Has anyone ever built their own magnetic feathboard?
I don't like the design of the popular griptite model.
I am thinking about using 1 or 2 magnetic bases... the type machinists
use with attached dial indicators, and engineering the attachment a
horizontal and a vertical plastic (or wood) featherboards. Any ideas,
photos, or plans would be greatly appreciated.

"panofish" wrote in message
oups.com...
Has anyone ever built their own magnetic feathboard?
I don't like the design of the popular griptite model.
I am thinking about using 1 or 2 magnetic bases... the type machinists
use with attached dial indicators, and engineering the attachment a
horizontal and a vertical plastic (or wood) featherboards. Any ideas,
photos, or plans would be greatly appreciated.


If you don't like the Griptite, you must have some idea what you don't like
about it. Change that feature.

In article .com, "panofish" wrote:
Has anyone ever built their own magnetic feathboard?
I don't like the design of the popular griptite model.

What's not to like, other than the price?

I am thinking about using 1 or 2 magnetic bases... the type machinists
use with attached dial indicators,

Dial indicators on a featherboard? Why?

and engineering the attachment a
horizontal and a vertical plastic (or wood) featherboards.

IOW... a Grip-Tite.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.

Doug Miller wrote:
I am thinking about using 1 or 2 magnetic bases... the type machinists
use with attached dial indicators,


Dial indicators on a featherboard? Why?

I think he means he wants to use a magnetic base similar to the kind that
ship with some dial indicators. They have a handy switch that rotates the
magnet "on" (closer to the work surface) or "off" (further from the work
surface). I tried this once, but the featherboard I made was too thick for
the magnet to do any good. Perhaps some day I'll rout out a bit of the
featherboard so the magnetic base can sit closer to the table.

-John in NH

Excellent query! I was thinking the same thing, feather board held with magnets. Prob I am having is figuring out how to get the magnets loose. Was thinking of using a couple ‘super magnets’ salvaged from an old computer hard drive, or a half-dozen or so little bitty ‘super magnets’ salvaged from some old Philips Sonicare toothbrush heads. They have 4 such magnets per brush head. Each of those toothbrush magnets is about 10mm x 5mm x 2mm tall, and has enough magnetic-suck to hold a Boeing 747 up to a refrigerator door. If you stick one to your saw table (the magnet, not the 747) you will not be able to lift it off again, you must slide it to the edge and pry it off.

Sorry to be so vague. Yes, I'm refering to the magnetic base (without
the dial indicator). When I turn on the switch, the base holds to my
table with 45 pounds of force (2 would be doubly so). If you unscrew
the rod from the base you have an attachment point for a wood plate or
wood L-bracket that you could affix a featherboard (pre-made plastic or
homegrown wood version). The advantage over the griptite is that you
would get finer control over placement before locking down and you
would also reduce scratching of your nice tablesaw finish. Removing it
is also easy, because you don't need a brute force plastic cam lever.
Another advantage is that you would have a more traditional feather
board design with more fingerlets to hold your board in place.

I did find 1 reference on the web from woodworking tips from an
magazine, but the full article (with photos) is not available.

http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache...herboard&hl=en

Alan Lilly

Good News! I had contacted woodworkingtips.com about their magnetic
featherboard article and I just checked back and eureka!... the
original pdf is available again.

http://www.sfwg.org/pdf%20files/Fethrbrd.pdf

This is what I had originally envisioned, but it could be improved with
a vertical feather board attachment.
The vertical featherboard would have to slide vertically (for different
board thicknesses) and lock in place with 2 knobs or wing nuts.

Can anyone come up with a blueprint for such an improvement? I sure
would appreciate it. THANKS.

"panofish" wrote in message oups.com...

I did find 1 reference on the web from woodworking tips from an
magazine, but the full article (with photos) is not available.

The URL that you gave was an HTML conversion. It included a URL for
a PDF file which contains all of the illustrations.

http://www.sfwg.org/pdf%20files/Fethrbrd.pdf

Yeah.. the pdf was unavailable until I contacted woodworkingtips.com
and they apparently re-instated it.

I was having a similar thought. Instead of the magnetic base with the
rotating switch, I was thinking along the lines of an electromagnet.
Attaching the featherboard would be similar to the above .pdf approach.
Simply run around 1/2 amp at 12V DC through the magnet and it will
hold the featherboard down with 120-150 lbs!! No plastic levers to
rotate and no magnetic switches to turn - just flip a switch. The
downside is the need for the power supply and wires running all over
the place (and into the blade!!!). Also, these magnets are around $40
for the 120 lb version. Just a thought. PS - I looked into building a
step-up power supply to generate the 12V from a single (or couple) of
rechargable nicads, but it's not as simple as I wish. This would
eliminate the need for the external power supply and all the wires...