Making Shims

For the Aparto II reno, we need a bunch of shims, I bought a couple packages of them, but we are just about out, and I forgot to buy them this last time

OK, time to make some.....


Basically you make a jig that is much like a pushblock, there is a notch cut out of the side of the push block that is cut at an angle to give the shim shape. I cut mine at about 3 degrees, and they are about 10" long.


You have to hold the piece in tight, but you really should not do it like the pic above, this is not good, the left push block is pushing the cut off piece into the saw blade.


The better thing to do is to make a second block that hooks the back of the block, this works well.


Here you can see one shim cut, works slick!


In this pic, you can see that the cut off piece is too small, time to change!


There you go, took me about an hour to make about 60 shims, including making the jigs and taking the pics.

Cheers!

Shimmy-me-timbers Stu that's a whack of shims.

Go Stu, go. Thanks for the tutorial. I'm spoiled by having to pass a Lowe's and a Home Depot on the 2 mile drive to LOML's house. If I lived even a few miles farther from the nearest store or it was after-hours, I could use your method to keep me moving forward on my project. Good stuff.

The cabinet shop I used to work in we had the millman cut the shims for the installers the same way you did yours. We made them 7" long and tapered from 1/4" to nothing. Used nothing but scraps of 2 x 4's. I do the same thing. Just can't see spending that money on shims when I can cut them out of wood I'd otherwise throw away.