Dengue 17th February 2014, 09:26 AM I have a piece of 400 x 40 x 18mm timber, and I want to cut a 2.3mm wide slot about 5 mm deep along the full length of narrow edge of the piece. The bottom of the slot must be dead parallel to the edge.
Can anyone please suggest a good way to do this?
rod1949 17th February 2014, 09:40 AM So 2.3mm is 3/32". It can be done with a thin saw blade in youe saw bench or with a router bit in a router.
03svtsnakevert 17th February 2014, 10:23 AM Yep a thin kerf blade and the fence set on your ts will do the trick
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Heavansabove 17th February 2014, 10:24 AM The thinnest standard plough plane blade is 1/8", so you would need to grind one down if you wanted to do it with a hand tool. Not hard to do, I have seen a lot of modified cutters.
IanW 18th February 2014, 09:55 AM Lots of suggestions. I had a look through a couple of online catalogues to see if anyone actually makes a 3/32 thin-kerf t/s blade, but couldn't find one. You could use one of the ultra thin-kerf blades, & make a couple of overlapping passes to get your width? In any case, most table saw blades doo't leave a flat-bottomed kerf, so you would still have to clean up with a chisel or scraper. If you can find a router bit the right size, that's probably the easiest way to go, but take it carefully, a little at a time - small diameter bits like that are flimsy & break very easily (damhik!).
Grinding a plough blade would be the long road home, imo. Depending on the wood you are using, and your ploughing skills, you may not get a very neat or clean slot due to wood breakout & a bit of wobble. I couldn't manage it with my old plough, in any case, because the skate is thicker than 3/32". A scratch-stock might be more practical, & shouldn't have too much trouble reaching the depth you want.
If the slot has to be very precise & neat, my first choice would be to use a 1mm slitting-saw blade (which I happen to have) & a simple jig on the drill press, which I also happen to have, made up for other jobs. :U It takes some fiddling & testing to adjust the saw height on the extra passes to widen the slot, but I've cut precise slots in square stocks, for e.g., using this technique. The teeth on slitting saws are flat-topped, so you'd get the required flat bottom.
Good luck - let us know what method you end up with, & how it went...
Cheers,
elanjacobs 18th February 2014, 09:35 PM Carbitool do 1.2 and 1.6 mm slot cutters for a router that run off a bearing, which pretty much guarantees it'll be parallel. The stock bearing will give you a 10mm deep cut but you can get larger bearings to adjust that.
pjt 18th February 2014, 11:07 PM I'd do it with a slot cutter in the spindle moulder, CMT list a 2.2 and a 2.4mm if it had to be 2.3 use the 2.2 and do 2 passes, second pass adjust height by .1
Pete
IanW 19th February 2014, 08:48 AM Carbitool do 1.2 and 1.6 mm slot cutters for a router that run off a bearing, which pretty much guarantees it'll be parallel. The stock bearing will give you a 10mm deep cut but you can get larger bearings to adjust that.
No need to buy a special bearing, it's a straight run, so just use the router with a fence to get the right depth. That small stick is going to be a challenge to hold clear of the bench while you run a router over it, though - better to use a router table, if you have one, or knock up a temporary r/t.....
Cheers,
Wongo 19th February 2014, 09:27 AM 2.3mm.... such precision, such fine woodwork. :D
I have a router slot cutter and I think it is around 2mm. I am sure you can find one.
rod1949 19th February 2014, 09:34 AM We've given all these suggestions but there in no indication of the tools/equipment the poster has. Makes it difficult to assist.
Dengue 19th February 2014, 11:20 AM Thanks everyone for your suggestions, they have been most worthwhile. I have decided to go for a slot cutter as recommended - I had no idea that they were available in such small widths. The smallest one I have is from Carbitool with a 4mm cutting width.
Yes, my router table will handle this nicely
Wongo 19th February 2014, 11:45 AM If it is only a 1-off small job then I would consider using the corner of a cabinet scraper to cut the wood slowly. You will need to make a jig for it. Just an idea.
GraemeCook 19th February 2014, 05:47 PM Thanks everyone for your suggestions, they have been most worthwhile. I have decided to go for a slot cutter as recommended - I had no idea that they were available in such small widths. The smallest one I have is from Carbitool with a 4mm cutting width.
