Jig creation
I was watching PBS one Saturday afternoon when Scott Phillips took a trip to a jig creators workshop. The show left me with the desire to create something different (at least different for me). I had been looking at some furniture in a local "Antiques" store, trying to get ideas for future projects, and had noticed a strange joint used to hold the drawers together. It looked like little half moons with pins in them & I wondered "now how did they do that?"
Well, thanks to Scott & my personal curiosity, here's how I do it.
First I created a pattern out of 3/4" pine. I added a 3/4" forstner bit to the drill. I set up a fence so that the drill point was an 1 1/2" from the fence on my drill press. I then added a stop block to the fence about 8" from the drill point. I then created blocks of 3/4 poplar (I used poplar because I machined it with my planer & I checked the thickness with a dial caliper for accuracy) to be used as position guides. Placed a stack of the poplar blocks against the stop, set my pine template in place against the fence, and drilled the first 3/4" hole. I then removed a poplar block, slid the pine over and drilled the next hole. Continued until I had a pine board with nothing but holes. To free the 2 halves simply saw the ends off.
This gave me a template the I cut onto a piece of 1/4" plastic (in my case an old router base that I made years ago). I then attached a block of wood about 2 1/2" tall by 1" thick and the length of the plastic.
I was watching PBS one Saturday afternoon when Scott Phillips took a trip to a jig creators workshop. The show left me with the desire to create something different (at least different for me). I had been looking at some furniture in a local "Antiques" store, trying to get ideas for future projects, and had noticed a strange joint used to hold the drawers together. It looked like little half moons with pins in them & I wondered "now how did they do that?"
Well, thanks to Scott & my personal curiosity, here's how I do it.
First I created a pattern out of 3/4" pine. I added a 3/4" forstner bit to the drill. I set up a fence so that the drill point was an 1 1/2" from the fence on my drill press. I then added a stop block to the fence about 8" from the drill point. I then created blocks of 3/4 poplar (I used poplar because I machined it with my planer & I checked the thickness with a dial caliper for accuracy) to be used as position guides. Placed a stack of the poplar blocks against the stop, set my pine template in place against the fence, and drilled the first 3/4" hole. I then removed a poplar block, slid the pine over and drilled the next hole. Continued until I had a pine board with nothing but holes. To free the 2 halves simply saw the ends off.
This gave me a template the I cut onto a piece of 1/4" plastic (in my case an old router base that I made years ago). I then attached a block of wood about 2 1/2" tall by 1" thick and the length of the plastic.