Thread: Table Mounted Jigsaw

Paul, very much looking forward to hearing all about the Toowoomba shopping experience,an the saw handle cutting thingy too I suppose.

Cheers Matt.

Have you considered a scroll saw? You need to drill a hole in your blank and feed the blade through for internal cuts (and then remove the blade) but it has similar pluses to bandsaw for what you want to do, or jigsaw but keeps your hands on the blank.

Originally Posted by Handyjack

Have you considered a scroll saw? You need to drill a hole in your blank and feed the blade through for internal cuts (and then remove the blade) but it has similar pluses to bandsaw for what you want to do, or jigsaw but keeps your hands on the blank.

Handyjack

I have indeed considered such a beast; Not as a separate machine but as an addition to this one utilising the jigsaw for the motive power. However it is a protracted story so with permission, please allow me to return to this subject a little later.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Paul, very much looking forward to hearing all about the Toowoomba shopping experience,an the saw handle cutting thingy too I suppose.

Cheers Matt.

Matt

The Toowoomba experience was something else. I don't think I have parted with so much money in a long time that I had not planned to do. Very quickly lest the OP gets a bit shirty (that's with an "R"), we are going walking in Tassy in December with our daughter. We needed some hiking boots, some wet weather gear and a day pack as in "dry as a vulture's armpit" Millmerran we have not had a need for such equipment, particularly with the shops being 500m up the road. Talk about an arm and a leg. I was prepared to have them amputated so I could claim I was incapacitated.



Regards
Paul

Paul if you are using steel plate you might want to consider metal bluing (well its more like blackening) as a finish.

Here is my metal work Drill press table I made out of 20mm steel plate.

Complete1.jpg

Complete2.jpg


Some bluing will eventually abrade away from repeated passing wood across the aurfCE it. But if and when it re-rusts the bluing process can easily be repeated.
The extent of loss of the bluing can be seen above after 2 years use with drilling metal but this is a less abrasive process as the metal is not continually dragged across the table by held firmly in place.

A full WIP of that table with lots of pics is shown here
Drill press hold down table

The recess in the table is a tad over 12mm deep and relies on the leveling screws in the Incra plate to get everything level with the table. In principle this has to be replicated with my new jigsaw plate.

P1060086 (Medium).JPG P1060087 (Medium).JPG

The Incra plate has ten grub screws and the prospect of drilling and tapping ten holes did not immediately appeal as one of the more interesting aspects of this project. Then I remembered that years ago I had started to collect Lesto drills. Fortunately I realised that this was not that good an idea and I stopped when I had two except that I acquired another two slightly different Lestos. One was a screwdriver for slotted head screws, which I converted to a device to screw hex head roofing screws. Although it works very well it has largely been superceeded by the ubiquitous cordless impact driver. The fourth drill was a tapping drill. Although I have had it for years I have never used it. mainly because I was fearful it would snap off the tap at the first attempt. With the prospect of ten holes ahead of me I decided to give it a go.

P1060089 (Medium).JPG

The Lesto drill was made in the 50/60 era and was bought out by Bosch. Lesto, I believe, invented the jigsaw just after WW2. It sometimes goes under the name Lesto Scintilla. I think.....

The tapping operation was hugely successful and so much easier to get the taps straight in the hole. It was not tiring and much quicker. I did use a series of taps (first, second and bottom) as precaution. This was because of another aspect. As soon as I began drilling the hole prior to tapping I realised my steel plate was in fact stainless steel. The plate had appeared a little rusty, but it was stain and grime not rust. Drilling was a little more difficult and I resorted to cutting fluid and slower speeds, but the tapping did not present a problem at all:

P1060088 (Medium).JPG

I was pleasantly surprised.

I utilised holes in the foot plate where I could. The two middle pairs of holes were threaded and I used some salvaged allen bolts, but unfortunately the head was too deep and I cut some of the head off (shown partially sawn in the second pic) and sawed a slot in the top so these would form slotted bolts and countersunk from the top side of the plate like a machine screw. There are three more hole for bolts inserted from the underside and threaded into the plate.

P1060090 (Medium).JPG P1060092 (Medium).JPG

I started this project last Sunday and I was unable to obtain grub screws. I cut the heads off some more of the allen bolts previously mentioned and these became my grub screws for leveling. This was convenience and not cost.

On Ebay I could have bought about thirty plus grubscrews for less than $10 delivered. The screws below are in a dish as by this stage I had already dropped and lost one screw on the dirt floor!

P1060096 (Medium).JPG

This is the jigsaw in question: A Bosch I bought a little more than twenty years ago.


P1060097 (Medium).JPG P1060098 (Medium).JPG

The plate fits the recess but is sitting low and the second shot shows where the plate has been leveled with the table. It only has four grub screws in place so far. The screws are also stainless. Not really by design, just chance.

