How would you cut this piece?

Re: How would you cut this piece?

Dick Coers

First I put down meticulous layout lines, cut off the line on the bandsaw, then trimmed to the line with a pattern bit and straightedge with a router. That was the master. Then cut wide of the layout lines again on the other pieces, and then used the master to trim the next pieces all around with a pattern bit in the router.

Re: How would you cut this piece?

Mike L

depending how thick they are, I would double side tape them together cut on band saw then a pattern makers bit to a master cut out.

Re: How would you cut this piece?

Bruce, a MN Galoot

I generally cut it close on the band saw and plane to fit. However, Dick’s method is quicker and easier.

Re: How would you cut this piece?

Virgil Johnson

I would use my panel cutter to make the right angle. Use a sheet of plywood to make a nest to hold the panel at 45 deg and cut the 40" dimension. rip again to knock the corner off to the 17" dimension.

Re: How would you cut this piece?

E Phillip Smith

I would try to cut on table saw with extended stop for accura miter gauge. I have cut 24" wide on table saw. with miter gauge they will be essentially coming off saw.

Re: How would you cut this piece? bandsaw

E Phillip Smith

Make an MDF master, double side blanks to master, run master against bandsaw fence. If master is a little proud of the blanks you can adjust fence to cut pieces within a few thousands of scribed cut line. If you use carbide blade you will get finish cut that needs no adjustment.

Re: How would you cut this piece?

William Duffield

Make an accurate pattern from whatever sheet good is lying around. Build an L-fence. Stick the pattern to each shelf blank in turn and cut it exactly to size on the table saw.

A quick search of the intertubes found this video explaining how it works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyNS4IhGjGY

There are others that might be clearer, and also write-ups in back issues of FWW, in particular Issue 237, the 2014 Tools issue.

Very Carefully....

Barry Irby

I have not made friends with my poor collection of planes, so that would never occur to me. Might work well if you have the planes and the skills.

I would probably do it as Dick describes. Make one and use it as a router pattern for the others. One thing no one mentioned is that he angled ends are going to be close to end grain. For the router, one will be better and one worse. So either cut one form one side and one for the other to get a favorable grain direction or switch from a top bit to a bottom bearing bit to be able to leave the pattern in place.

I have a track saw and I might be tempted to use that. You can make a home made track or just use a straight edge.

You can also set up a straight edge for a router and do a nice job. You can use a straight edge and run the base of the router next to it or you can use a bushing to guide the router. With a good straightedge you can cut away the waste up to a line and assuming the straightedge does not move you can make as many passes as you need to get a perfect edge.

Chippendale and Godard did it on a CNC.

With an upper and lower cabinet, don't you need at least Four?

Track saw

John in NM

I realize you may not have this option though.

Lacking the track saw, I would cut by any means easy, like the bandsaw, and then plane to fit as you suggest. That seems like a reasonable course.

If you go the router route...

David Yoho

Thought I'd mention should you rough out at bandsaw and then follow a master and trim with a router, a normal straight fluted flush trim bit may not do as well on the end grain as a spiral flush trim bit. I have one 2-inches long for these occasions that works like a hot knife through butter.

WOW, all those answers, and nobody

Keith Newton

Would just mark it off then cut to the line with a hand held circular saw.?

Maybe I’m just too old school, having about fifty years of carpentry under my belt. Guys, it isn’t that hard to just cut down one side of a fine pencil line by eye if you put about a tenth as much effort to learning to as you do fine tuning your plane collection. Hint: you don’t do it by looking at the front of the base. You look around the back side. If the blade starts to wander off, don’t try to muscle it back over, just back up enough to get back on then go forward again.

Bill I think I mentioned before that I would square off the ends of those 45* ends. Leaving them sharp doesn’t give you anything to attach the ends to but the front styles, and there isn’t much for them either. Your not loosing any real space inside, because nothing is going to fit into those low angle corners anyway.

