GROOTS CAN BE MADE EVERYWHERE
With a groove connection, the end of one part fits into a shallow groove cut across the grain of the other. This connection is an improvement on the simple butt connection. The groove shoulders provide decent strength. In fact, such a connection cannot be broken, for example, by pressing on a shelf. If it fits tightly, it can withstand oblique loads well, when the force is directed diagonally across the body. Installing back walls in cabinets or chests of drawers and bottoms in drawers further strengthens the entire structure. Finally, the groove makes assembly easier by defining the position of the parts and keeping them from slipping.
Using just two types of groove connections, you can make almost any body part. The main joint, where the groove engages the full thickness of the adjacent piece, allows for the assembly of bookcases, toy chests, wall shelves, or any other cabinets in which the side walls extend beyond the adjacent pieces (Figure 1).
Rice. 1
.
Main groove connection. Rice.
2 . Modified groove/tenon connection.
If these "through" angles are unsuitable or unsightly, use a modified joint (Figure 2) called mortise/tenon.
Drawers are also boxes. They are easily made using a basic mortise joint and a mortise/tenon joint (Figure 3). Example ZA is the strongest of them; in examples ZV and ZS, you can weaken the front wall. If you want to hide the ends of the drawer sides shown in 30, cover them with a false front or use a quarter joint as shown in 30, reinforced with nails or dowels.
Rice. 3
. Grooves in drawers.
Types of groove boards
Many users have no idea how to choose a groove in a board, believing that the store will offer them only one option for connection and material.
This is far from true; there you will be greeted by a large assortment:
1. Symmetrical groove. This is the simplest type. In it, the lengths of the upper and lower shelves are the same, and they protrude at the same distance.
Asymmetric connection
2. Asymmetrical groove. Here the upper shelves are longer than the lower ones.
3. Block house, used mainly for finishing walls and ceilings. The planks often imitate the relief of timber and have a semicircular or shaped profile on the front side.
4. Euro lining, just like block house, is often equipped with a relief pattern.
5. The decking board, made of wood and polymer, also has tongues and grooves that simplify installation.
Note! If you plan to mount walls that are not level, have protrusions and dents without a groove board, do not expect good quality from the result. The cladding will not lie flat, height differences and cracks are inevitable.
BASIC CONNECTION IN GROOVE
Cutting grooves on a tabletop circular saw with a set of groove discs is much faster than manually. But long or wide pieces are difficult to maneuver around the table. A pendulum saw solves this problem, but it has a drawback - usually its console is not enough to cut across wide parts.
A router helps solve this problem. But this also has its drawbacks.
First, if you are selecting more than one pair of grooves, setting the ruler for each side can be time consuming. Therefore, use an insert with a width equal to the distance from the rib of the router base to the cutter. To install the ruler, slide the insert along the marked shoulder line on the work piece (Figure 4).
Rice. 4
. Insert for router.
Second, the thickness of the workpiece is almost never matched to the cutter to ensure a tight-fitting joint. Solid wood parts can be planed or sanded, but plywood parts are difficult to trim. Cutting a groove to fit is more clear. But this requires two passes with a router - one for each shoulder.
Faced closely with the selection of grooves, you can make a simple device (photo A).
What does drying out lead to?
A typical case: you made a shed at your dacha to store household equipment and for other needs.
They did it for themselves, so they pulled together the boards from which the walls were made, carefully, without the slightest crack. Two or three months pass; the boards dry out and the entire wall glows with cracks. In winter, snow blows through them; in summer, the wind blows dust inside the barn. To prevent this from happening, you need to use quarter boards for wall cladding. A wall covered with such boards will never have through gaps. With their quarters, neighboring boards overlap each other and when they dry out, through cracks no longer appear.
Unfortunately, lumber is very rarely sold with a quarter finished. Therefore, an amateur craftsman should know the ways in which boards can be modified if necessary.
GROVING DEVICE
The device consists of two rulers (one for each groove shoulder) and two strips that rest on the edges of the workpiece. One ruler and one strip are T-shaped fastened at right angles. Gaps along the other strip and ruler allow you to install boards up to 300mm wide and select grooves up to 38mm wide. Two clamps in an adjustable bar rest against the workpiece and lock the fixture in place.
To operate, you need a set of guide bushings for the router. With bushings, the rulers should be slightly offset to the side relative to the width of the groove itself.
The device is made of poplar, but Karelian birch plywood or MDF is also suitable. The T-nuts and MB screws are recessed, so the router can slide along the rules without hindrance.
