Thread: Slicing triangular 45 degree strips on a table saw

Good Morning Paul

Should take you a good day, or so, to master Hakone inlay technique. For the Japanese, its a fourteen year apprenticeship (only) in the small village of Hakone, on the slopes of Fuji-san.

I was so intrigued by it that I bought a Hakone box - its 145 x 95 x 65 mm. No paint, just an incredible range of wood colours. Besides triangles, there are also squares and oblongs and petal shapes in the marquetry. It seems that some of the shapes were laminated before the triangles were cut, so you get striped triangles. Smallest square is 1 mm, largest side of a triangle is 12 mm, guff says that laminate is 0.2 mm thick. Commercially available veneer here is commonly 0.6 mm !
https://www.japanesetools.com.au/pro...ese-puzzle-box

If you google Hakone Yosegi there are a lot of videos online. Some uses more mechanisation, but always very simple - one, which I could not refind, had a miniature table saw with a very thin 50mm blade.

I agree; its fascinating and awesome.


Fair Winds

Graeme

Hi everyone, well after a brainwave and Plan C, I think I have created something pretty cool here. I had this in my head, did some playing around with sketches on paper and had to get all that into a block of timber.

The results are pretty good, actually very good. The distance on the right angle is 6mm, just what I was wanting. To end up giving me two outer strips of about 2mm each, total width 10mm, to suit a 10mm router bit. The timber I start with is 10.25mm square, just sneak up on it on my table saw, till a nice tight fit into my block. The blade removes 2.5mm down the centre and leaves me with two very close triangles.

The pics will tell the story. Tomorrow I'll find some nice timber and start working on this.

I will give more thought to the bought inlays. That site that was put up, from what I can see they are just 5mm wide and .7mm thick.

Thanks again for all your thoughts, Paul.

I think that we are thinking too hard. Let's think off-fall rather than blade to fence. I use the thing below from Rockler. It is great for thin strips.

Thin Rip Tablesaw Jig | Rockler Woodworking and Hardware

In effect you set the table saw fence for every cut. The timber next to the thin rip jig is used to set the distance for the fence. You can easily build some that fits in the left miter gauge slot of the table saw. It doesn't have to be adjustable just something that you can wedge securely into the slot.

The process is:
Rip both sides of the timber parallel and square to the faces. It helps if you rip all the pieces to the same width.
Set the angle of the blade to 45°, precisely.
Set your thin rip jig is giving you pieces of the timber that are sized correctly. The jig should be behind the blade toward operator. The jig must NOT trap off fall against the blade.
Set the table saw fence to trim the first edge to 45°. This off fall will be discarded.
Flip the timber end for end.
Set the table saw fence with the timber against the thin rip jig.
Rip a piece off the timber and the off fall is your piece for the banding.
Flip the timber end for end.
Set the table saw fence with the timber against the thin rip jig.
Rip a piece off the timber and the off fall is your piece for the banding.
Flip the timber end for end.
Repeat until enough thin strips have been cut.

Glue the strips together in the desired pattern. Alternating hypotenuse up and down on adjacent strips
Cauls are needed to hold the assembly flat. (Wrap the cauls in clear packing tape. Glue doesn't stick to clear packing tape.)
This will yield end grain banding strips that are somewhat fragile.

If edge grain banding is required, use a cross cut mode and a miter gauge in the same set up. The off fall pieces will be fragile.

To help with the fragile nature of the end grain banding, a piece of masking tape prior to cutting the band off could be applied. This tape would stay in place until after the band was glued in place and glue cured.

Thanks Rich and everyone else for their ideas. I've progressed further with my idea and it works perfectly. I was pretty amazed how well it does work. All the work was in making that "block". Then just rip your timber to a nice tight square to fit into the "block". Doesn't matter what length you use, can even use short pieces, the "block" holds them all in tact. No adjusting your blade to 45 degrees etc, no fingers getting close.

Out they come the other end very close to perfect.

The timber I used here is Rosewood, Qld Maple and Jelutong. I now want to put the inlay through my home made drum sander and bring it down to a thickness of 10mm, then slice it up as required.

I watched blokes making these on youtube cutting each piece with a hand saw and a home made mitre box,..........that's a lot of work.

Paul

Hi everyone, Just to finished off this thread here is the box I made using those inlay strips. I'll make more of them later on, using different timbers, this was more of an experiment, but I am happy with it. This is a simple but very elegant box, made from White Cedar.

Paul

Delightful design and craft, Paul. Well done.


Cheers

Graeme

Hi and thanks Graeme,

Funny thing about that box, I took those photos of it yesterday and its sold today.

Paul

I take it from post #20 that the strips are all long grain, so the visible face on the banding on the box is end grain???

Hi there Mobyturns,

Yes correct. The Rosewood was nice, the jelutong is always nice in that situation (that of course was the border, long grain) , but the Queensland Maple was a bit too grey and dull. It was the outer of a slab of queensland maple I bought a while back. The inner is always nice and honey gold, but the outer on this slab was more grey.

But when all you see is a small 6mm triangle as long as you get a contrast is all I wanted. I'll definitely slice up more lengths of other timber very soon.

Paul

Hi Paul,

As I interpreted it to be. Can I offer a few thoughts on your solution to your task as

I have been exploring making "non-square" thin rips for a while myself.