Yes, my router table will handle this nicely
Good Morning Dengue
Carbitool catalog lists heaps of slot cutters from 1/16 inch [1.6 mm] upwards, increasing the cutting width in multiples of 1/64 inches [0.4 mm]. I think its always worth paying for tungsten:
http://envirocatalogue.com.au/Carbitool_Website_2012/Router_Bit/#/8/
http://envirocatalogue.com.au/Carbitool_Website_2012/Router_Bit/#/34/
Fair Winds
Graeme
auscab 19th February 2014, 06:32 PM I would be making a 2.3 wide blade for a scratch stock , Time 7 minutes, cost 3 cents :)
and if I didnt have a scratch stock to suit , Id make that too, Time 15 minutes , cost $1. 24 :)
And I would have done the one off little groove in the piece of wood in the time it takes to make a cup of tea in between the dogs on my tail vice . I think ill leave the cost of that out .
And when the customer comes in to pick up the job and asks how did I do it , I would be telling them a story about making the tool for the job the way they did it back in the 18th century , and how the old way takes time . and that they had better take a seat because I'm about tho give them the bill:)
Rob
beech1948 20th February 2014, 05:16 AM I would be making a 2.3 wide blade for a scratch stock , Time 7 minutes, cost 3 cents :)
and if I didnt have a scratch stock to suit , Id make that too, Time 15 minutes , cost $1. 24 :)
Rob
Make your own scratch stock....it provides blade control, precise depth and a accuracy as well as a good finish. You can make one in your shop in minutes and make the blade from an old bandsaw blade or similar.:)
Al
IanW 20th February 2014, 08:51 AM .......And when the customer comes in to pick up the job and asks how did I do it , I would be telling them a story about making the tool for the job the way they did it back in the 18th century , and how the old way takes time . and that they had better take a seat because I'm about tho give them the bill:)..
The bill is mainly for the story, I presume, Rob? :U
It's interesting that scratch-stocks don't seem to get anywhere near the attention & use they deserve. I have to confess that I knew about the principal for quite a long time, but thought they were just a mediaeval form of finger-torture dreamed up by people who didn't yet know what electrons were for! Then one day I wanted to make a quirked bead on a contoured edge, which no router or shaper could manage. Of course, that's a situation where a scratch-stock excels, so after some lengthy head-scratching & other avoidance tactics, I eventually decided to give one of these scratch-stock thingies a go. IIRC, it took me a lot longer than 15 minutes to make it & another while to get it working well, but you're not exaggerating when you say it takes virtually no time to do the actual job once you've got it sorted (& I can make one in a few minutes these days, too :U). Of course, it depends on the wood to some extent, very soft or highly figured woods can give you a bad time, but by luck my first attempt was on a very co-operative piece, and I was very pleased with the result.
There was an article in AWR which featured a scratch-stock a year or two back. The author's version was a Rolls-Royce model & very well made, but a perfectly functional tool can be cobbled up from scrap wood, a couple of bolts or screws, and some old saw-plate, in a few minutes. I keep a selection of chainsaw files of various diameters for making the cutters. I usually don't bother stoning or refining the edges, just use them straight off the file. If you have many metres of profile to make, you may need to re-sharpen, but it always surprises me how far you can get before that's necessary.
Cheers,
GraemeCook 20th February 2014, 11:22 AM Good Morning All
OK, I confess, I did not know what a scratch-stock was, but google is my friend ... (sometimes). Thaks Rob, Al & Ian.
Also Fine Woodworking has had a couple of articles on them recently and Lee Valley will tell you how to make one.
http://www.leevalley.com/newsletters/woodworking/1/1/article1.htm
All good stuff. Lots of hits.
Fair Winds
Graeme
Dengue 20th February 2014, 11:26 AM Thanks Graeme, I didn't have a clue what he was talking about either - thanks for the links :2tsup:
auscab 20th February 2014, 12:00 PM When I was told what a scratch stock is , and what it can do I was amazed that I had done an apprenticeship ten years before and no one had told us of the tool at school . Working in an antique business I was coming across types of mouldings and seeing fine inlays pressed into perfect channels and I could not work out how this could have been achieved with no electricity . plenty of mouldings can be seen to have been done with the moulding planes of the day , I kept seeing the ones on 18th century chairs which I couldn't figure out. Then one day I walked into a cabinet maker friend who had been specializing in very good chair reproductions . He showed me how that mould was done with the scratch stock . Amazed was I :). The back leg of those chairs has a mould that tapers as it goes up the leg and it twists like a propeller at the same time . A moulding that has been carved with chisels can be felt to be done with chisels by closing your eye's and running your hand along it . scratch mouldings are more true to feel. Funnily enough I bought a book on 18C chair making and the author did not know of the tool and did a bad job of carving that part of the chair , plainly visible in it's photos .
The grooving of channels for inlays came from being passed along and the veneering books as well.
Here is a picture of one of those chair backs. The moulding and the bead done with the scratch stock.
Rob
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