Cutting a spiral pedestal on a table saw?
 

My wife's uncle was just describing a jig his son had that could cut a
spiral shape on a pedestal using a table saw. It sounded to me like
some sort of jig that would feed a piece of stock across the blade and
use a shallow cove cut that would create a spiral by rotating the stock
across the cove cut setup. Has anyone in this group seen such a jig?
Does anyone have any information or plans for making one?

Thanks,

Kevin

What youy are describing sounds very similar to this:


De Cristoforo's Complete Book of Power Tools
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72-90935
SBN: 60-010999-8

See discussion of the rotojig pages 69 through 76 in the first section
on Table Saws.

I constructed one of these jigs in the early eighties.The jig shown
will accomodate a spindle diameter of 2.75 in. ( Assumptions: 10 in
dia blade with a 3 in cut ). If you require a larger diameter, you
could scale up the dimensions accordingly.

What youy are describing sounds very similar to this:


De Cristoforo's Complete Book of Power Tools
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72-90935
SBN: 60-010999-8

See discussion of the rotojig pages 69 through 76 in the first section
on Table Saws.

I constructed one of these jigs in the early eighties.The jig shown
will accomodate a spindle diameter of 2.75 in. ( Assumptions: 10 in
dia blade with a 3 in cut ). If you require a larger diameter, you
could scale up the dimensions accordingly.

Thanks! I'll have to go down to our library and check it out!

That book is very cheap:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...973910-5972627

--
Alex - newbie_neander in woodworking
cravdraa_at-yahoo_dot-com
not my site: http://www.e-sword.net/

Well I just got my copy of De Cristoforo's book and while it is
certainly a great addition to my collection of information on tools and
jigs, the rotajig which is described in this book isn't exactly what I
was hoping to find information on. You could conceptually use this jig
to create a spiral on square or round stock, but the accuracy would be
determined by how well you can manually control the rotation of you
stock. From what my wife's uncle described to me the jig his son had
(or maybe has?) had some sort of gear-driven mechanism that would
accurately control the rotation of the stock over the tablesaw blade
while doing a coping cut. I'll have to see if I can contact his son...

Thanks though for turning me onto this book. I'm glad to have it!

Kevin

You are certainly welcome for the lead to this publication. I have
used this book as reference for many jigs for more than twenty years.
Every time I revisit this book, I must pause and remember our friend
'Chris'. Perhaps we shall never see again talent and ingenuity quite
like he produced for almost 50 years.

I found the accuracy of the spiral cut to be acceptable for my purposes
many years ago. I confess that originally built this jig for
experimentation. But the three projects I can recall that I used this
jig turned out nicely. The jig does allow self feeding of the stock
being cut when the base of the jig is secured to a miter gauge and held
stationary.

A accurate miter gauge is the key to this jig. Locking the miter gauge
jig at an appropriate angle (to generate the spiral cut required)
provides very a consistent spiral cut pattern.

As always, your results may very.





wrote:
Well I just got my copy of De Cristoforo's book and while it is
certainly a great addition to my collection of information on tools and
jigs, the rotajig which is described in this book isn't exactly what I
was hoping to find information on. You could conceptually use this jig
to create a spiral on square or round stock, but the accuracy would be
determined by how well you can manually control the rotation of you
stock. From what my wife's uncle described to me the jig his son had
(or maybe has?) had some sort of gear-driven mechanism that would
accurately control the rotation of the stock over the tablesaw blade
while doing a coping cut. I'll have to see if I can contact his son...

Thanks though for turning me onto this book. I'm glad to have it!

Kevin

wrote:
Well I just got my copy of De Cristoforo's book and while it is
certainly a great addition to my collection of information on tools and
jigs, the rotajig which is described in this book isn't exactly what I
was hoping to find information on. You could conceptually use this jig
to create a spiral on square or round stock, but the accuracy would be
determined by how well you can manually control the rotation of you
stock. From what my wife's uncle described to me the jig his son had
(or maybe has?) had some sort of gear-driven mechanism that would
accurately control the rotation of the stock over the tablesaw blade
while doing a coping cut. I'll have to see if I can contact his son...

Thanks though for turning me onto this book. I'm glad to have it!

Kevin


Are you sure it was used with a table saw and not a router. It sounds
like the Craftsman Router Crafter.

I don't think Sears sells them any more. There are a number of Router
Crafters for sale on ebay. Here's one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW

--
Jack Novak
Buffalo, NY - USA

(Remove -SPAM- to send email)

On 7 Jun 2005 07:56:48 -0700, "
wrote:

Well I just got my copy of De Cristoforo's book and while it is
certainly a great addition to my collection of information on tools and
jigs, the rotajig which is described in this book isn't exactly what I
was hoping to find information on. You could conceptually use this jig
to create a spiral on square or round stock, but the accuracy would be
determined by how well you can manually control the rotation of you
stock. From what my wife's uncle described to me the jig his son had
(or maybe has?) had some sort of gear-driven mechanism that would
accurately control the rotation of the stock over the tablesaw blade
while doing a coping cut. I'll have to see if I can contact his son...

Thanks though for turning me onto this book. I'm glad to have it!

Kevin

Try this out-

http://www.zentilfamilia.com/finewood.pdf

The setup is for a router and a lathe, but I'd be willing to bet that
you could adapt the pulley system for use with your saw with a little
monkeying around.