate soared.

Next I decided that I could only learn one skill at a time. First sharpening.

Here I got some very good advice, especially from Derek C, bought a Veritas honing guide and started with scary sharp. My first chisel was far sharper and truer than it had ever been before - wow - and by the sixth or seventh I started wondering what my advisers meant by "a wire forming". On my tenth chisel it happened and I was on the next plane - a big jump in task expertise that happened quite quickly. I can now sharpen a chisel or plane blade so that it will cut paper easily.

In retrospect it was a good decision to learn scary sharp first - it eliminates most variables - the Veritas honing guide aligns the blade, I do not have to worry about whether the stone is flat or being gauged, etc. I will probably stay with scary sharp for setting primary bevels and move onto water stones for finer work.

Have a look at:
www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=69573&highlight=idiot+sharpening (http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=69573&highlight=idiot+sharpening)

Enjoy the process.

Cheers

Graeme

[kman-oz]

I think I'd like to qualify this:


...but almost any quality SCMS with a good blade, set up correctly will get you a perfect, smooth & square cut everytime, very quickly.

I've owned two of the lesser varieties and neither of them could produce an edge worthy of even a shop jig, let alone furniture. On ther other hand, I used a Makita SCMS once and was thrilled at the surface it produced by comparison.

[jimbur]

Some time back I had some longish boards to square so I used an old door on trestles. Made sure the door was square, put a stop strip along one edge, an aluminium strip on the short end for the router bearing to run on and I was away. Plenty of room for cramps and the finish was near enough perfect.
Jim

[Pat]

Mini, I would love to catch up with you some time, it is good to know there are a few forumites in the vicinity. That Pat though??? doesn't he just do the round stuff? :q :doh:

Rob, I do do flat stuff, occasionally, very occasionally:U

Chris, I'll give you a call, maybe a local gtg at you spacious shed could be a good thing!

[Cruzi]

I think I'd like to qualify this:

.but almost any quality SCMS with a good blade, set up correctly will get you a perfect, smooth & square cut everytime, very quickly.


I've owned two of the lesser varieties and neither of them could produce an edge worthy of even a shop jig, let alone furniture. On ther other hand, I used a Makita SCMS once and was thrilled at the surface it produced by comparison.

The qualifier is not needed, almost any SCMS can produce good accurate cuts, its simply a matter of knowing how to set them up correctly.

This (http://users.bigpond.com/cruzi/chevboard001.JPG) and this (http://users.bigpond.com/cruzi/pmboard001.JPG) were done on a Ryobi table saw and SCMS with good blades and not a gap or inaccurate cut anywhere. Of course it took a lot longer than if quality tools were used but accurate results can be achieved, and yes, they can even be used to make furniture.

[jaguarrh]

IanW, you have a very good point. I think I may have my focus all wrong and should be adapting my work practices to suit.

My joinery does not involve dowels or dominos. The project I am doing at the moment is a drop leaf table using mitred tennons in mortices. If I worked on the knife line principal, made the tennons too long then cut the mitre on the tennon at the end of this process, i would not have to worry about square ends.

Although I would still like to be able to achieve it when necessary.

Graeme, I understand what you are saying. I did go the scary sharp route for a while and was impressed by the result. Just too many bits of sandpaper to corral. That is why I chose to buy waterstones, just need to find time to deploy them now.

Anyway, I would just like to thank all of the contributors so far. I will post my router table jig when I build it, and would love to have this discussion continue.

Oh and Chris (Mini), a GTG sounds like a good idea.

Rob

[IanW]

Rob - I claim no credit for any great insights. I was just echoing what I was taught in woodworking in the 50's. Our teachers were blokes who had done their time in trades before power tools had become dominant, so they worked with simple preparation & layout procedures that minimised effort but maximised precision of fit. There isn't any alternative to careful layout for most hand work, but I think a lot of us have drifted away from the basic layout & work habits that facilitate precision because there are so many power tools that can achieve a pretty good result with a jig or aid or two. How many out there still check, adjust (& mark!) the face & edge of each piece before laying out? I confess to being impatient (lazy) sometimes & don't mark out properly because I'm using a machine for repetitive operations, and it rarely saves the time I hoping to save because I forget to flip for a mirrored piece, or a stop slips out of alignment, or whatever. After ruining some perfectly good wood, I chastise myself & go back to marking out properly again - for at least a week or two..... :;
Cheers,

[rhancock]

I know the thread has moved on from shooting boards, but for those who are interested, there's an article on Fine Woodworking (http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/16402/shooting-board) about making and using one.

[jimbur]

Rob - I claim no credit for any great insights. I was just echoing what I was taught in woodworking in the 50's. Our teachers were blokes who had done their time in trades before power tools had become dominant, so they worked with simple preparation & layout procedures that minimised effort but maximised precision of fit. There isn't any alternative to careful layout for most hand work, but I think a lot of us have drifted away from the basic layout & work habits that facilitate precision because there are so many power tools that can achieve a pretty good result with a jig or aid or two. How many out there still check, adjust (& mark!) the face & edge of each piece before laying out? I confess to being impatient (lazy) sometimes & don't mark out properly because I'm using a machine for repetitive operations, and it rarely saves the time I hoping to save because I forget to flip for a mirrored piece, or a stop slips out of alignment, or whatever. After ruining some perfectly good wood, I chastise myself & go back to marking out properly again - for at least a week or two..... :;
Cheers,

Spot on Ian. I'm guilty of taking short-cuts until brought back by a half inch too much off a board then it's back to the measure, mark, measure again.
Cheers,
Jim

[Bitslong]

I know the thread has moved on from shooting boards, but for those who are interested, there's an article on Fine Woodworking (http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/16402/shooting-board) about making and using one.
Thanks :2tsup:

[hcim]

The very best advice I can give is save up and buy the more expensive tool the first time. I have learnt this lesson a few too many times and now always wait a bit longer to get the tool that will perform the job accurately for many many years, rather than the peice of crap that you hate as soon as you take it out of the box.

LESSON LEARNED:doh: .... many times :B,


OK. Here's how my Dad showed me:


mark your square end line about 3mm from the end (use a square that is square - DAMHIK:doh:)
plane a chamfer exactly to the marked line
now plane the end grain
when you have planed off the chamfer all around - STOP it's now square:2tsup:

The advantages of this method are that the chamfer shows you where you need to plane more and also helps ensure you get a smooth cut by taking off the last fibres at the end of the cut. Also you don't need to set up (find :B:roll:) your shooting board for one or two pieces.

.
GREAT !!! :2tsup: ...never think off it. Thanks, thanks, thanks

[Johncs]

Let's now move on to more power tools. When I got my first router I was amazed at the potential. With a straight edge clamped to a piece of ply or mdf it creates a better edge than the factory edge. Yet when I go to use it to square up ends of boards using a straight edge, I struggle again. I always seem to have problems securing the work. Clamps impeding the travel of the router, improperly secured work moving during cutting, double sided tape trying to wreck my work or my substrate when attempting to separate the two. I am thinking that one of those strange looking template routing work holding devices that I have seen on the router forums, with a pegboard kind of look and cams or wedges might be the go, but I have yet to get my head around that.




A simple jig, shaped like a try-square, will do the job. Mark the cleat with the router bit you use, so to can align this mark with the cut line, and not have to bother with "how far from the cut line do I position the fence?"

The jig is specific to the router and bit, so label it accordingly.

Make another for your circular saw.

Just take care that the jig really is square.

This video shows how to make a guide to cut panels straight. Add a cleat at one end so it's automatically squared. A short guide will help cut ends of planks square, or to guide your router to square them. You should use a template guide with the router.