Scott Kuhn wrote:

wrote in message
if you are trying to do what I think you are trying to do, it's pretty
different from what I'd call a finger joint. here's what I'd call a
finger joint:
http://www.azwoodman.com/joints/finger-joint2.jpg

is that what you are after?

No, that is what i will eventually be after, but right now it's much
simpler...



ascii art rarely communicates well. if you have a scanner or a digital
camera or a drawing program on your computer either capture the images
from the book or draw us a diagram and scan it or whatever and post it
to alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking.

I took a few pics and posted them he
http://home.comcast.net/~scott_d_kuhn/index.html

So now that it's clear what joint I'm trying to make, how would you
make it accurately and repeatably? I stopped in my local Woodworking
store and asked a guy there, and he said he'd do it on a jigsaw or
maybe a bandsaw.


Thx to the previous posters for the resources and info. The book by
Rogowski mentioned by Patriarch looks great and is now in my
Amazon.com shopping cart.

As to how I'd make that specific cut "accurately and repeatably", IMO it's
practically made to order for a radial arm saw. Two passes, one with the
blade vertical to cut from the edge, one horizontal from the end, stack
your pieces and you can do a dozen or so on one pass depending on
thickness.

But if you don't have a radial arm saw then you'd have to go out and get one
to use that approach, so it's probalby not cost effective for you.

The problem with questions like this is that there is no "right" answer.
The "best" way to do it depends on too many factors. If all you've got it
a Swiss Army Knife and you're a broke student with plenty of time then you
can do it, very carefully, with a Swiss Army Knife, sharpening it on a
coffee mug in the cafeteria as needed. On the other hand, if you're the
CEO of Delta you hand the piece to an engineer and tell him to whip you up
a machine that takes whatever he has in at one end and produces finished
parts at the other (OK, I'm exaggerating--he'd probably just pull a radial
arm saw off the line if he didn't already have one).

Part of the "art" of woodworking is figuring out how to do what you need to
do with what you have and failing that what's the best thing to do about
it--the "best thing to do about it" is not necessarily get a tool optimized
for that one job--there may be one that does it "good enough" and does a
lot of other stuff that you've been working too hard at with what you have.

You asked how to handle a cut of that nature that is too deep for the blade
depth on your table saw. Many ways. You could use any of several
varieties of hand saw, a band saw, a jigsaw, a scrollsaw, etc. If the
stock thickness is less than twice the cut depth of the longest bit your
router will handle then you could route it and clean up the corner with a
chisel. If you're desperate enough you could drill multiple holes along
the cut line then smooth it with a chisel.

--Scott

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)