40 - Vacuum Clamping System, страница 5

TIPS & TECHNIQUES

%Quick Tipe

A A length of garden hose screwed to the wallfK Rather than toss out his old leather belt, Al Finn provides Ed Adams of Dayton, OH with a handy of Kent, OH recycled it into a sharpening strop. tool rack. The hose holds each tool firmly in place. With a length of belt glued (rough side up) to a wood Yet it's easy to remove a tool or put one back. handle, he can polish a knife to razor sharpness.

Cutting Threaded Rod

• Like many woodworkers, I frequently need to cut short pieces of threaded rod when making a jig. But that's often easier said than done. S One reason is the rod has to be clamped in a vise to keep it from spinning. But using a metal vise will damage the threads. And the jaws of a woodworking vise will get chewed up if you don't use scrap pieces to protect them.

Even when the rod is tightened down, the unsupported part that sticks out of the vise still tends to vibrate as you make a cut. This can cause the saw to chatter or bind.

Fortunately, there's an easy way to avoid all this fussing around. To hold the threaded rod in place, I use a simple block of

wood that's tightened in a vise, see drawing. The rod passes through a hole drilled near the end of the block. And a thin kerf guides the saw blade.

To prevent the rod from spinning as you make a cut, thread a nut on each end so it's snug (not

tight) against the block, see detail 'a.' The nut remaining on the cutoff piece can be used to clean up the threads damaged by the saw. To "recut" the threads, just remove the nut, see detail 'b.'

Dan Harlan Rochester, Minnesota

Layout Tip

• To transfer a layout line from one face of a board to an adjacent edge, I use an ordinary butt

hinge as a "square," see photo.

This eliminates the guesswork that's sometimes involved when using a try square. And it's quick and accurate as well.

Adam Roberts Chicago, Illinois

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