JIgs, Fixtures, and Shop made tools

I think one of my favorite parts of designing furniture was taking on a new project, and trying to figure out how I would make it happen. Being able to figure out a process for something I'd never done before let me stretch my boundaries much farther than I'd have thought. 

 There are a few other methods of work that didn't make it into the blog, and maybe one day I'll get around to putting them up. In the meantime, I thought it would be a good idea to at least compile most of the best methods of work that I came up with, in the hopes that they're helpful for you all. 

 

 

Crosscut sleds

Becuase the table saw was a primary tool, there were a lot of jigs and fixtures. But in general, a crosscut sled was one of the most-used jigs. The version I'd been trained on was bare bones and simple, and to the point, but I had issues with it, and designed a few other ways to get the job done.

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2011/02/evolving-better-crosscut-sled.html

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2011/02/evolving-better-crosscut-sled-followup.html

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2012/03/two-simple-sleds.html

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2012/04/yet-another-table-saw-sled.html 

Refining precision on the table saw:

Aside from being able to cut cleanly and squarely, these allowed me to refine my precision, so that I was able to remove .002-.003" from a part I'd just cut. This allowed me to make a 'good enough' cut, and then slowly dial in to a perfect-fit finish dimension.

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2012/04/kreg-fence-micro-adjuster.html

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2011/05/biesemeyer-fence-micro-adjust.html

Sometimes I needed to trace an object that wasn't flat-bottomed.

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2012/07/pattern-tracing-tool.html

 

There was a bookcase job that I did, wherein the shelves were designed to fit into the case using a sliding dovetail joint. The finished case and shelves were made out of single-piece, full width slabs of cherry. So, rather than risk wasting a lot of expensive wood getting the router table set up, I decided to fit them individually, using a dovetail plane... which I didn't have. So, I made one.

Making a dovetail plane:

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2013/01/converting-skew-rabbet-plane-to.html

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2013/01/converting-skew-rabbet-plane-to_24.html

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2013/02/converting-skew-rabbet-plane-to.html

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2013/02/converting-skew-rabbet-plane-to_8.html

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2013/02/converting-skew-rabbet-plane-to_10.html

This was a cutting/ dado table that I built, inspired by my festool tools. But, it's not festool specific.

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2012/09/festool-cutting-table.html

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2012/09/more-on-cutting-table.html

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2012/09/cutting-dados-with-cutting-table.html

The Auto-Regulator was my last big commission. And I came up with a lot of really cool ways to do things that I'm still pretty proud of. Here are two of them:

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2014/02/shooting-board-for-truing-long-miter.html

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2015/10/auto-regulator-circular-logic-part-1.html

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2014/04/circular-logic-part-ii.html

http://jameswatriss.blogspot.com/2015/11/circular-logic-part-3.html