If your going to try to light the inside, whether glass shelves or not, you might plow a groove up the back of the styles for a strip so the light gets to the lower shelves. If you just light it from the top, everything else falls in the shadow of whatever is on the top shelf.

Oh and one last thing. I think I recall your drawing showed a 1/4” back. I would bump that up to at least 1/2”. If your intending to use adjustable shelves, you’ll need more thickness for the pins, and it will help out on the outside corners too.

Re: How would you cut this piece?

John McGaw

Me, I'd rip the stock to the 17" width and then cut them one at a time using a solid stop on my sliding tablesaw. Cut, flip, cut,.. rinse and repeat thus avoiding virtually all waste. Or, on a regular tablesaw a sled would do the same job. If I wasn't going to go into mass production I doubt that I'd go the bother of making a template for use with a router although that would certainly work and might be easier in some shops. Face it, the number of ways to do the job probably approaches infinity and, in the end, it all depends on the tools and skills available; there are probably those out there who would say "I'd put it on my CNC machine (or 250W laser or waterjet) and ..."

Re: WOW, all those answers, and nobody

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I grew up in a family of carpenters. The "Skill" saw was aptly named for what they could do with it. I recall asking my uncle how he cut a 2 x 6 mitered maple trim piece in some site built kitchen cabinets. He looked puzzled....the skill saw of course.

Unfortunately the skill saw gene was not fully expressed in my genetic code. My son in law marvels at how I can do fiddly hand tool work and can't cut a 2 x 4 with a skill saw without binding. He has given up asking me to cut something when we are doing construction together. However, I can kiss a fine pencil line with a band saw using the same technique you describe for the Skill saw.

I have never done any pattern routing. Chicken and egg. I don't, hence I don't. If I did, I could. If I can make the pattern by some means I can stack 3 of these triangles and make what I need by the same means. Done.

"Bill I think I mentioned before that I would square off the ends of those 45* ends." My drawings should not be taken too literally. These 6- sided "triangles" will dado into the 5 posts. I usually draw a scaled drawing to get the shape. In my working notebook I do detailed sketches of the joinery details and final parts dimensions and machining.

"If your going to try to light the inside, " Good idea but daughter was emphatic that this piece is to be a storage cupboard not a display cupboard. That said, it might be a display cupboard some day so your idea needs consideration.

"Oh and one last thing. I think I recall your drawing showed a 1/4” back." The back is a structural 7+/-" post (currently deciding that size detail). Sides will likely be beaded board and batten- cherry or painted.

To each their own speciality...

John in NM

I can't cut with any saw as accurately as Bill can, due to not having the practice at it. I can carve a gunstock or any other tool handle by eye with an angle grinder, belt sander, and a rasp. Again, just practice.

I'm usually a bit amazed that others don't realize that their favorite tool is not everyone's favorite tool and that it really just comes down to the comfort that comes from frequent use.

So don't disparage those guys who fuss over their planes, they can probably do lots of things better than you can. If they had spent years driving a skil saw, I bet they would agree with you.

Hand held circular saws

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

When I was young, I remember watching Dad cut a rabbet on a board with his little Skil sidewinder circular saw, while I held the board. I tried it once or twice when I was a younger adult, and, yes, it can be done, but it's a high wire act.

On the other hand, I went down once to ease a door that was binding, and, when I pulled out my Stanley No. 5 to plane the edge, Dad pooh-poohed the idea that I had the right tool.

To each his/her own.

Re: Glad the job doesn't pay enough to care.

Re: How would you cut this piece?

Clint Searl

For a bespoke piece that will reside "permanently" in a specific corner, I'd try to make sure it would conform to the actual angle (+/- 90) of the corner.

Re: How would you cut this piece?

Jerry Gibbs

I would make a master and cut the others with an overhead fence on the table saw

Re: How would you cut this piece?

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

not familiar with overhead fence technique. No idea how to do it.

The general problem of make a master and use it to replicate is making the master. What ever is done to make a master can be done to make the three parts needed in a stack. What am I missing?

Overhead fence.

