What is the best way to accomplish this?

Kevin Reid

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South East Michigan
I am building some rocking horses for a couple of the neighbors kids. One of the parts is a wedge that is used to attach the legs to the body at a 12 degree angle. The wedges are 5 inches long, 3 inches wide and vary in thickness from 3/4 at the thick end to 1/8 inch at the thin end. My shop is pretty well supplied with all the basic woodworking tools. Unfortunately my band saw is too small to cut the piece. I would appreciate any suggestions for cutting these parts since I will need to make quite a few of them. And no, these rocking horses are not centipedes. I just have to make a lot of rocking horses.
 
Vaughn:

That is exactly the cut I am trying to do. I do have a table saw but I cant figure out how to make the cut safely. One idea was to hot melt glue the blank to a longer board and to use the longer board to push the blank through the table saw.

What I have been doing is making cuts every quarter inch from the side up to the cut line and then cutting close to the cut line with the band saw. This leaves a pretty rough surface that then requires a lot of sanding.
 
Band saw it and hand plane it. Cleaner, quieter, quicker, and you have to do enough of them to become really real accomplished with a hand plane. Opportunity is knocking on your door.

Not to brag but I am pretty accomplished with a router, but I could plane half of these in the time it would take to make the jig. :)

Stu? Point this man in the right direction. :thumb: :poke:
 
Got a jointer? Tapers are pretty easy to cut accurately on the jointer. Cut the taper on the end of a longer piece of stock, then crosscut it off to cut the next taper. You can do both ends before you cut off.
 
So many good ideas. My thought is to try them all out and see what works easiest. A friend suggested the hand plane but Im not sure I have one small enough since these are only 3" x 5".

Im kind of partial to using a router and a jig because I like making jigs of all sorts.

Tim: I know how to make wedges when I dont want them on the jointer but Im not sure how to do it intentionally. Is the idea to take a long piece of stock that is the correct width and pass 90% of the stock past the blade on the first pass, then 80%, 70%, 60% ...... etc. to make the wedge. Then when I get close to the final thickness flip the board around and do the same on the other end. Then cut off both ends and repeat? I have an 8" wide jointer so if made my raw stock double the width of the final piece I could cut each wedge in half using the table saw and double the number of wedges.

What do you folks think. Guess Im going to get some shop time tonight.
 
The jointer technique for making wedges is simpler than that, even. Here's what ya do:

The finished wedge will be 5" long, right? So make up a little push block with a heel only 1/8" tall (because the narrow end of the wedge is 1/8" thick).

Mark out your wedge shape on the board, with 1/8" at the end and 3/4" at 5". Draw the wedge profile right on the edge of the wood so you can see it while you're jointing. Make a mark at the 5" point.

Use a strip of masking tape (blue, since it doesn't leave residue) on the jointer's fence directly above the cutterhead's centerline to show you where that centerline is.

Set your jointer's depth to whatever depth you can comfortably take off in one pass (1/16", 1/32", whatever you're comfortable with).

Lay your stock over the cutterhead, with the 5" mark directly in line with the masking tape. The bulk of it should lie on the OUTFEED table, overhanging the INFEED table on the 5" end. Line up the 5" mark with the masking tape.

Hold your board down and start the jointer.

Now tip up the long end of your board (over the outfeed table) until the 5" end barely touches the infeed table. Using your push block, run it through tipped up like that. It'll take off stock in a wedge shape, with the thickness removed at the narrow end equal to your depth setting.

Back it up & take another pass, exactly the same way. Continue repeating until the end is 1/8" thick.

Take one final pass to clean up the tiny step you made at the 5" mark. At this point you should have a very good wedge, 5" long, 3/4" thick at the 5" mark at 1/8" thick at the end.

Here's what you're doing:
30szekx.jpg
 
Tim:

Thank you for the very detailed instructions. I will try it tonight and see how it works. This will save a ton of time making these rocking horses since this is the most time consuming part of the whole process. I will let you know how I do.
 
One thing bothers me - these wedges aren't 12 degrees. They're only 7-1/8 degrees, with these dimensions. A 12-degree wedge 1/8" thick at one end & 3/4" thick at the other end is much shorter - only 3" long.
 
I have one of these for doing tapers on my Tables saw. View attachment 40312 $25 from Rockler. A little double sided tape for safety and you can do um 2 at a time.

Don, look at the sketch in the earlier post. He'd need to have the wood on edge on that taper jig. Not a cut I'd feel good about making with a taper jig. Especially with his tablesaw blade exposed 3+ inches.

Kevin, I'm a bit confused. :huh: In the first post you mentioned your bandsaw was too small to make the cut, but later you talked about using the bandsaw to cut close to the cut line. How tall of piece can you fit in your bandsaw? If it'll fit about 3 1/8", I'd think you would be able to make the cut with it.
 
Tim you are correct on the angle. I was was thinking of another measure. The dimensions are correct though. Thanks for pointing that out because I am trying to blueprint this thing and I would have put in the wrong dimension.


One thing bothers me - these wedges aren't 12 degrees. They're only 7-1/8 degrees, with these dimensions. A 12-degree wedge 1/8" thick at one end & 3/4" thick at the other end is much shorter - only 3" long.
 
Vaughn:

You guys are too sharp. I have been trying to use my bandsaw but it is a small table top one and is not very good quality and it is very difficult to get a decent cut from it. Santa is supposed to be bringing me a nice new one that the elves have been testing.

On my current saw I can just barely squeeze the piece in the band saw with the saw at the maximum amount of exposed blade. I just dont feel very safe using it like that but I couldnt figure out any other way of making the cuts I needed. I think some of the suggestions that have been proposed here would be a lot safer.

I have one of the rocking horses finished and have another half done. I need both of these done for Monday. I also have orders for two more which is why Im trying to find some simpler ways of doing some of the tough jobs.

Thanks everyone for all your suggestions and help.
 
Make an angle jig where you can stand a long board up on the edge and make your slice on a table saw. if the board is about 3 or 4 feet long you should be able to get several 'slices; before the board gets too short to be safely handled. Possibly even clamp the board to the miter gauge. Using this technique, the sliced off piece would come to a perfect point just a tad too long. Then just whack off the pointed end which hopefully will get you to a final length of 5" with 1/8" on the small end.
 
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