That’s a good jig, much fancier than needed but you would have to hold a gun to my head before I’d use one of those metal jigs.
If you ripped a 6″-8″ piece of 3/4″ plywood, leave the fence set, mark your taper and lay it on the cut edge, you’d have the same thing but you would use the fence, not the miter slot for a guide. A couple of pencil marks could replace the cams, a carriage bolt up through with a typical accessory knob for your hold down. $10 and 45 minutes? I don’t like the fact there isn’t a hold at the back of the work piece, screw a block to it.
The most impressionable part of the video is how insanely careless this person is. He is not a trained professional. How could a pro make a film to promote a product and show such unsafe use of the saw? No guard, no outfeed table, no face mask, run the piece up and then back!!!, make adjustments to the jig, on the table with the bare blade still running and then reach over the spinning blade to turn the rear knob!!!! That’s the kind of cut that hits an artery. He might be dead before he can dial 911. Holy cow.
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
Replies
Wood,
There was a similar but better(imo) jig featured in FWW about 18 months ago. I did a brief search on past issues but could not find it, sorry. I built and have been using the FWW jig for some time now. The jig took about 3-4 hours to build, a second one would take about 30 mins. and cost less than $5....star handles $1, stove bolts $.50.
Hopefully someone can post more info for you.
http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/Workshop/WorkshopPDF.aspx?id=24155
Edited 7/13/2007 6:24 am ET by BG
Somehow I deleted my first post, sorry.
Thanks for the feedback. BG thanks for the link. I guess I'm one of those guys that would rather buy the jig and make my legs than to fiddle away at trying to make one. It seems that whenever I have the thought I can do it myself cheaper, it somehow takes me forever and never turns out cheaper. Something for me to work on.
Wood,
Those type of taper jigs even the metal ones for that matter could be fine if all your parts to taper are short enough to fit the capacity of the average jig .I have found it to be safer and more versatile to make jigs as needed out of 3/4" material .
It may take about 15 minutes to make a jig of almost any size . As an example of capacity , I made some tapered columns for a porch . They tapered a few inches off two sides and were about 60" long , maybe out of the range of capacity of these jigs .
dusty
Ditto on using 3/4" ply for tapering jigs. Painfully simple to build, safe to use, accurate - and cheap! Build a new jig for each new set of legs - assuming, of course, that an existing jig will not provide the desired taper. Record stock and taper dimensions on the jig - a Sharpie pen works nicely.
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