Barry Irby

I know your internet connection runs on Kerosene and you haven't trimmed the wick lately...

The overhead fence works like this. You attach a long scrap of wood to your fence elevated above the table a bit higher than the thickness of your piece you are trimming. You position the fence and raise your running blade into the scrap so the outside edge of the blade is flush with the outside edge of the scrap.

You cut your pattern (or you first piece) and attach it to the top of your blank. Precut the blank close to size, but slightly oversized. Slide the pair across the table saw with the pattern on top and rubbing the Pattern on the fence. The blade will cut the oversized part off neatly. You can adjust The cut to leave a hair behind if you want. This is something easier to do than describe.

You don't even need a complete pattern. Just attach a straight edge where you want cut.

OTOH, in your case, you have the skills to make them one at a time and then make them match. If you were making ten or fifty it might be worth patterning them, but for three or four, maybe not.

Re: WOW, all those answers, and nobody

Joe in a Cleveland suburb

"can't cut a 2 x 4 with a skill saw without binding."

That's funny. I can't either. Don't know why. I even bought a specific Porter Cable model for Left Handed people. I have both the right handed and left handed version and get can't either to work...

Re: Nomenclatural Ambiguity

William Duffield

The Overhead Fence is the same concept as the L-Fence I mentioned above. Ref. my post for a link to an explanatory article by FWW which shows several other valuable uses of it.

You can make your template (or even use the first shelf as the template) by whatever method you find most comfortable, but then the fence makes the remainder of the shelves quickly and accurately.

Since I have a tracksaw, I might use it to make the master, but since I would have to get out the double sided tape anyway, I would choose to use a straight board as a guide and reposition it a few times using the L-fence. Also, using the tracksaw would require clamping the master to the bench, making sure the cut line was hanging over the edge and the clamps didn't get in the way of the saw, for multiple cuts. I would not use the tracksaw without the track, even though it effectively works like a skilsaw in that configuration, for the same reasons as others have stated: I would not trust my accuracy and the repeatability of my cuts. There are some other advantages of a tracksaw over a skilsaw, but they are not worth discussing here, since I probably wouldn't use it anyway.

The most important thing about using a master template, whether you use it to guide your tablesaw with an L-fence or use it to guide your router and a pattern bit, is that you only need to do the precise layout once, avoiding the chance of making an incorrect measurement and ending up with shelves of different sizes.

tracing?

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

"The most important thing about using a master template,.... is that you only need to do the precise layout once, avoiding the chance of making an incorrect measurement and ending up with shelves of different sizes"

Thank you for the "L" fence information. Presumably if one were to cut these patters more than once the subsequent parts would be traced from the first....no different than pattern routing except a pencil would be used.

What I intend to do is stack the three parts, cut them on a band saw and plane to scribe line. Layout is trivial with a trammel and straightedge The process is just that of drawing a right triangle with a compass, standard Sophomore geometry problem.

Skil skill, er, experience

John K Jordan

>>>

"can't cut a 2 x 4 with a skill saw without binding."

That's funny. I can't either. Don't know why. I even bought a specific Porter Cable model for Left Handed people. I have both the right handed and left handed version and get can't either to work...

Zounds, that's almost beyond my understanding! Perhaps the difference is my introduction to the portable circular saw came way before I got a stationary saw. These days I prefer a thin-kerf carbide-toothed blade and the cordless Dewalt saw that came with one. The years of practice came in handy when I built my shop - I cut about 20 of these at the top of a 10' ladder:

By my skill saw skill pales in the presence of my friend the house builder. Stair stringers, rafters with birds-mouth, ripping long 45" angles, plywood and osb, 6x6 beams, much often propped up on scrap on the ground or on the edge of a stack of lumber, with shorter pieces held in one hand, saw in the other, often on a ladder or leaning over the edge of a roof. In his spare time he's built and remodeled buildings for me around the farm. I learned a lot more tricks of the trade working along side with him but gads, he is FAST!

JKJ