Long very accurate cuts?

Re: Long very accurate cuts?

William Duffield

Stack several of them on edge and clamp them on each end with a low profile clamp and run them through your belt sander. You may need to build the custom clamps from wood, with wedges, if you don't have clamps that will fit. These would work right off the shelf.

Or run a screw through......

Kneale Brownson

....grind off the end and pass the group over a jointer.

Re: Long very accurate cuts?

Dick Coers

What’s a bunch? 100? Build a sled with a side fence and a fence on the other side with room for side wedges.

Re: Long very accurate cuts?

Paul Woolson

Thanks for the time to reply! But I think they are way too thin for this. .400" I could perhaps make something to hold the ends but not sure how I'd support the middle.

Re: Long very accurate cuts?

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Trivial with a drum sander or planer if they are long enough to trim an end. Glue 1/4" or so of the ends together to make a glued up board, feed from glued end and while squeezing the assembly together by hand and feed through planer or sander. I have sized a few pieces at a time this way. If it works on a few it should work on a 4" wide stack, or what ever width you can squeeze easily.

I could saw then. I would clamp an auxiliary fence to capture the piece between aux fence and saw fence, use a splitter and saw away. It matters not the blade. Any rip blade will do.

However, it will be best to turn the cut-off into saw dust so I would use a blade thick enough to do so. This way you could rig a fence or fences to capture the piece before and after(if you don't have a splitter) the blade to where the stick could not move horizontally.

Re: Long very accurate cuts?

Paul Woolson

More like 300 but I do like this idea. I think I'd just have to figure out how to make sure all the strips are seated at the bottom of the sled.

Thanks!

Re: Long very accurate cuts?

Mark Hennebury

First off, i think that if possible it would have been better to have dressed a wide board to .400" first on a thickness planer then ripped them into thin strips.

Set up a router like a thickness planer and run them against a fence, with finger boards pressing them against the fence away from the router bit. Just set the distance between the top of the cutting circle and the fence to .400". Pieces this thin you can run climb cutting, with properly set up finger boards. This will give you an accurate chip-free cut.

Be careful to keep your fingers out of the way when climb cutting.

Re: Long very accurate cuts?

Paul Woolson

The .400" is the rip width. The "width" as i believe you are thinking is .060"

Re: Long very accurate cuts?

John McGaw

Sanding drum in the drill press. Arrange a fence of some sort exactly 0.400" from the drum. Some sort of hold-down might ease the process but feeding the stock between the fence and the spinning drum (against the rotation) should yield a smooth finish and the correct width. A very old technique but pretty much foolproof.

did you use a zero clearance insert before

Keith Newton

If not, set your TS fence at the right distance, crank the blade all the way down, then secure a piece of 1/4”-1/2” thick mdf to the saw top and plunge up through it while the saw is running. This makes a huge difference on thin work

This is what i am suggesting...

Mark Hennebury

A router mounted in a table.

A fence set .400 from the cutting edge.

A finger board to press the strip against the fence.

Use the router like a thickness planer; the wood is pressed away from the cutter; The strip of wood passing by the cutter is precisely cut to size, in this case 0.400"

You can put a featherboard on top of the strip also if you feel that it is needed. The fingerboard can be made of anything suitable, i make lots from plexi-glass, wood, hardboard etc.

If you set the fingerboard and featherboards properly strips this thin could be done climb-cut to prevent any tearout.

Re: Long very accurate cuts?

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

I had to trim a similarly fine amount from the molding that retained the glass in one of our doors - the new glass was thicker than the old. I plowed a groove in a piece of 2x6 with a plow plane (lacking that but owning a router, you could use a router); the depth of the groove was the dimension to which I needed to plane the molding. Then I glued a little block in one end for a stop, put the wood in the groove, and took a plane to the wood. Very precise, with a low stress level.

Re: Long very accurate cuts?

Mark Nowicki

A couple of passes with a hand plane.

What species of wood and how many in a "bunch"?

replace router with a saw blade

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

In essence the strip to be narrowed is captured as it crosses a cutter. I like the creative router solution to the problem of cutting but the cutter could just as well be a saw blade as I suggested above.

Paul has dismissed sawing because he was unsuccessful. But I think he was unsuccessful because he was not capturing the stick as it passed the blade, not because sawing is inherently a flawed approach. I have ripped thin sticks on a saw. The challenge is controlling them. Their lack of mass makes them prone to being deflected by the blade and they are hard to hold against the fence. The solution is capture with auxiliary fencing on each side and maybe above.

Re: Long very accurate cuts?

Barry Irby

I would look at a carrier maybe 40" long. With a flat top blade rip a number of slots .4" deep. Pack strips into the slots and sand away everything that sticks up with the wide belt sander. You may have to pad the strips to get them snug in the slots and if you have the length to spare, glue the ends together.

You could also use the router or saw blade as discussed. Cut a rabbet almost .06" deep and wide enough to accommodate the strip. Then figure a way to attach a feather board at an angle on the top to press the strip down and against the shoulder of the rabbet at the same time. Position the router bit to climb cut or use a saw blade. If you use a home made feather board, you won't mind raising the cutter into the featherboard. That way the strip is captured under the featherboard and against the shoulder. Slide the strips through.

What are you making?

paul in AZ

Following this thread I can't help wondering what you are making that requires so many strips of wood cut to tool-maker's tolerances.

Re: Correction: I Meant Drum Sander

Re: Long very accurate cuts?

DocJim

Late to the party but this is what I use for safely cutting small pieces of for dollhouses, furniture, puzzle parts, etc. I bought it >20 years ago and it still works great!

https://www.micromark.com/MicroLux-Mini-Tilt-Arbor-Table-Saw-for-Benchtop-Hobby-Use_2?gclid=Cj0KCQjw5MLrBRClARIsAPG0WGy-1R6oTaLWuXnEuvLlrFMKOcKPGduRgHjHKNAUjPBqEoSObvZrH2EaAiWWEALw_wcB