Sawdust on the Floor

I think every woodworking shop has at least one, yours may be hidden away in a drawer or else it’s part of your every day arsenal of tools. The tool that I am thinking of is the jig saw. This simple hand held saw is one of the first tools that everyone acquires when they are building up there tool collection, but in most cases it soon finds itself replaced by other tools in your shop. But I think that will some change.

The jig saw is unique in that the things that make it a great tool also tend to make it a bad tool. In my mind those things are the relatively small size of the saw itself, and the size of the blade. If you are not familiar with the jig saw which is also known as the saber saw, let me clue you in on some of the pros and cons.

When I use my jig saw I often find that while I am able to follow the cut line that I have scribed, the resulting cut is often not square to the top surface of the wood. I have puzzled over this and I think I have finally come up with the reason. The base of the jig saw is relatively small, often only a couple of inches wide. This very small base supports the handle and motor assembly which is much larger than can be supported by the base plate.

What I think is happening is that I am not keeping the base of the saw totally in contact with the wood while I am cutting. With such a small base, it is very easy to lift one edge up, without ever knowing it. But I think I have found a solution for this problem. I have attached a clear piece of Plexiglas on the bottom of the saw. The piece extends out 3″ on each side of the base, giving me a much larger and stable surface area to work with. I installed mine with a couple of counter sunk screws so that I can remove this added base when I want to work in tighter places. This is one of those pro and con issues of the jig saw. The small base is great for close quarters work, but the base is not big enough to make a square cut easily.

Both of the jig saws that I own are designed like the model shown above. Several manufacturers also make the jig saw with a barrel grip. While this configuration makes it easier to keep constant downward pressure on the saw, by holding on the front knob, the diameter of the barrel maybe uncomfortable for some woodworkers.

The other double edge sword on the jig saw is the blade. Most jig saw blades are relatively small, which makes them ideal for cutting curves. or intricate cuts. It is this same small size of the blades that can pose problems. Jig saw blades are prone to bending and breaking if they are over stressed. So it is always advisable to have spare blades on hand.

Unlike other saws in your shop, which cut on the down stroke, the jig saw traditionally only cuts on the upstroke. The result has always been a very rough cut on the surface of your wood. As a woodworker, I have tried several different fixes for this problem, including placing painters tape over the joint, or installing splinter guards on the jig saw, all with minimal results. Bosch recently introduced a new line of blades that is designed to cut on both the up and down stroke of the cut, leaving you with a much cleaner cut. The new blades are marketed under the model number Bosch T308B Xtra-Clean. The only reported negative on this new blade is that it is a little thicker, so tends to bind in tight places. I personally would rather use a thicker, more stable blade than a thin one that is more susceptible to bending.

So maybe it’s time to go out to your shop and dig out the jig saw that you put away and give it a second chance. Adding a bigger base plate and a good blade can make this versatile saw a mainstay in your shop again.

No matter how simple or complicated a project is, one thing is a certainty, you will generate a lot of scrap lumber. If you’re like me, you have a bin someplace in your shop where you put those pieces that are really too long or wide to just throw away. The problem is that these scrap bins soon become an overflowing mess, that contains so many scraps that you couldn’t find anything in there, even if you wanted to. So a couple times a year I go thru the bin and reexamine what I have saved, often wondering why in the heck did I save that. During a recent purge, I found several pieces of walnut, along with some maple that I have no idea where it came from or what I used it for.

After considering several options, I decided to make a cutting board out of these scraps. So the first step was to clean up the lumber and see how much usable stock I really had. All of the lumber went across the jointer to square up two sides, then a trip thru the planer to make all of the stock the same thickness.

 When you dress your stock it is important to always use the jointer to square up. Start by running one side of your stock over the jointer, continue working this side until the side is flat. You will be able to hear when the wood is in contact with the knives, and when it’s not. When you hear that contact sound over the entire length then you’re ready to go to the next side. Always use push sticks or better yet, push pads, to move the stock over the knives.

When you have one side done, then its time to move to an adjacent side. Work this side the same way as the first, only this time, be sure that you keep the stock in contact with the fence. This will give you two flat surfaces, that are at a 90° angle to each other. Again remember to use the push sticks. It’s also a good idea to mark the sides that are dressed already with a simple pencil mark or better yet use a piece of chalk to mark the finished sides.

 Now it’s time to run the stock through the thickness planer. Just be sure not to run your stock with the finished edges up, or against the knives. These are already done and we don’t want to mess them up. I like to run all of the stock thru at the same time. Even though my planer has a stop for 1″, 3/4″, 1/2″ and so on, but the stops are not exact, and its impossible to ever guarantee that you come back to the exact same settings.

After all the stock was dressed and at the same thickness it was time for glue up. I choose to alternate the stock, with the maple stock on the outside edges. I chose this because the maple is denser then the walnut and not as susceptible to tear out as the walnut is. Tear out or splintering are important considerations when you are making anything that will come into contact with food or drink. You also don’t want to use a wood that has really open pores which will allow food and drink to penetrate into the wood.

Glue up is a simple process, the only hard part was to insure that the glue was not water soluble if the piece will ever come into contact with water. I choose to use a two part epoxy for the glue up that not only was somewhat water proof, but also had a long open or working time. After mixing the epoxy, I applied a liberal amount to both sides of the stock and then clamped it up. I prefer to use 3/4″ pipe clamps for this operation, as they don’t flex as easy as some o the bar clamps do. When I glue up stock I like to use alternating clamps, The first on the bottom of the glue up the next one on the top of the glue up. Alternating like this over the entire length. I find that this produces less of a chance of the glue up bowing or cupping, which can happen if all of the clamping force is on the same side of the glue up.

After sitting in the clamps for a couple of days, I cleaned off the squeeze out with a sharp chisel, and then ran the entire glue up through the thickness planner. When I was happy with this I turned to my random orbital sander to clean up the top and bottom of the cutting board. No one wants a cutting board with sharp edges, so I then rounded off the corners with my band saw which required that use of the random orbital sander again to clean up the corners. I followed this up with a quick pass over the shaper table that was equipped with a 1/2″ round over bit. This put a nice smooth edge all over the board.

The only thing left to do was seal the cutting board. Because the cutting board was going to come in contact with food, I couldn’t use any of my favorite finishes, such as stain or polyurethane. Both are toxic to humans. So I choose to borrow a finish that wood turners use to seal bowls and cups that they turn, Salad Bowl Finish. This is a wipe on finish that requires several layers to totally seal the project. Like most wipe on sealers, a light sanding is recommended between coats. Some older woodworkers I have talked to use, recommend that you seal the cutting board with vegetable oil, instead of the Salad Bowl finish, I would recommend staying away from the vegetable oils as a finish, over time vegetable oils can seep down into the cracks and joints of the project, where it can turn rancid.

 So now my scrap pile is a little smaller, and I have a useful project that really didn’t cost me anything but time. But really time spent in the shop isn’t really time is it?