Mitre Jack

Re: Mitre Jack

paul womack

>ALF to the rescue!

Link to scans of ancient British handtooling wisdom

BugBear

Re: Mitre Jack

Jonathan Peck - N.Y.

>This is still really puzzling to me. I mean, I know it works...right. But how does the plane not take shavings fom the jack jaws? Do you need to be precise in starting and stopping your cut? Is there any advantage to a miter jack over a miter shooting board, which looks much easier to make. Is the miter jack for thick material and the miter shooting board for thin? If I make a miter jack, will I still need a donkeys ear?

Regards

Jonathan - still trying to unplug

Re: Mitre Jack

Peter L Berglund in Denver

>There's a very nice one on Stephen Shepard's site - click the 'Handmade Woodworking Tools' link and scroll way down...

Re: Mitre Jack

Wendell @ Murphy, TX

>I have alot the same questions. I know the jaws of the mitre jack are usually covered with card stock or wood veneer. I assume this means you are suppose to take shaving off the jaws and you just replace this material once it gets too chewed up. To me, it looks like a mitre shooting board and a donkey ear would be easier to make and use except for really long pieces. That's why I plan to make a donkey ear shooting board first. Has anyone used all three types of these shooting board? Is there some advantage to the mitre jack that I'm not seeing?

Wendell

June 1994 Issue of AW

Todd Stock

>Article by Mario Rodriguez on contruction and use of a miter jack. Mario suggests that developing a feel for the tool helps, and prior to that, some butcher paper glued to the jaws. Good drawings, pics, and discussion.

This was back in the day when AW was the heir apparent to FWW, with Ellis as the Exec Editor. Other authors were Korn, Chan, Bird, Dresdner, Watts, and Landis. Seems like Mario still had some hair left, too.

Times change, eh?

Re: Mitre Jack - virtues and use described

paul womack

>The mitre jack is the supreme mitre trimming fixture.

• you get to plane with 2 hands; all the other fixtures require the stock to be held with your "off" hand
  
  
• you can trim wide, thick, or just big stock; all the others only work on wide thinnish stock
  
  
• you can trim long stock; the workpiece is held horizontally; the donkey's ear can only handle pieces ~= 1.4 times your bench height.
  
  

As to damaging the mitre jack; you don't. You situate the workpiece so that the waste projects above the mitre jack surface (possible by aligning your marked lines with the plane of the jack surface). You then proceed to plane off the waste. If you're a good enough worker to plane off a protruding dowel on a table top, you're good enough not to damage your mitre jack,

BugBear

Re: Mitre Jack - virtues and use described

Ross Canant

>Mike Dunbar has some good stuff on this in his books.