Cutting small pieces
 

OK, I won't mention past this the stupid mistake I made and came THAT
close...

I have some small pieces of cedar to cut. They are already formed at
3 1/2" long, and 1 1/2" square ends. The problem is that one corner
needs to be more than 90 degrees. If using a table saw, this means
pushing them through a tilted blade for two adjacent sides to form the
larger angle on one edge.

Question ...how to do this safely? I thought of planing by hand, and
might wid up doing that after I've ruined a few pieces. Safety is the
issue. I made one mistake, and now look like I'm getting ready to
weld inside an old chemical drum with all the protective gear.

Thanks.

If you have access to a bandsaw, that is how I would try it. If you
must try it on a tablesaw (which I would not recommend you do), I'd
make certain you have a pushstick capable of getting control of the
piece, and not stand behind it or risk raising your voice an octive.

I'm not sure I completly followed the form of the pieces but it sounds
like you may want to create a quick custom sled of some sort; using a
toggle clamp to hold the piece in place so you amd your fingers can
stay far from the blade.

Toggle clamps are pretty cheap and you can use them again and again for
all sorts of things.

Guess who wrote:

OK, I won't mention past this the stupid mistake I made and came THAT
close...

I have some small pieces of cedar to cut. They are already formed at
3 1/2" long, and 1 1/2" square ends. The problem is that one corner
needs to be more than 90 degrees. If using a table saw, this means
pushing them through a tilted blade for two adjacent sides to form the
larger angle on one edge.

Question ...how to do this safely? I thought of planing by hand, and
might wid up doing that after I've ruined a few pieces. Safety is the
issue. I made one mistake, and now look like I'm getting ready to
weld inside an old chemical drum with all the protective gear.

Thanks.

I can't visualize which way you're needing to cut, but I'll concur w/
the bandsaw alternative. If you try something that small w/ tablesaw,
you must have backing board ridgidly attached to miter gauge if it's
an end cut and prefeably using a solid clamp for holding the wokpiece.
If it's a rip, I'd have to see it to figure out tooling if it were even
possible...

Alternatively, what about sanding disk on the saw?

"Guess who" wrote in message
...
OK, I won't mention past this the stupid mistake I made and came THAT
close...

I have some small pieces of cedar to cut. They are already formed at
3 1/2" long, and 1 1/2" square ends. The problem is that one corner
needs to be more than 90 degrees. If using a table saw, this means
pushing them through a tilted blade for two adjacent sides to form the
larger angle on one edge.

Question ...how to do this safely? I thought of planing by hand, and
might wid up doing that after I've ruined a few pieces. Safety is the
issue. I made one mistake, and now look like I'm getting ready to
weld inside an old chemical drum with all the protective gear.

Thanks.

If I understand what you're trying to do...
I'd use a large disk sander with a couple of guide blocks (larger) clamped
to the sander table and slowly move the work piece into the sander using the
guide. YMMV

MikeG

if bandsawing quality of cut is good enough, than that's a good choice,
or clamp to a sled. of course don't use a TS fence. you COULD clamp
the pieces to a miter gauge that has a wooden fence attached. Uniclamps
work great for that.

Dave

Guess who wrote:

OK, I won't mention past this the stupid mistake I made and came THAT
close...

I have some small pieces of cedar to cut. They are already formed at
3 1/2" long, and 1 1/2" square ends. The problem is that one corner
needs to be more than 90 degrees. If using a table saw, this means
pushing them through a tilted blade for two adjacent sides to form the
larger angle on one edge.

Question ...how to do this safely? I thought of planing by hand, and
might wid up doing that after I've ruined a few pieces. Safety is the
issue. I made one mistake, and now look like I'm getting ready to
weld inside an old chemical drum with all the protective gear.

Thanks.

Why don't you just do it with a good old-fashioned sharp handsaw?

Two gave good solutions - clamp it to a sled and use a disc sander. Now
just combine those two ideas. Go to Sears and purchase the 8" or 10"
sanding disk for your tablesaw and some extra sandpaper discs of the proper
grit you'll need. You can also use the sanding disc (sans the sandpaper) to
align your tablesaw with later.

Bob S.



"Guess who" wrote in message
...
OK, I won't mention past this the stupid mistake I made and came THAT
close...

I have some small pieces of cedar to cut. They are already formed at
3 1/2" long, and 1 1/2" square ends. The problem is that one corner
needs to be more than 90 degrees. If using a table saw, this means
pushing them through a tilted blade for two adjacent sides to form the
larger angle on one edge.

Question ...how to do this safely? I thought of planing by hand, and
might wid up doing that after I've ruined a few pieces. Safety is the
issue. I made one mistake, and now look like I'm getting ready to
weld inside an old chemical drum with all the protective gear.

Thanks.

Unless you have a lot of these pieces to cut, its probably not worth making
a suitable jig to cut on a tablesaw. The thought of cutting without a jig
makes me cringe and want to count my fingers.

I make a lot of samllish things and one of my most used tools is a bench
mounted sander with a disk and belt combo. They are relatively cheap.
Basically, if you can draw an accurate line then you can sand to it
accurately (and safely) by simple hand holding with this machine even if a
compound angle is required. Usually I use quite course paper on the disk
and fine on the belt.