Having finished manufacturing, you need to make inserts for installing the rulers. Plane a piece of cutting board approximately 450 mm long, 150 mm wide and 20 mm thick to the same thickness along the entire length. It all depends on the size of the sleeve and the cutter. Leave the jig in place while you make and fit four inserts, each approximately 50mm long, about 25mm wide and equal to the thickness of the gaps. Ideally, the thickness of the inserts should be equal to half the difference in the diameters of the cutter and sleeve.
Precise adjustment of the inserts is accomplished by using them with rulers installed when routing on a short piece that has been sawed off previously. Loosen the adjustable ruler, place the scrap between the rulers and two inserts on each side.
Tighten the screws. Remove the inserts and trim and mill the groove. If the trim does not fit into the groove, adjust the thickness of the inserts.
Making a box begins with preparing the material
When making boxes, take the time to prepare the material, and this will certainly pay off when assembling the connections later. This is the sequence that leads to success.
Step 1: Level one face of the board using a planer, then make the other face smooth and parallel using a planer and give the board the required thickness.
Step 2: While pressing one face of the board against the planer fence, align one edge of each board at a right angle. File the opposite edge, making the board 3mm wider than the final height of the box, and mark this edge by drawing a solid line along it with a pencil.
Step 3. Pressing the sharpened edge against the cross-cut fence, cut the board into blanks for the walls of the box. Attach a stopper-limiter to the stop plate so that the workpieces have the same length.
When preparing material for your project, be sure to do the same with a few scraps that will be needed to check settings and make test joints.
OPERATING THE DEVICE
Marking the grooves is very simple. Determine the shoulder line for each groove by making a pencil mark on the face of the piece to be worked. You can put the two side walls together and mark all the grooves at once, or mark the second side wall after routing the first.
Once the jig is aligned and the cuts are marked, align the straight edge with the mark (photo C), lightly tighten the clamps and make a pass with the router, then move the jig to the next mark. A well-chosen groove should fit the tenon without gaps or backlash (photo D).
MILLING THE GROOVE/TENK JOINT
For large and wide parts of housings or long and narrow parts, milling grooves is relatively simple and safe. Select a cutter of the correct diameter, attach a ruler to the base of the router and make passes with it, moving the ruler along the end of the part (Fig. 8). Many routers are sold with a ruler, but to improve the quality of work, it must be pressed to the base with a clamp or screws.
The most accurate way to mill a tenon is to clearly set its thickness between the ruler and the cutter (Fig. 9). To support the base of the router, use a clamp to press a piece of thick board flush with the end of the workpiece.
What does drying out lead to?
A typical case: you made a shed at your dacha to store household equipment and for other needs. They did it for themselves, so they pulled together the boards from which the walls were made, carefully, without the slightest crack. Two or three months pass; the boards dry out and the entire wall glows with cracks. In winter, snow blows through them; in summer, the wind blows dust inside the barn.
To prevent this from happening, you need to use quarter boards for wall cladding. A wall covered with such boards will never have through gaps. With their quarters, neighboring boards overlap each other and when they dry out, through cracks no longer appear.
Unfortunately, lumber is very rarely sold with a quarter finished. Therefore, an amateur craftsman should know the ways in which boards can be modified if necessary.
HOMEMADE DEVICE FOR SELECTING GROOTS
Although the device looks complicated, it is quite easy to make (Fig. 10). Cut the workpieces to size, and then carefully plane the planes and edges. Then select a groove in the fixed bar for the fixed ruler using a few cuts on a circular saw. Then, to ensure a tight fit and square edges, use a sharp chisel to trim its shoulders. The half-wood connection on the adjustable ruler is made so that its upper surface is in the same plane as the fixed ruler.
Mill out all the cracks in the planks and rulers using a ruler pressed to the base of the router (Fig. 8). First, releasing the cutter approximately 3 mm in each pass, mill narrow through slots in several passes. Next, mill out pockets for the screw heads and T-nuts.
Small clamps are used as clamps. The pressure pad is a T-shaped nut at the end of the screw. The locknut prevents the pad from coming loose when it presses against the workpiece. Select the grooves in the adjustable bar so that the clamps can hide behind its edge. Rice. 10
. Device for making grooves.
A hand router is a universal mechanical tool in the home workshop. To use it correctly, you need to get basic lessons in working with a wood router. There are many Chinese-made milling cutters on the market, they are all of the same design and differ only in engine power. Experts recommend purchasing a more powerful tool, since the list of work performed will expand significantly. The craftsman will be able to cut out a pattern, make a quarter cut, cut tenons and perform other operations related to the manufacture of furniture.
