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Jointer Knife Setting Jig
Here's a cheap, simple and effective jointer knife setting jig. It's
just a piece of glass with rare earth magnets glued to it. You can see
what you are doing, and it's easy to see if the knife is butted up
against the glass, and if it stays put while you tighten the screws
holding the knife in place.
Burnishing a Scraper
Burnishing a scraper at that exact "sweet" angle that
produces the proper hook is a trial and error procedure without a guide
or jig. Once the angle is found, it would be nice to be able to repeat
that same angle the next time you need to freshen the edge of your
scraper. Cut a couple of scrap blocks of wood to use as a guide,
and clamp them and the scraper into the vise and burnish the edge. Once
you have found that sweet angle, mark and cut the blocks of wood so that
the next time you need to burnish the hook on the scraper, all you have
to do is put the scraper in between the 2 blocks of wood so that the
bottom of the blocks and the scraper are even, and clamp them into your
vise.
Checking the accuracy of your Mitersaw
Here's an easy way to check the angle accuracy of your
Miter Saw. This will show you any error in the angle settings
immediately.
Grinding Jig for making the fingernail
profile on a bowl gouge
This is the homemade grinding jig that I made and used before I bought
the Wolverine Jig. The biggest drawback is that, once I got a large bowl
gouge, I discovered that the wooden treaded dowel with the knob on it
that I used to tighten down on the gouge didn't work well because you
cannot tighten it enough to really hold the heavier gouge and also that
the end of the dowel would try to slide off the round shank of the
gouge, and the dowel would actually deflect and not end up centered on
the shank of the dowel... and that would contribute to the weakness of
it's holding ability too. I would recommend that you use as large a
threaded insert as will fit... at least a 5/16 bolt... the ones with the
wing nut attached... would work much better.
Here's a simple jig for the disc sander to square up
the pen blanks to the inserted and glued brass pen tube. I used an old
pen mandrel and inserted it into a hole drilled through some scrap wood,
then glued a spacer block and the block with the mandrel inserted
through it to the fence on the miter gauge.
Since I don't enjoy sanding those brass tubes for pens, I found an
old wiring checker that was exactly the same outer diameter as a 7mm pen
tube's inner diameter... I just slide the tube onto the wire checker,
and touch it gently against the belt sander and it is almost instantly
shiny with lots of scratched to hold the glue.
This works a lot better than the one I made above... better meaning more stable, better fit between the rod and the brass tube of the blank you are squaring, and simplicity and ease of adjustment.
This is made with stuff I got at Lowes. A 3/8" X 3 1/2" black pipe nipple drilled and threaded in 2 places for the 1/4" X 20 thumb screws is the basis for this jig. I chose 3/8" because that is the smallest size that the transfer punch for a Jr. Gentlemen tube will fit. The pipe is attached to an old 2X4 with some 1/2' conduit clamps from the electrical department.
I am using the transfer punch set I got from Harbor Freight. I can choose a punch that fits whatever pen kit I am making and inset it into the black pipe and tighten the thumb screws and the punch self-centers in the tube. Then just slide the blank onto the punch, move the miter gauge into position and sand the ends of the blank square.
I have another use for the transfer punch set other than disassembling pen mistakes
To help make the plastic miter runner I made a jig that is just a dado in a 2 X 4 the same size as the miter runners and a small screw to hold it in place. This made it easy to use a hand plane and card scraper to sneak up on the final width as well as leaving a nice smooth finished edge to the plastic.