Hope this helps
Cheers
Bill D
New Zealand

Guess who wrote:
OK, I won't mention past this the stupid mistake I made and came THAT
close...

I have some small pieces of cedar to cut. They are already formed at
3 1/2" long, and 1 1/2" square ends. The problem is that one corner
needs to be more than 90 degrees. If using a table saw, this means
pushing them through a tilted blade for two adjacent sides to form the
larger angle on one edge.

Question ...how to do this safely?

snip

Forget the table saw.

Trying to do this job on one is a disaster waiting to happen IMHO.

Consider a 12" disc sander with 50 grit for this job.

Build a jig to hold piece and have at it.

My guess it will take as long to design and build the jig as it will to
do the job.

Good luck.

Lew

On Tue, 14 Jun 2005 14:51:45 -0400, Guess who
wrote:

OK, I won't mention past this the stupid mistake I made and came THAT
close...

I have some small pieces of cedar to cut. They are already formed at
3 1/2" long, and 1 1/2" square ends. The problem is that one corner
needs to be more than 90 degrees. If using a table saw, this means
pushing them through a tilted blade for two adjacent sides to form the
larger angle on one edge.

Question ...how to do this safely? I thought of planing by hand, and
might wid up doing that after I've ruined a few pieces. Safety is the
issue. I made one mistake, and now look like I'm getting ready to
weld inside an old chemical drum with all the protective gear.

Thanks.

miter saw with a hold down or clamped to the fence would be much
simpler. YMMV

skeez

On Tue, 14 Jun 2005 23:45:23 GMT, Lew Hodgett
wrote:

Forget the table saw.

Trying to do this job on one is a disaster waiting to happen IMHO.

Too late.

Consider a 12" disc sander with 50 grit for this job.

Build a jig to hold piece and have at it.

My guess it will take as long to design and build the jig as it will to
do the job.

The pieces are to be cut lengthwise on two sides to balance the
increase in angle. I'm considering tilting to the required angle and
clamping firmly with jorgensen clamps held flat on the table, with
some room to spare, then carefully feeding into the sander, holding
onto the clamps to guide it.

Once more, thanks to all for the suggestions. i'm definitely going
with the sander.

gfretw,

I agree with you on the use of "quick and dirty" sled for small pieces.
I've made many cuts confidently and quickly using this approach. One
of my sleds has a sheet of 400 grit sand paper glued to it. I'll place
the piece on top of the sandpaper and hold it in place with a GRRipper
or my hand, depending on the size of the piece.

Bob

Guess who wrote:
OK, I won't mention past this the stupid mistake I made and came THAT
close...

I have some small pieces of cedar to cut. They are already formed at
3 1/2" long, and 1 1/2" square ends. The problem is that one corner
needs to be more than 90 degrees. If using a table saw, this means
pushing them through a tilted blade for two adjacent sides to form the
larger angle on one edge.

Question ...how to do this safely?

Make a custom miter box and cut them with a hand saw. If you carefully
cut the saw slot in the miter box, the finished parts will be extremely
accurate. Use the same saw to cut the slot that you'll use to cut the
parts. It shouldn't take more than 15 minutes or so to whip out a box.

Barry

In article ,
Guess who wrote:
OK, I won't mention past this the stupid mistake I made and came THAT
close...

I have some small pieces of cedar to cut. They are already formed at
3 1/2" long, and 1 1/2" square ends. The problem is that one corner
needs to be more than 90 degrees. If using a table saw, this means
pushing them through a tilted blade for two adjacent sides to form the
larger angle on one edge.

Question ...how to do this safely? I thought of planing by hand, and
might wid up doing that after I've ruined a few pieces. Safety is the
issue. I made one mistake, and now look like I'm getting ready to
weld inside an old chemical drum with all the protective gear.

Thanks.


If I understand the problem correctly, it shouldn't be too difficult
to make some kind of jig that will clamp the workpiece, perhaps using
stop blocks of some kind to set the correct position & angle of each
piece. The jig could attach to the miter gauge or run along the rip
fence, whatever is easiest for you to build. In either case, position
it so that the top ot the tilted blade is furthest away from the
workpiece.


--

Larry Wasserman Baltimore, Maryland

On Tue, 14 Jun 2005 14:51:45 -0400, Guess who wrote:

OK, I won't mention past this the stupid mistake I made and came THAT
close...

I have some small pieces of cedar to cut. They are already formed at
3 1/2" long, and 1 1/2" square ends. The problem is that one corner
needs to be more than 90 degrees. If using a table saw, this means
pushing them through a tilted blade for two adjacent sides to form the
larger angle on one edge.

Question ...how to do this safely? I thought of planing by hand, and
might wid up doing that after I've ruined a few pieces. Safety is the
issue. I made one mistake, and now look like I'm getting ready to
weld inside an old chemical drum with all the protective gear.

Thanks.

If you don't have a disc sander, now might be the time to get one...
Set the table a the angle that you want and feed the pieces in... if you have
several, build a simple jig to maintain the angle in one direction while the
table is in the other, and you can do 2 faces at once.. (IF I understand your
question)



mac

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