Cutting a tenon with a router
If you have a lot of tenons to cut (or if you just like working with machines), a table router is the ideal tool. If the large size of the workpiece does not allow it to be placed on the milling table, it is better to press it with clamps to the workbench and process it while holding the router in your hands. Set the fence to the length of the tenon and the router to the desired height, then, holding the workpiece firmly against the fence, remove the excess wood in several passes. When the end of the tenon rests against the stop, turn the workpiece over and repeat the procedure on the other side. If you stop before the cutter reaches the shoulder line, trim the tenon with a chisel.
Cutting a tenon with a router
Creativity without limits
Milling equipment is indispensable when processing wood. With its help, you can turn a wooden blank into an elegant decorative product. This equipment is most often used by professionals, but experienced amateurs can also master it. Using mechanisms is not an easy task , so before you start working with them, you need to ensure your comfort and safety. Organization of the workplace is very important. The home craftsman must remember that during work there is a possibility of damage not only to the cutter or mechanical device, but also to health.
Woodworking is not only about working at the machine , but also about preparing the workplace and planning the sequence of work performed. Before you start milling, you need to select the appropriate type of cutter for a specific task, taking into account its shape and size. You should select the speed of the machine and the cutting depth and do not forget that the material being processed must be securely attached to the table.
Depending on the specific type of milling device, the rules for their use are different in many aspects. Today, vertical milling machines in which the spindles are located above the work table are widely used. They have proven themselves to be excellent in operations such as wood milling, processing the edges of shelves and round tabletops, making a groove, and joining wooden parts. When processing round structures, an indispensable addition is a special compass with a support plate, which ensures precision processing.
When working with a router, you need to learn how to move it calmly and smoothly. The key is to move the material being processed correctly and safely. This should not be done too slowly, as burn marks may appear on the wood, which can lead to damage to the material.
Chips appear when milling woodworking against the direction of the wood grain. In one pass it is necessary to mill to a depth of up to 8 mm; some models allow adjustment with an accuracy of 0.1 mm. Deep grooves and quarters need to be milled in several passes.
Lumber processing options
Let's figure out how to choose a quarter on the board with your own hands. We buy grade 2 board and process it in a convenient way. How can you do something like this:
- electric planer;
- circular;
- manual milling cutter;
- Bulgarian
First, you need to make a cut from the end of the board, with a depth of half the height, and then in the center of the end. Then we set the width of the working part of the board and saw another fragment. Here the depth should be 1.5 times greater than half the height to make it more convenient to remove the sawn-off part. In this way, you can create a finished product with your own hands that is twice as expensive as the original one.
Despite the production from second-grade raw materials, the quarter has excellent characteristics:
- strength;
- thermal insulation properties;
- visual appeal;
- possibility of decorative use;
It is possible to use this material for external cladding.
A circular saw
The work scheme is not fundamentally different from the previous ones, the only difference is that wood processing is carried out with a circular saw.
Electric planer
They are convenient for cutting boards and giving them shape. The process of obtaining a quarter board is no different from working with other equipment, but a plane is better because of its convenient operation. This device provides an open view of the working surface of the board.
In the absence of a circular saw and a plane, a grinder with a wood disc or a hand router on which a cylindrical cutter has been previously installed will be suitable for work. But both options are characterized by low productivity, that is, they are unlikely to be suitable for processing large volumes of material due to their low speed.
Processing of wooden parts
The first thing you need to learn is to correctly set the milling depth. To do this, you need to set the zero point. It is impossible to set it rigidly, because it changes every time the cutter is changed. The zero point is the position of the tool when the end of the cutter touches the material and is fixed with a special device called a clamp.
It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that each router has a different position when fixed. To control the depth of immersion of the cutting tool into the body of the material, a stop pin with a coarse adjustment scale is used.
When milling with an end mill, the counterforce from the cutting force moves the router to the side. To prevent this from happening, you need to use a rip fence. The milling process is as follows. Place the cutter along the marking line and secure the position of the stop with a special screw. Set the milling depth and turn on the machine. If the rip fence is installed on the left side, you need to pull the router towards you, when on the right side - away from you.
Selection options
When choosing one or another method of milling wood, first of all you should pay attention to the possibility of installing a milling attachment on a drill. To do this, the power tool must have a cylindrical neck, in the extension of which a chuck is installed
In the absence of one, it is not recommended to use a specific drill model for milling. If it is installed on a specialized drill device intended for milling, then you can select cutters. First of all, you should pay attention to the type of work. The milling tool is not universal, so each operation will require its own model of equipment. The diameter of the shank must allow clamping in a specific drill chuck. It is not recommended to use large cutters, as they can require significant spindle power.
