Thread: Having trouble...

Originally Posted by Ivor

Hey Gumby who is DPB?

see 2 posts back

Duh!

I know Ive said this elsewhere, but check the right angle fixture. Ive had a few, and none of them are square to a flat surface. Got to shim them.

Also, your table has to be flat from the start (before the wood comes into contact with the bit), to the end of the cut, and also flat to the width of the wood.

If you have the right angle fixture too tight to the fence, it can cause a slight movement of the fence while pushing through the cut, this can throw the cut out too.

Spent a day on the weekend trying to figure this out.

The fence wasn't 100% square with the table so I shimmied it a bit more. My table saw was out a bit as well so I made doubley sure that the wood was square before it hit the dovetail bit.

But I figure I had two main problems, the first was that the right angle fixture (RAF) was wobbling a bit, fixed by triple checking the nylon screws before each pass. The second was that I was using a wooden parallel clamp but it is the sort from Timbecon which doesn't have a screw but works with a lever. This clamp wasn't holding the wood tightly enough against the RAF so the wood would move during the cut.

After trying to fix all this I was still getting gaps but they were not as big as I was first getting. So I think my solution is to find a wooden parallel clamp with a screw to get extra grip. So I am not going to bin it, at least not until I try a new clamp.

And thanks Underused I didn't think to check the squareness of the RAF, that is one thing I thought would be engineered to be 90 degrees.

Originally Posted by Ivor

I didn't think to check the squareness of the RAF, that is one thing I thought would be engineered to be 90 degrees.

Me too:eek: I thought I had a dud. After getting two more from Incra, that were out by varying degrees also, I accepted that the probability was they were all out of square.

Its not a problem. I just use the best one of the three, and shim it with a sacrifcial backing (piece of ply), which in turn keeps the back of the cut clean.

When the backing is on, and the wood is clamped to it and the right angle fixture, before starting my cuts, I check for 90 degrees with a square on the table, up against the wood.

Originally Posted by Ivor

After trying to fix all this I was still getting gaps but they were not as big as I was first getting. So I think my solution is to find a wooden parallel clamp with a screw to get extra grip. So I am not going to bin it, at least not until I try a new clamp.

Cabatec.

Thanks Stuart,

that saves me a bit of a hunt, I have never seen those types of clamps that Timbecon sold me before, I thought all clamps had screws