Sawdust on the Floor

I wish that I had come up with this method, but to be honest, I recently saw it demonstrated on David Marks TV show,” Wood Works” and I wanted to pass it on to you.

To cut a cove as I did on the painted dresser in my collection, start with making a full size drawing of the cove. Where “a” is the total depth of the cove, “b” equals the width of the cove, and “c” is equal to the distance from the edge of the cove to the edge of the stock.

For the next part, you will have to make a simple jig. It is nothing more then an adjustable parallelogram. It  consists of two long and two shorts pieces of 1” stock, connected at the corners with a bolt and tee nut.  The size of the of the top and sides are not important, however the width of the bottom should be equal to “c”.

Set the blade height to equal “a”, then place the jig onto the table saw top. Now adjust the jig until the distance between the top and bottom are equal to the distance of “b”. See drawing #2.

With the blade at the height of “ a” and the distance between the top and bottom now equaling “b”, the angle “x” is the angle that your guide board needs to be installed at. Since the thickness of the bottom board equal “c”, all you have to do is clamp your guide board against the bottom of the jig.

Now, remove the jig, lower the blade so that it is to no more then 1/8” above the tabletop, and run your stock over the blade, holding it tight against the guide board.  Run all of your stock before adjusting the blade slightly higher. For the next pass, repeat until the blade height is equal to “a” again.

A couple of other notes; use Push Sticks as you do not want to get your fingers close to the blade. Do not make too big of adjustments between cuts, too big of cuts will result in burning of the wood. This is a very dusty process, use a good vacuum or dust collection system.

No related posts.