Thread: Simple SHopmade Crosscut Jig for beginners

I would make the Back Fence the reference fence, then the natural pressure of cutting action will hold wood against fence.

Agreed.
It would also help to reduce tearing/chipping as the blade breaks through the trailing edge of the timber.

steve

Lou,

Firstly congratulations on building another jig to make things easier and accurate for you and sharing with us.

Some observations for you to consider that may improve your jig.

1. I agree that the back fence should be used for holding the timber against.

2. Instead of dog holes & wonderpups I would use my holddowns http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...ead.php?t=7990 or toggle clamps. They will hold the work firmly against the fence and are easy to use.

3. For safety reasons I would fully enclose the saw blade at the end of its run after it has passed through the fence by boxing it in. Especially as you haven't got a dedicated workshop.

4. You may want to incorporate a flip up /down moveable stops for repetition work and glue on a tape measure on the fence.

Of course if you incorporate these it is no longer a simple jig and you may want to protect it by putting in a sacrificial base of say masonite so it does not cut your good jig.


Peter.

thx for the advise fellas,

Unfortunately the top fence is a little bit out of square so i loath to use it as the reference fence.................in addition you'll notice that the present reference fence is twice as thick spot on square and dressed with some sacrificial pine for clamping.

As you can see theres cuts in the reference fence either side of the sled to allow downward clamping. its some kind of clamping pressure that I require to incorporate into the present Jig to push stock up against the reference fench that i need help with..................thus the idea of dog holes and wonder pups to push the stock up against the fence.

I'm open to any other ideas particularly better ones!!!!!! Sturdee your spot on with boxing up the blade as it finishes its run i've posted a pic of a clamp that i accidently left in the road and managed to guage out a great piece of thread (lucky wasent a major disaster).

Sturdee what are your ideas on the flip up down stops? as per point 4. I think this would be a great idea!!!!!

I'm toying with the idea of making a sled for the foot of the circular saw which rides on full extension drawer slides ideally the ball bearing type that runs as smooth as butter. these are often found in commercial high end tool cabenet drawers.....................do you guys think this would work ??? all ideas and suggestions appreciated.

Would appreciate more feedback from all the jig builders .................. I reckon we can come up with a Ripper of a crosscut Jig for the fraction of the cost of a power mitre saw!!!!

Regards Lou

Lou


Congratulations on a very simple BUT effective jig.

I think that you are looking for trouble with the RSPCA if you use dogs and pups, , but they will always be in the wrong place because Murphy is the most active person in the universe.

I would suggest a few different size wedges. Place ur wood inbetween the fences, slide in two opposing wedges and " Hey presto" they push the wood against the front fence.

QED


Ragards

Lou,

The nick in the clamp wasn't what worried me about the saw being unguarded. Clamps are cheap enough but if you have young kids and they manage to touch the spinning blade :eek: especially as it must be difficult to keep them away when working outside.

The moveable stops are shown in the photo of the extension fence to my SCMS. http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...6&page=2&pp=19 They slide in that famous sailtrack and the stop flips up and away when not needed.

Peter.

yER the kids are locked in when the sharps come out!!! (Always safety first
) AFter a bit of looking round and trying to come up with a solution I thought that some kind of cam locking set up might be the go.............Just something along the lines of a tear drop type shape held with a short handle (thin end) held in by 19mm drog hole! ............I'll post a drawing once i work out how to draw it

regards Lou

Lou,

I too am restircted to a circular saw and have read this post with some interest. I've tried - and failed - to make a similar jig for ripping with the saw guided from above on steel angle. I just couldnt find a way to raise/lower the guide rails to sit on top of the timber. When your cross cutting its OK to have a gap between the sawplate and the timber but not when ripping a long cut

Now I havent built your jig so my comments might be out of line but:

It seems to me that your concentrating too much on clamping and smoothly guiding the saw. What matters the most getting the fence and the rails dead set absolutely square.

How did you do this? Did you simply draw a line with a trisquare and then glue/screw to that? I had a ***** of a time trying to get my fence square for a shooting board using that method, but I couldnt think of anything else.

With regards to your good fence being the front one, why not just turn jig around and run the saw the other way?

Another point, rather than drilling dog holes and using wonderdogs, you could simply drill two holes in your 'bad fence" whack a T-nut in and use some threaded rod to secure the stock against the good fence.

Another thing, rather than gluing and screwing a two pieces to form your guide rails, why not just cut a rabbet on each to form your guide rail. It removes one more source of error (if you have a router)

Gidday LineLefty

These are great questions for those of us who haven't got a fully decked out workshop .................. I'd love to get some feedback from forum members bout making an intermediate crosscut cut Jig........................A project I'll do once I get a router............

Heres a forum link to a post I started some weeks ago now shows pics of how I put the Jig together:

http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...ad.php?t=13045

For Ripping I'm going to go with the EZ smartguide till I can afford a high quality table saw keep an eye out on Dean's Website:

http://www.onlinetoolreviews.com/toolreviewindex.htm

Theres a whisper that he may be posting a review in the next month or two

......................For me to it was a real challenge to get everthing as close to perfectly square as I could (In the end I think I was using three squares to finally get it right (And I'm sure you'll agree that the picture of the blade kurf [cut line] in the bottom of the Jig looks true.............Regardless I agree its a real hassle an pain to get right.......but at the same time worth the effort.

I agree the importance of getting the fence and rails true.............also though I think that its real important to get the foot of the saw running through the rails as smoothly as possible. I'm experimenting with some T - Track ideas and would be great to get some feedback about this from yourself and other forum members.

Thx for the feedback on the Jig I'll make a few Mods and do some posts once shes done................................The good fence is at the front so that I can clamp the Jig where ever I want if its at the back it restricts clamping options to straight flat surfaces.

Perhaps you could make a similar Jig Lefty then we might combine the best features of both Jigs :confused: Hopefully some of these Old Jiggers I'll get in on the act soon.....................Heres hopin

Regards Lou

I hope I'm wrong here, but it looks like you are cutting towards the open end of the rails? And the saw is dragging itself into the wood to be cut?

What is there to stop the saw rearing up & taking off if something goes wrong? I was under the impression that it was preferable for the saw to push itself back towards the operator and push the cut timber away from the operator.

Anyway, I am going to have to build one of those as my Triton won't cut more than ~14" in overhead mode, and I use 16"/40cm wide panels a lot.

It looks like your saw would throw any cut off bits back towards you if the clamping failed (or the timber split on a hidden fault)

Gidday Bsrlee

Yer good points particularly in regards to the issue of kickback and safety...........I'm no expert so not sure how you would go about addressing these issues..............let us know how your design goes when you knock one up [solutions]!!!!..............I guess at the end of the day to make the Jig super safe the best way would be to create some kind of barrier between the stock and the user...............perspex, plastic,flywire etc etc etc All feedback appreciated!!

Regards Lou

Lou,

A question on this EZ smart Guide. Have you got one yet?

Circ saws and guide systems are great for cutting panel and shet goods, but what about for ripping smaller stock say a piece 70mmx30mmx1m. Theres not enough surface area to rest the gudie on let aloen the circular saw base.

I've mused and thought over this and I've got a few ideas. Obviously the first one didnt work! But wait theres more!.........soon.

Gidday Lefty,

Haven't made the final purchase of the EZ smart guide yet as I've decided to purchase a router first (Lack of Coin ) have a look at this link to see how the Ez Smartguide gets round your issue:

http://www.eurekazone.com/images/gal...ingsystem.html

Regards Lou