Wednesday, February 19, 2014

80-20 to the rescue, again.



I'm about to do a lamination where 2 pieces will be laminated around a third, sharing a mitered edge. Problem is, the wood is very, very slightly bowed. The lamination will fix that, but getting a clean beveled edge on bowed stock with the table saw is... Dicey, at best. So, each beveled edge will be rough cut, and then I'll use a long shooting board to true the bevels. But, that requires that the shooting board has a reference-straight edge to start with. For whatever reason, this particular piece of plywood is out of straight by a bit. So, I'm using a chunk of 80/20 extrusion to pattern-rout a straight edge.

That's one thing I love about these extrusions. They're not technically machinist-straight-edge-reference straight... But they're close enough for woodworking. And this 7' piece was much cheaper than a certified straight edge of similar length. Great for, say, checking an 8' bench surface when you're flattening. 

AND, it's straight enough to use as a pattern, for trimming a reference edge on a jig. But, Please note the tape on the bearing: The edges on the router bit are almost, but not quite, in line with the diameter of the bearing. So I added tape until I was comfortable that the bit wouldn't touch my aluminum straight edge.


No comments: