Picture Frame

 Working backward, the needle point finished and framed.

  The frame is about 20 inches by 14 inches and 2 inches wide, cedar with two coats of shellac and one of varnish. I cut the mitered corners and used my KREG Klamp Table to glue the frame together.  Once the glue set (over night) I drilled each corner and drove a 1/8 dowel two inches in to reinforce the joint.  The dowel is not invisible.  Once the wood is sanded and finished the tiny spot of contrasting wood is unobtrusive. 

  

  Making picture frames and small boxes sometimes requires the joining edges to be more refined then they come off the saw so a Shooting Board is the hand tool solution.  Traditionally a shooting board is used with a plane, mine also works as a sanding jig.  The block in the channel is dead square and has sand paper glued to its face.

  Making this frame of soft wood I needed to refine the 45 Degree faces. I didn't have a  fixture for this shooting/sanding board so I improvised, yesterday.

An example using an off cut.

  The head of my combination square gave me the support and angle that I needed to finish sand the angled faces. Today I made a fixture to have on hand next time.

I see I have to make a new board pretty soon,
 this one is getting well used.

there is a dado cut into the
 underside for stability.

  Now I can sand or plane both 90 Degree and 45 Degree ends on this shooting board.

  

  The jigs in my shop are red (or orange). I see I have to make a new board pretty soon, this one is get well used.

  cheers, ianw

Spool and Bobbin Holder

   Even though this looks like a medieval torture device for squirrels it is in fact a spool and bobbin holder for a family friend.  If you have a sewer (sewist, seamstress) in your midst a project like this might be welcome.

  I reused a 19 inch square of 1/2 plywood as the back. This plywood had very thin veneer and so sanding it wore through the veneer is spots. I used dark rub on stain to create the random finish and laid out the 81 holes.

  The holes are drilled on a 10 degree angle.  I decided on 10 degrees because it would hold the spools and still be easy to drill with the jig I made. 

After I drilled the holes I had to cut 1/4 dowel into 81 pieces 3 1/2 inches long. Again I set up a simple jig.  

  A jig can be something as simple as a mitre box with a stop block clamped in place. What ever makes the task easier and more automatic can be called a jig.  

  This sort of project is not difficult but it is time consuming. It took a hour to cut the dowel, taper both ends of the 1/4 dowel with a pencil sharpener, add glue and hammer each piece into place.  After I drove the dowels into their holes I had to wipe the plywood down with a damp cloth to clean up the squeezed out glue.  All of those things take time when done 81 times.  

  The whole project took about two hours  and cost about $10.00 for materials.  If you know some one that sews and would like to get organised this would be a good gift.

cheers, ianw

   

Mitre Saw Jigs

  At least ten years ago I bought a Bosch 10 inch sliding mitre saw and have been happy with it ever since. I don't know if Bosch even makes a 10 inch saw any longer, I suspect the linked Makita saw is every bit as good.  Over time I found that I could really improve the performance of the saw with a quality blade, that was kept sharp. 

 And another thing I did was develop or copy jigs for use with my saw.

 All my home made jigs are painted bright colours, generally red so that I can find them easily. The first jig I'll show you is a recent modification on an earlier effort.

  I've had this red stop block for a while. Today I made two small and useful changes to it. First I got very serious about squaring up one side and one end. Now when I seat a piece of wood against this block it is immediately obvious if I am cutting against the squared end. And I used my router table to cut two pencil slots into the top side. Now there will be a pencil readily available at the mitre saw work station.

  The slots are deep enough for the pencils to be out of the way of the clamp holding the block in place.

  The second jig's paint is still drying. It is an idea I copied from an Izzy Swan video.

  He had a cool commercially produced unit similar to this. This is a two fingered hand that will hold small pieces of wood near the blade of the mitre saw and not flinch, the way I do. Like a push stick for a table saw, this is a hold stick for my mitre saw.

  I made the stick by cutting a 33 degree angle on the faces and drilling two holes for the 3/4 inch dowel.

 I clamped the piece of wood to a larger piece of wood which gave  a wider stable base and then clamped the larger piece to the drill press table. To get holes bored straight I had put the same angle on the other end of the section and so was able to place it firmly against the table of the drill press.

 Before I glued the 3/4 dowels in place I shaped the handle, first on the band saw and then with files and rasps. Then I painted it red and added two 3/4 cane tips to increase it grip. This way I can hold smaller or awkward bits of wood near the blade and not worry about my fingers.

 Once the paint is dry I show it in action.

cheers, ianw