Woodworking Tip of The Week - Adjustable Taper Jig

I recently needed to cut some tapered pieces for a project and didn’t want to invest in a manufactured jig. So I built the simple jig you see in the photo below.

It doesn’t take much material to build the jig. You probably have just about everything you’ll need lying around your shop.
Best of all, it’s accurate and can accommodate a wide variety of workpiece sizes. It also works great for ripping a straight edge on rough lumber.
The base of the jig is a piece of ¾″ plywood with three long slots used to attach an adjustable fence. Each slot is recessed on the bottom so the head of a carriage bolt sits out of the way (see detail A).
An adjustable ½″ plywood fence sits on top of the base. It has slots to match the slots in the base for adjusting the angle of the taper. And four holes in the fence accept ¼″ carriage bolts for the hold-downs.

I made the four hold-downs from 1″-thick hardwood (see detail B). A slot at the top allows you to quickly position and then tighten them down with a wing nut.
To use the taper jig, adjust the fence to the desired taper and lock it in place. Then swing the hold-downs over the workpiece and tighten the wing nuts. Finally, set the rip fence of the table saw so the blade lines up with the edge of the jig. Then simply push the sled along the fence. That’s all it takes to cut perfect tapers everytime.

Woodworking Tip of The Week - Custom-Fit Dadoes

Routing dadoes or grooves to hold a plywood panel can be a challenge. The problem is it measures a little less than the stated thickness. Whenever I need to rout a perfectly sized dado to match a piece of plywood, I turn to a pair of guides like those shown in photo at right.
The guides consist of a hardboard base with a fence on top. I use the router and a 1/2″ straight bit to trim the base of the guide.

Once you’ve made the guides, using them is straightforward. You can use a combination square to set one of the guides square to the edge of the workpiece. Then place a plywood spacer alongside the guide and clamp the second guide against the spacer.
Now, you can rout along one edge guide then turn the router around and make a return pass to complete the dado.

Have a nice weekend,

Phil Huber

Editor, ShopNotes

Woodworking Tip of The Week - Router Table Indexing Jig

Recently I had to cut a series of evenly spaced dadoes across the sides of some small display shelves I was making. I wanted to make the dadoes on my router table, and I needed a way to space them evenly. That's when I came up with the idea for an auxiliary table fitted with an index pin as shown in the photo.

To make the auxiliary table, I started by cutting a piece of ½″ MDF (medium-density fiberboard) that fit on top of my router table. Then I drilled a hole in the center of the MDF for a router bit.

Next I inset a strip of wood into the top to serve as an index pin for spacing the dadoes, see Figure 1. I made sure that the distance between the router bit and the index pin equaled the spacing I needed for my dadoes, then I clamped the top to my router table.

Now cutting evenly spaced dadoes is easy. Simply butt one of the workpieces against the index pin and push it forward with a backer block to cut the first dado. Now just shift the workpiece so the dado you just cut fits over the index pin and cut a second dado. Repeat this process until all the dadoes have been cut, as you can see in Figure 2.

Have a nice weekend,

Ted Raife
Online Editor, Woodsmith

Sandpaper Sharpening Platform

Sharpening edge tools with sandpaper and a honing guide makes great sense. It’s quick, inexpensive and the results can’t be beat. So in order to get the maximum efficiency from this simple technique, I put together a sandpaper sharpening platform.

Take a look at the drawings below and you’ll understand how it goes together. First, you’ll need to find a glass supplier who will cut a piece of 1/4″-thick plate glass to size and soften the sharp edges.

The glass is clamped to a plywood base using a pair of rabbeted cleats. But before installing the glass, I drilled a hang hole in one end and cut a set of angled notches in one edge, as shown in the detail drawing. These notches are used to quickly set the tool and honing guide to a couple of standard honing angles.


Sandpaper is the final ingredient. I added a couple of pieces of self-adhesive, aluminum oxide for the initial coarse honing. The remining space is filled with four grits of wet-or-dry silicon carbide paper atached with spray adhesive.

That’s all there is to it. Happy honing.

Have a great weekend,

Ted Raife
Online Editor, Woodsmith