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Crosscutting jig for repetitive small work, request for comments.

E

Ellert van Koperen

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Hi all, I jumbled together this jig to make a bunch of the same small pieces (for a prototype of a game).

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Note the riser to protect myself from the blade, especially my left hand that is operating the clamp. I intend to cover the blade completely, that can be done by simply attaching an extra piece of wood on the riser, over the blade.

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Now with a piece in it.

See it at work

And the result after a short while:
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Any comments are welcome, as are methods to improve this jig. It works OK, but i am sure it can be improved.
 

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Ellert,

Nice sled! Small parts sleds are invaluable as a safety device when cutting small parts!

I have a friend who is Catholic and makes rosaries which he hands out for donations that he, in turn, donates the income to worthy church causes. He was unable to find the size crosses he wanted on the internet and someone told him I was a woodworker. Before he retired, he was our family dentist. So I developed this small parts sled to cut not only cut the pieces for the cross, but allows us to accurately make half lap joints in the two pieces without having our hands anywhere near the blade. I also made a narrow part ripping jig that uses a bearing and once set, we rip a piece, move the fence, rip a piece, move the fence. No measuring needed to continuously rip the same width narrow strips. We have patterns to set the sliding stop on the fence of the sled and to set the ripping width with the narrow rip jig. We do absolutely no measuring. Before I developed this system our success rate on making pieces for the crosses was about 10-20%. Now we run about a 99% success rate. The adjustable stop on the fence was made using an extra piece of T-track and the holes drilled are so you can change the operating range of the stop. The parts taped to the sled are the patterns that we use to set up the stop and the ripping jig for his cross runs. In a couple hours on an recent afternoon, we made enough parts for him to assemble 100 crosses for his rosaries.

sps2.jpgThis is the size of material we are ripping and cutting. The wind from the spinning saw blade is enough to move it so it has to be immobilized.

sps1.jpg The different holes allow the range of the sliding stop to be adjusted.

sps9.jpgHere's a photo of the clips holding a piece down.

sps5.jpgHere you can see both wooden "clips" holding the piece to the sled. The blue painters tape holds our patterns to the sled so we can find them and use them on the next production run.
 
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Good idea Ken C :)

Nice holddowns for those fiddly parts Ken F, nice idea. Can you show a picture of the ripping jig you mentioned? I have not got my ripping quite as precise and steady as i would like to have it.
 
Very nice I have similar jigs.

One thought, why not double your speed and put two pieces of the stock one on top of the other and then with one push cut two pieces? Three might be too many, but you could certainly handle two pieces.To keep the two pieces against the back fence, put a wheel on a small arm with a spring pushing it, then you only have to worry about the ends of the two pieces of stock being right up against your stop block to the left of the blade.

Cheers!
 
To answer my own question on ripping: I found this ripping jig (more a measurement jig really) on the tube:

Now if only a kitty 419 would have a more sollid fence...
 
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