Hello all. Up to now I have only made one post. Over the last few years as I approached retirement, I started preparing for woodworking in earnest as a hobbyist. This included building a separate shop building. Along the way I had to stop this activity for a year and a half of the most rewarding and difficult time as a caretaker. During that time I looked yearningly at the shop building and read and planned whenever I could.
I only mention that so you will be able to understand the posts that I have planned for the next few weeks. I have thought about these a lot.
My first project is setting up to build cabinets for the shop. Since I decided that I would not have a table saw in the shop, I needed to get my MFTs ready.
I have read the FOG for everything relevant that I could find. I marveled over Steve (Qwas) Adams and the explosion of ideas and discussion that resulted from his discovery. I also devoured Paul Marcel's videos and blog. Those were just my starting points as there is too much credit that needs to be given to the unselfish and non judgmental FOG members to be listed here or anywhere.
I got the Qwas dogs and rails from Bob Marino and started out using Paul's methods. I ran into some problems for my setup which is two 1080's set side by side that will be put away from time to time but will never leave the shop. First was the cutting of strips of wood to use as spacers. Maybe I didn't use exotic enough MDF but mine weren't parallel. It seemed like I was in a chicken and egg dilemma.
So, and finally getting to the point of this post, I started to look for a method that didn't require any skill on my part to do the setup. I looked at the offerings at Tool Improvements and started emailing back and forth with John. He was most patient and helpful. In fact the following would not have been possible without his assistance. Thanks John.
For this post I needed the double duty dogs with two small changes. They were setting the head height to .250” and tapping them with M8 threads. Second, I asked if he could design a large sleeve to fit over them. He had some 2.125” diameter stock and agreed to make them for me. Hopefully, you will see that you need some too. Since he has a product called reducing sleeves, let's call these enlarging sleeves.
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Here they are.
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With these all that is needed is to butt the guide rail against them and the rest of its setup is standard. You can see that the objective of setting the cut line off the column of holes is met.
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Now you can see why I asked for the sleeve and dog height to be .250”. It exactly supports the blade on my square as I check that the rail is perpendicular to the edge of the MDF.
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In fact the sleeves can be used anywhere on this or any other surface to support the square blade.
So simple even I can do it every time in no time at all. For those of you who leave your shop, I think you can see that they are pretty portable as well.
That's enough for now. I'll get into my adventures in setting up the fence later on.
Dick
I only mention that so you will be able to understand the posts that I have planned for the next few weeks. I have thought about these a lot.
My first project is setting up to build cabinets for the shop. Since I decided that I would not have a table saw in the shop, I needed to get my MFTs ready.
I have read the FOG for everything relevant that I could find. I marveled over Steve (Qwas) Adams and the explosion of ideas and discussion that resulted from his discovery. I also devoured Paul Marcel's videos and blog. Those were just my starting points as there is too much credit that needs to be given to the unselfish and non judgmental FOG members to be listed here or anywhere.
I got the Qwas dogs and rails from Bob Marino and started out using Paul's methods. I ran into some problems for my setup which is two 1080's set side by side that will be put away from time to time but will never leave the shop. First was the cutting of strips of wood to use as spacers. Maybe I didn't use exotic enough MDF but mine weren't parallel. It seemed like I was in a chicken and egg dilemma.
So, and finally getting to the point of this post, I started to look for a method that didn't require any skill on my part to do the setup. I looked at the offerings at Tool Improvements and started emailing back and forth with John. He was most patient and helpful. In fact the following would not have been possible without his assistance. Thanks John.
For this post I needed the double duty dogs with two small changes. They were setting the head height to .250” and tapping them with M8 threads. Second, I asked if he could design a large sleeve to fit over them. He had some 2.125” diameter stock and agreed to make them for me. Hopefully, you will see that you need some too. Since he has a product called reducing sleeves, let's call these enlarging sleeves.
[attachthumb=#]
Here they are.
[attachthumb=#][attachthumb=#]
With these all that is needed is to butt the guide rail against them and the rest of its setup is standard. You can see that the objective of setting the cut line off the column of holes is met.
[attachthumb=#]
Now you can see why I asked for the sleeve and dog height to be .250”. It exactly supports the blade on my square as I check that the rail is perpendicular to the edge of the MDF.
[attachthumb=#]
In fact the sleeves can be used anywhere on this or any other surface to support the square blade.
So simple even I can do it every time in no time at all. For those of you who leave your shop, I think you can see that they are pretty portable as well.
That's enough for now. I'll get into my adventures in setting up the fence later on.
Dick