It is also necessary to take into account processing modes. Many wood tools require high RPMs that are unattainable with drills. It should be remembered that any electric drill is not designed for long-term loads. Therefore, it is not recommended to apply great effort to it and perform work continuously for a long time.
Useful DIY crafts
In order to make something useful, for example, a box, it is not necessary to have a whole arsenal of complex equipment and expensive tools. You can get by with a minimum of tools and mechanisms . To perform carpentry work you will need:
- milling cutter;
- electric jigsaw;
- Sander;
- several clamps;
- set of cutters
You can use absolutely anything as a material - for example, scraps of parquet boards, pieces of plywood and waste chipboards, but always at right angles. To simplify the work, you need to make a simple milling table. To process workpieces, you will need a large-diameter straight groove cutter. The process looks something like this. On a makeshift table, plan the ends of parquet board scraps. Mark the sides of the box and use a jigsaw to remove all excess.
The resulting blanks must be processed with a thicknesser to maintain the size of all sidewalls. If you don't have a surface planer, you can use a milling table. To do this, set the stop to the size of the workpiece and move the part between the stop and the rotating cutter towards you. The next operation to calibrate the sidewalls in length is performed with a jigsaw.
You can connect the sidewalls together with a mustache. To do this, you need to mill the ends of the sidewalls with a conical cutter with an angle of 90 degrees. This can be done using a router. Thus, the ends of the sidewalls have the same bevels of 45 degrees. Next you need to make grooves in the sides for the bottom. For this, an end mill with a diameter of 6 millimeters is used, equal to the thickness of the plywood. The parts are connected using glue. The product looks neat and beautiful both outside and inside. What else can you do with a hand-held wood router? Anything: for example, a shelf for things, drawers for storing vegetables or tools, kitchen furniture.
Toolbox
In order to make a tool box, it is necessary to strengthen the carpentry joint of the sides by inserting additional tenons. The operation is called cutting tenons with a hand router. It is very difficult to do it manually, so you need to make a simple device - a milling table . The principle of its manufacture is simple:
- Assemble a simple wooden table consisting of a table top and legs.
- Attach a hand-held milling machine to the bottom of the tabletop, making a hole in the tabletop for the cutter to exit.
- Make a carriage with a stop bar from thick-layer plywood according to the size of the table top. A groove is cut in the carriage for the cutter to exit.
A device for cutting tenons in a board works as follows. Mark the place to be milled and, pressing the board against the stop bar, move the carriage, directing it towards the cutting tool. The resulting finger joint between the parts will be strong and reliable.
How to make a panel
One of the most commonly performed carpentry operations is making paneling. It is performed with a special cutter. To perform the work efficiently, it is necessary to make a simple device for the tabletop of the milling device. To do this, you will need thick-layer plywood measuring 500 x 300 x 10 millimeters. To exit the cutter, a hole with a diameter of 100 millimeters is cut. The parallel stop is attached to the table with clamps. The cutter is set taking into account the distance from the table surface to the sharp edge of the cutting tool of one millimeter. All sides of the workpiece are processed sequentially. The thickness of the panel is adjusted by lifting the cutter.
Using a hand router, it is very easy to create a furniture facade on the doors. To do this, you will need a shaped end mill, a copy sleeve and a plywood template. The technological process is very simple:
- attach the template to the workpiece using thin nails;
- set and record the depth of immersion of the cutter into the wood;
- install the copy sleeve on the milling mechanism;
- press the milling machine against the template and follow its contour.
The result is a neat design of the furniture facade.
Types of cutters
For processing wood, board and composite materials based on it: chipboard, OSB, MDF, plywood and others, two types of cutters are used:
A Forstner drill allows you to make through and blind holes in wood materials. There are plenty of them on the market, but with standardized sizes: from 10 to 35 or more mm in 5 mm increments. What if we need a hole with a diameter of 17 or 22 mm?
Take a bolt with a head a couple of millimeters in diameter larger than the drilling diameter. A pair of symmetrical slots are made in it, which will become the cutting edges.
The bolt is placed in the drill (its standard chuck accepts bolts with a diameter of up to 13 mm), and it is clamped in a vice. The electric motor power button is clamped and fixed. Using a grinder, the edges of the bolt are cut to the diameter of the hole. Additionally, the operation will reduce vibration.
The end part is slightly removed, but so as to form a point in the center. It is better to leave the needle a larger size, and then modify it with a burr or a needle file.
They are formed, brought to perfection and sharpened at an angle of 35-40° - the harder the wood, the blunter the angle - the cutting edges of the tool. Afterwards they can be finished with a whetstone to give them ideal geometry and sharpness.