First off, I like your lateral thinking and the depth of the carrier block to keep hands away from the blade, and highly commend the use of the modified splitter IF it is sufficiently high to keep both "thin rips" apart.

Without the modified splitter this would be a highly dangerous task on the saw as there is a high probability of the cut pieces jamming the spinning blade with both pieces constrained within the carrier block.

Conventional wisdom and experience advises against having thin rips constrained between the fence and blade to reduce / avoid kickback. Your carrier block design has two such constrained "thin rips" on an inclined supporting surface against a spinning blade that exerts an uplift force at the splitter side or exit from the blade and a down force on the entry / operator side. The ripped pieces clearly show burning from jamming the saw.

I'm not convinced that in the longer term that you will continue to "get away" with this technique without experiencing jambs, kick back etc. One thing for sure a machine wins out over human flesh.

One possible solution though - have you considered attaching the carrier block to the fence? It would reduce one potential hazard - kickback from misalignment of the block's kerf to the saw. After all you are hand feeding the carrier block over the saw blade, and mistakes do happen. The stock could be fed through the "guide block" over the saw blade. There is still a risk from unseen cracks / faults in the stock but much less risk.

I have been working on support rip sleds to make precise "non-square" shaped pieces. Each shape has unique challenges and require a slightly different approach for hold down / support, safety etc.

Nice concept though. I sincerely trust that you take this as constructive and helpful comment from a fellow maker with a fresh set of eyes.

hey there Mobyturns,

You put a lot of thought into that reply, well done. I've been thinking about your thoughts. My modified splitter is just below the height of the teeth, so I can rip half the timber, then turn it over and rip the other half. This allows me to rip about 150mm on my De Walt. Height of blade extends to 77mm. Now getting back to my "block". I don't think I could have the block fixed to my fence and it being stationary. Then I would have to push the strips all the way through manually.

The strips are a very tight fit into the square hole, so I don't get clattering whilst the cutting is going on. I have the strip flush with the front of the block upon starting the cut. And the block is held firm with the blue tooth guide, cant think what they are called, so I then use a push guide to push the block further. I might get say half way through the cut and then if there is still a lot of timber left poking out the rear end I use a very solid scrap push stick, to push the timber flush with the rear of the block, cutting is still taking place whilst this is happening, then I might push the "block" a bit further to sufficiently finish its job.

By then the two halves have pretty much fallen free. Saw is stopped and halves removed.

This process allows me to slice timber that is even shorter in length than my block. I wouldn't be able to do that if the block was fixed to the fence. I would then be poking another stick through the hole in order to push my timber through.

I didn't feel any sense of danger whilst doing this with hands well clear and using push sticks, however I will no doubt bear in mind all your comments next time I do this process.

Just for anyone interested in the photos of my final box. I glued my inlay into the side pieces of the lid prior to cutting the mitres. I left the inlay a tad proud and then run it through my home made drum sander to get it nice and flush. I then cut the mitre joints, hence the inlay was cut at the same time keeping it all nice and 45 degree. I then run those pieces of timber through my home made router table with the slot cutter.

That was just an idea I come up with as opposed to trying to put the inlays into the routered timber later on and getting the joints nice and neat.

Paul

Good that we can share info and thoughts about the merits and safety of techniques. I have been pursuing the use of table saw sleds for both cross cutting and ripping tasks, using toggle clamps to clamp sacrificial waste blocks that clamp the work piece. My techniques aren't perfect either and they are a constant work in progress as I refine the accuracy and simplicity of the sled setups.

I posted some of my inlay banding a couple of weeks back and have been producing patterns similar to your banding shown above, and more complex patterns that are cut from laminated blocks. Unfortunately your setup is only suitable for the one style of banding, and will not accommodate the laminated blocks.

Inlay Banding

hi there Mobyturns, Ahh yes I remember seeing and admiring your inlay work. I hope there is some improvement in your shoulder. Yes my little "bock" is only suitable for what I did. I while ago I tried another sort of inlay strips, a bit like yours, like bricks on a wall so to speak. I made two boxes using those and then didn't worry anymore. There are probably other ways I can use my strips, but it was an experiment just to add a bit of effect to say that plain white cedar. I have a heap of that. Funny thing though, some weeks ago I got quite a bit of Blackheart Sassafras and decided to make 5 boxes with it. 5 identical boxes all 250 x 150 with nice little trays inside them etc. Making them identical just speeded up the process somewhat. BUT on 2 of them I put a couple of fancy Purple Heart butterflies into the mitre joints and on one of those ones, I inlayed a "purple heart" made from Purple Heart into the centre of the lid. I thought it was pretty cool.

The other 3 boxes I left all with just the Blackheart Sassafras. Would you believe the three I just mentioned sold very fast, all at $250 each. And the ones with the fancy Purple Heart extras, I still have, still not sold. What is this telling me, that people love a natural grained timber box just as it is. Without trying to get too fancy. If the ones with the Purple Heart extra don't sell in a few weeks (I have to go away in a couple of weeks, when I come back), I might slice the tops off them, redo them just in the Blackheart Sassafras again. All very interesting I thought,

Paul

They do look good and a nice pick selling three.