P1060099 (Medium).JPG P1060100 (Medium).JPG

The plate looks like this from the top. The hole for the blade has been drilled, but I have to drill another hole to access a bolt that holds the body of the jigsaw to the foot. It allows the jigsaw to cut a bevel, although I won't be using that feature in the table. I did not get the machine quite square to the foot and it requires the whole thing to be dismantled to make an adjustment.

P1060101 (Medium).JPG

That's about it for now.

Regards
Paul

Bob

That is a very useful looking table and thank you for the pix. I am most impressed and I will visit the link as I don't remember seeing that one.

I took rather a long time to put up the previous post and you will see that I discovered down the track that the metal is in fact stainless steel. Consequently I will probably not need to treat it.

Regards
Paul

Bob

The table was posted on the metalwork forum which is why I missed it. It came up very well. Although I don't think I will need to take any special precautions for my plate, being stainless steel, I am interested by your bluing process. I had always thought this was achieved by heating boiled linseed oil onto a surface. I had thought it was used on the splines for back saws. Have I got this wrong or are there two processes which have a similar description? I get the impression your bluing (nothing to do with intense discussions with SWMBO) could also be described as fuming (still nothing to do with domestic disputes ).

For those of you who missed Bob's link to the drill press table as it is well worth a look:

Drill press hold down table

Were the hold downs a proprietary device? They look a little too "cast" to be shop made.

Regards
Paul

Unfortunately the weekend has been something of a write off regarding woodworking projects. I did get a little done before we had to head off for the daughter's birthday. Not really very much work but a few pix. I mounted a long blade and made sure it does not hit anything. The long blade was to check if things were square too. In this shot the grub screws had not been used to level

P1060103 (Medium).JPG

The blade looks to be square both ways:

P1060105 (Medium).JPGP1060106 (Medium).JPG

I drilled the extra hole to adjust the bevel facility

P1060107 (Medium).JPG

Then it was time to think about the arm that will hold the guide mechanism.

P1060112 (Medium).JPG

I needed to make a right angle

P1060114 (Medium).JPGP1060115 (Medium).JPG

It was some more rescued steel from scrap bins. This time it is some chanel, which again is stainless steel but has a white plastic coating. This will probably be a nuisance as when the join is welded the plastic will melt and make an unholy mess which I will then have to clean up. I have not made the bend yet. Tomorrow.

Regards
Paul

Question if I may,[emoji6]
Paul you checked the blade squareness on both sides for squareness,
Or was this just for the lefty wood workers out there?
But using a word I despise more than that book you an I have spoke about privately.
One would assume the blade is of an even thickness!!

Cheers Matt.

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Question if I may,[emoji6]
Paul you checked the blade squareness on both sides for squareness,
Or was this just for the lefty wood workers out there?
But using a word I despise more than that book you an I have spoke about privately.
One would assume the blade is of an even thickness!!

Cheers Matt.

Matt

You are quite right that if the blade was square to the plate on one side it should be square on the other side. When I took the two pix it was as much about making sure the insert plate had been leveled to the main table, but I did not state that! You will see that the little brass square square straddles the main table as well as the insert plate.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Matt

You are quite right that if the blade was square to the plate on one side it should be square on the other side. When I took the two pix it was as much about making sure the insert plate had been leveled to the main table, but I did not state that! You will see that the little brass square square straddles the main table as well as the insert plate.

Regards
Paul

Bugger,
Me an my big mouth [emoji3064]

Cheers Matt.

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Bugger,
Me an my big mouth [emoji3064]

Cheers Matt.

Matt

Not at all. It was only when you pointed it out that I realised how stupidly unnecessary it must have seemed. Superfluous if you prefer.



Regards
Paul

Hi Paul; I’m enjoying the build!

I used to have a Triton router table and bought the upside down jigsaw mounting kit with the intention of using it as a bandsaw substitute, however it really didn’t work very well . I found that when using the thinner blades needed for tight internal curves (such as the inside of a saw handle) the blade would deflect alarmingly and start cutting at an angle. The support arm was pretty much useless as it was pressed steel with plastic fittings, it provided very little in the way of lateral support unless you were cutting something soft like Kraft cheese slices (warm, not straight out of the fridge).

I can definitely endorse Handyjack’s suggestion of a scrollsaw! On Sunday I finally found the right Round Tuit to do some more work on The Great American crosscut saw and cut the hand hole out in the handle. I considered using the jigsaw for this but decided to use my crappy old GMC scrollsaw with a cheap-arsed pinned blade; it had no issues coping with the thick oak. As I have a bandsaw the outside profile will be cut using that but I would have reached for the scroll saw again rather than the jigsaw. It is a lot slower... but you do get to sit down and concentrate!