Hardware for jigs

Lee Valley is really the best place. If you have one locally, otherwise they are a very efficient mail order house. I buy all my jig hardware from them. I often buy longer studs and then cut them to lengh and buy just the knobs with threaded rod that I purchase locally and cut to length. It’s a little hacksaw or dremel work to clean up the threads, but it pays off in the end with customizability.

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

Rockler has packages of toggle clamps on sale everyonce in a while and they have lots of specialized hardware for jigs in general.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

Here is a picture of the various Rockler Toggle Clamps

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

There’s a great section in, “The Ultimate Jigs and Fixtures Handbook” by August Home Publications. It shows how to make your own fixtures using standard hardware. Here are a couple that I have used over and over.

1.) Star Knob: See the picture. Take some scrap hardwood to the drill press and cut the 8 outer holes all the way through. This leaves the star profile. I use a jigsaw to cut the knob from the waste. Cut a small hole in the center the size of whatever T-nuts you have. I use epoxy to make the T-nut stand up to abuse. You should soften all the edges for comfort. You can now thread a carriage bolt (or any bolt really) to use in T-track.

2.) Wing Nut: This requires one T-nut. The top half of the picture is the overhead layout and the bottom part is the profile. Cut the overhead shape from 3/4" stock. Now make the profile cut on the stock you just cut. Drill a hole for T-nut. Voila!

I make many of these out of the small cutoffs from various projects. It looks good to use scrap from expensive hardwood that is otherwise useless. Just keep some T-nuts on hand and you'll always be ready to go!

-- Jeff, South Carolina

Oh yeah, I buy a lot of T-track from Rockler whenever it goes on sale. They have a kit that includes 4’ T’Track and a half dozen or so knobs/bolts. It is normally $20, but I’ve seen it drop to $10 twice so far this year. I like the look of my shop made knobs and it makes me feel more like woodworker, so I don’t use the Rocker ones too much. I use them mostly for temporary improvised jigs or in tricky clearance situations. You can make your own T-tracks from wood very easily and cheaply. There are a few ways to go about it. The easiest is to buy a T-track bit for your router. You cut a dado with a straight bit and then follow it up with the T-track bit. I don’t have one so I have to go another way. When making a fence, you can resaw the fence in half. Rip one half of the fence where you want the track. Cut rabbets on the cut in half piece. Now attach it back to the other uncut side.

-- Jeff, South Carolina

While you can make t-track out of wood, the plastic ones slide better and the aluminum ones will stand up to more abuse.

If you want to experiment, you can also make them out of Delrin plastic, which is more slippery than UHMW and about as hard as hardwood. It’s pricey stuff on the open market, but I have offcts in my store (see my profile) that are more reasonably priced.

Just cut it a bit at a time. This stuff will outgas formaldehyde if it heats up too much.

-- surplusdealdude

Funny you should mention plastic. I had to cut some today and it gives off the worst smell! Your right about aluminum and plastic. They are the better choice. I like my hand made knobs, but use the good old blue aluminum t-tracks. I make wood ones for rarely used jigs or for something I had to improvise while I didn’t have t-track in the shop.

-- Jeff, South Carolina

Thanks folks, I appreciate the input. I have checked out both Lee Valley and Rockler and both have some of what I need. I stumbled across McMaster Carr and they have quite a bit to, anyone ever buy from them?

Dan

-- Dan in Central Oklahoma, Able to turn good wood into saw dust in the blink of an eye!

USCjeff,

I would bet that you’re trying to cut PVC, and you’re right, it has a terrible smell if you cut it on a tablesaw.

Make sure nobody with asthma is near it when you cut it – it could set off an attack.

Try slowing down the RPM and that should reduce or eliminate the smell – or use a bandsaw.

What are you using it for?

-- surplusdealdude

No Surplus, it wasn’t PVC, but yes it does smell horrible as well. I’ve used PVC for a few things. Most recently, I had to cut several 2’ lengths for a clamp rack that I attached to the back of the entry door into the garage. I drilled holes for the PVC in some scrap and fastened the scrap ot the door. Cheap and out of the way.
I can’t remember what type of plastic it was. It wasn’t acrylic, Lexan I think. Anyways, I don’t work with it much, but wanted to make an offset base, router insert plate, and inverted jigsaw plate for a workstation I’m upgrading. I went to the tablesaw and I think as you mentioned, the high RPM’s added a lot of friction and melting to the cutting process. I grabbed my jigsaw as it has a good range of low speeds and it helped. I went to flush trim it with the router to match some templates and it had issues, but not so bad as the table saw. My router (DW616) is single speed and my laminate trimmer has the accuracy of a hand grenade.

-- Jeff, South Carolina

Jeff,

If it’s clear, it’s probably Lexan.

I cut a bit of that from time to time, and it DOES smell, but I don’t find its that bad, not anything like PVC – MAN, that was horrible!

If you want to vary the speed of a fixed speed machine, you can always get those rheostats, just don’t use them often, they’re hard on motors.

-- surplusdealdude

Surplus, I’ve heard the variable speed aftermarket dials are pretty bad for a lot of motors. I believe they weren’t suggested for soft starting motors if memory serves me. I’d really love a foot pedal one of these days. I have some bigger needs in the shop before I think of upgrading my router, though. I got the DW616 2 base kit as a gift. I can’t complain about free, but I wish there was a couple more bucks spent for the VS 618. Other than that, great router for small diameter bits.

-- Jeff, South Carolina

If you looking for toggle clamps,” McFeely” has some that are glass filled plastic that are real cheap. I have never used them but buy quite a bit of stuff from them and have always been happy.

Bill

-- Make Dust