Fellow woodworkers,
I have made my own jig to cut finger joints on a table saw with 1/4-inch dado blades. The joints are way too tight. I can not fit the two pieces together much less get any glue into the joint. I have put a couple pieces of paper between the two plates of the dado head and that has helped but not solved the problem.
What’s the secret to cutting the joints so that they slip together? So far I’ve spent a lot to time with sandpaper or a rasp to get the two pieces to fit together. I tried replacing the two sheets of paper (as a spacer) with an old CD but that resulted in excessively loose joints. This did show me that any spacer actually had an additive effect over four or five joints.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Grandpa H.
Replies
Grandpa.. bearing in mind that I've never attempted this joint myself, from your description, it sounds as if the pitch between the fingers isn't identical to the width your dado is set to. For this joint to work, that pitch needs to be identical.
Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
basicly you slide the pin closer to the blade to loosen it the joint. Take a look at this it will answer all your questions
http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/subscription/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesArticle.aspx?id=27678
Grandpa, I had the same problem when I recently made my first run at fingerjoints. Glad to know others have a challenge visualizing the solution! Since I use a Freud Box Joint Cutter and no shims, the width of each slot is set, so adjusting the fit involves adjusting the finger size. The size of each finger is dictated by the distance between the pin and the blade.
Just a long way of saying Whiskeytango is right, by having the pin a bit closer to the blade, you are making the fingers smaller.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
What the others said about the location of the pin. If you are making your own jig, I have found that this is one of the few woodworking tasks when a thousandth or two really *does* make a difference -- a caliper will be your friend.
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
I made this one and it works well. Allows infinite tweaking and any finger size.
http://www.woodsmith.com/plans/box-joint-jig/
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