Favorite/essential jigs?

[whiteb01]

Whether they are SS related or not, what are your must have jigs for woodworking? What do you use most, what do you rarely use?Would also love to see some pictures. If it matters, I have a 10ER.

[garys]

I have an entire box of them for my 510. Some of them are so weird that you probably wouldn't know what they are for if I didn't show you. My most used ones are probably the ones for cutting box joints.

[nuhobby]

I use my "mini crosscut sled" quite a bit. It serves as a Tenon jig as well, with some blocks clamped to it:

viewtopic.php?p=289229#p289229

[BuckeyeDennis]

I have quite a few jigs, mostly special-purpose, but there's one that I use constantly.

Almost any time that I cross-cut on my Shopsmith, I use a sacrificial auxiliary fence on the miter gauge. These attach to the face of your miter gauge using it's factory mounting-screw slots, and are positioned such that they straddle the saw blade. After mounting the fence, a pass across the saw blade cuts a zero-clearance slot in it.

Miter gauge fence HD.JPG (127.72 KiB) Viewed 1788 times

In use, the auxiliary fence gives your miter gauge many of the advantages of a full crosscut sled. But it's much smaller and easier to make, and you can still cut miters with it. If you carefully align your workpiece layout marks with the zero-clearance slot, your cuts will be split-the-line accurate. The zero-clearance slot also prevents tear-out on the backside of your workpieces. The portion of the fence outboard of the saw blade pushes small cutoff pieces on past the blade, helping to prevent them from becoming projectiles. You can make your sacrificial fence as long as you wish, providing extra support for long workpieces, and enabling stop blocks to be mounted on either side of the cut.

Mounting the auxiliary fence with a couple of WoodAnchor sliding nuts makes it fully adjustable side to side, which is a huge advantage over just mounting it in a fixed position with wood screws. Then, if the zero-clearance slot widens after repeated use, just slide the fence over a bit, and cut a fresh slot. In the picture above, you can see slots cut both by a regular saw blade and by a dado stack. It takes only a few seconds to reposition the fence to use either slot, or any others that you may require.

The only downside I've found is that you have to remove the blade guard to use an auxiliary fence, just like when using a crosscut sled. I install the SS riving knife in it's place, but not having the upper guard still felt weird to me at first. But now it actually feels safer to me, because control of the workpiece and cutoff is so much improved.

[JPG]

Hmmmmm Another opportunity NOT passed.

And a good sample of utility of the system.

I consider control to be foundation of safe practices(lack of injury) rather than guards. Guards(and push sticks) often reduce that control. JMO

[wa2crk]

I like my Tweaker, when I cut segments for turning or any other projects that require tight angle tolerances. By adjusting the connector nut while the table trunnion lock is loose the exact angle down to one tenth of a degree can be set. First set the table 90 degrees to the saw blade then put the Wixie on the sawblade set the angle to 0 deg. Move the wixie to the table and adjust the table to the required angle using by turning the barrel nut while the Wixie cube is on the table. The most important setting is the angle of the table to the saw blade. I have used this fixture for cutting a lot of segments for making segmented bowls and it really works. While setting the angle the table trunnion lock has to remain loos so the table can float and the barrel nut can move table.

DSC04516.JPG (40.22 KiB) Viewed 1741 times

under table block.JPG (36.8 KiB) Viewed 1741 times

[edma194]

I like my Tweaker, when I cut segments for turning or any other projects that require tight angle tolerances. By adjusting the connector nut while the table trunnion lock is loose the exact angle down to one tenth of a degree can be set. First set the table 90 degrees to the saw blade then put the Wixie on the sawblade set the angle to 0 deg. Move the wixie to the table and adjust the table to the required angle using by turning the barrel nut while the Wixie cube is on the table. The most important setting is the angle of the table to the saw blade. I have used this fixture for cutting a lot of segments for making segmented bowls and it really works. While setting the angle the table trunnion lock has to remain loos so the table can float and the barrel nut can move table.
DSC04516.JPG

under table block.JPG

Excellent idea. I think I want to make one of these.

[BuckeyeDennis]

That "Tweaker" is really slick! Kind of like the SS adjustable stop collar, except for table tilt instead of height.

[BuckeyeDennis]

I consider control to be foundation of safe practices(lack of injury) rather than guards.

Indeed.

Chris Marshall of Woodworker's Journal explains the benefits of an auxiliary miter gauge fence much better than I can. I should have linked to his video in the first place.

[DLB]

I like my Tweaker, when I cut segments for turning or any other projects that require tight angle tolerances. By adjusting the connector nut while the table trunnion lock is loose the exact angle down to one tenth of a degree can be set. First set the table 90 degrees to the saw blade then put the Wixie on the sawblade set the angle to 0 deg. Move the wixie to the table and adjust the table to the required angle using by turning the barrel nut while the Wixie cube is on the table. The most important setting is the angle of the table to the saw blade. I have used this fixture for cutting a lot of segments for making segmented bowls and it really works. While setting the angle the table trunnion lock has to remain loos so the table can float and the barrel nut can move table.
DSC04516.JPG

under table block.JPG

I like this. So you cut your miters for segmented turning using table angle rather than miter gauge angle? Keeping the miter gauge at zero degrees? Is there anything (other than gravity) holding the board down on the way tubes? I've done something similar using two main tables and carriages, but the angle range was very limited due to the length of the tables.

- David