Jeff Horton
Member
- Messages
- 4,272
- Location
- The Heart of Dixie
Ever need a long board and only have short one? On boats it quite common to need very long boards and one of the many methods used to join shorter boards is a scarf joint. A cut at a very shallow angle on the end of two boards and then gluing them together. The shallow cut allows for a very large glue joint.
The problem is always how to cut them? There are lots of ways and no one is right for everything. On plywood I just stack it up and hand plane it. This time I needed several 18'+ stringers and wanted a quick way to cut the joints. I simply can not find good clear lumber around here. So taking the best I can find and cutting out the knots and scarfing into longer pieces is the simplest and most affordable way to get long stringers.
This is my second scarfing jig for the table saw. The first one scared the stuffing out of me! It had a tendency to trap the cutoff and the blade would quickly wedge the cutoff into the jig against the blade making a horrible noise!
Now the cutoff falls off on the table with nothing to trap it. The air off the blade will tend to slide it back toward you but it has no speed and stops on the table.
Here is the recycled jig. You can see ii is very basic. The angle is approximately a 7 to 1 ratio. You just clamp the part and slowly slide it into the blade. Here is the results.
I ripped down several strips and then cut the knots out leaving me several different lengths. I took them and organized them to find my rough length of the stringer. Applied the glue to the cuts and clamped them down.
The problem is always how to cut them? There are lots of ways and no one is right for everything. On plywood I just stack it up and hand plane it. This time I needed several 18'+ stringers and wanted a quick way to cut the joints. I simply can not find good clear lumber around here. So taking the best I can find and cutting out the knots and scarfing into longer pieces is the simplest and most affordable way to get long stringers.
This is my second scarfing jig for the table saw. The first one scared the stuffing out of me! It had a tendency to trap the cutoff and the blade would quickly wedge the cutoff into the jig against the blade making a horrible noise!
Now the cutoff falls off on the table with nothing to trap it. The air off the blade will tend to slide it back toward you but it has no speed and stops on the table.
Here is the recycled jig. You can see ii is very basic. The angle is approximately a 7 to 1 ratio. You just clamp the part and slowly slide it into the blade. Here is the results.
I ripped down several strips and then cut the knots out leaving me several different lengths. I took them and organized them to find my rough length of the stringer. Applied the glue to the cuts and clamped them down.