After completion of the work, the homemade cutter is tested at low speeds in a drill or drilling machine. It is strictly prohibited to install such equipment on a high-speed milling cutter:
Expert opinion
Strebizh Viktor Fedorovich, leading construction foreman
Then the second board is placed on the workbench, and the first one is placed on it, in order to install and secure the metal template in the desired position, the protrusion on the edge of the template must fit exactly into one of the middle grooves of the first board. If you want to clarify something, please contact me!
Cheap and cheerful
Wood carving is always beautiful, rich and expensive. This is done by talented people, artists or sculptors. But there are ways of carving that anyone can do. For example, cutting patterns on wood with a hand router is very easy. The work is performed with a small diameter end mill along the contour of the pattern. To do this, you need to select a hardwood board, nail a stencil cut out of cardboard, and mill it according to the template.
A milling machine of any power is suitable for the job. It is desirable that it be light and comfortable, then it will be easier to copy the drawing. Therefore, you don’t need to worry about which router to choose for beginners; the main thing is to choose cutters with a diameter of 2 millimeters or more. When working, you need to be diligent in order to evenly pass the thin cutter along the contour of the design and not break it. The next step is to deepen the background; for this, a large-diameter flag cutter is used.
Rallying in a quarter
Rallying in a quarter
gives a tighter connection than butt jointing. Longitudinal side cuts (quarters) are made in the boards to be joined using a hand router, electric planer or circular saw. The depth and width of the quarter should be equal to half the thickness of the board. This type of connection leaves no cracks or gaps. Quarter bonding is useful for cladding external and internal surfaces. For example, to hide unevenness or defects in walls, insulation and flooring.
1. For an example of cutting a quarter with a circular saw, take 3 identical boards (photo 1).
2. At the beginning of work, mark 1/4 of their width on the boards on both sides. Prepare the circular saw. To do this, adjust the reach of the saw blade so that the cutting depth is equal to half the thickness of the board (photo 2).
3. For the required distance (half the thickness of the board) of the cut from the edge of the board, we adjust the parallel stop of the saw (photo 3).
4. We secure the workpiece on the work table with clamps and make a longitudinal cut with a circular saw (photo 4).
5. After this, we make longitudinal cuts on the back sides of the board (photo 5).
6. Again, secure the workpiece with clamps on the work table (photo 6.1) and make transverse cuts equal to half the thickness of the board (photo 6.2-6.4).
7. In this way we make 2 more blanks (photo 7).
8. Place the workpiece on 2 perpendicular boards (photo 8).
9. We nail the prepared blanks to their base (photo 9.1, 9.2).
10. When nailing the next workpiece, press it tightly against the previous one and fix it with nails using a hammer (photo 10).
11. The quarter joint is ready (photo 11).
Hazardous factors
Milling machines require complete safety and high qualifications of the worker. When using electric machines, accidents may occur due to material ejected during milling. Therefore, the performer of the work must have special work clothes.
If heavy dust is generated during the milling process, you must wear safety glasses. Maximum safety in this situation is provided by special clamps and vices that effectively hold the workpiece, preventing it from being thrown out. Do not hold the workpiece in the rotation zone of the cutter with your hands or directly touch the rotating tool. It is necessary to use special clamping devices to advance the part during milling.
It is easy for a home craftsman to figure out how to make a tenon and groove using hand routers. Tools used, detailed instructions on how to select a groove with a router.
Tools used
In this case, the sampling of material is carried out on the surface of the beams and boards from the side. The main thing is that the proposed connection maintains its dimensions in terms of geometry.
To complete the process using a milling cutter, it is possible to use tools equipped with shanks with a diameter of 8 or 12 millimeters. The so-called groove cutter will become a universal option when performing any type of work. The device is equipped with a cutting part, the basic operating principle of which is described as follows:
- The side surface is involved in the formation of the sides of the tenon, the wall part of the grooves.
- The side with the end part is used when processing the bottom. After this, the required layer of material is removed from the base of the spike.
The result is the simultaneous formation of both tenons and grooves on the surface on the sides. The sizes can be individually adjusted, and the owner has quite a wide range of options in this regard.
Sometimes for grooves and tenons they choose not a rectangular shape, but the so-called “dovetail” type. This option is relevant if increased requirements are placed on connection reliability. Accordingly, the cutter used is also called a “dovetail” in this case. Such work can be easily done with hand tools if the need arises.
What is a router and what is it for?
A hand router is a power tool, which is an electric motor with a collet for installing a cutting tool on a shaft. Integrated with it is a platform or base, a kind of desktop, which is capable of moving along guides and being fixed in a given position.
Using the platform, the cutting depth is set. There are two handles on the sides, by which the machine is held in the desired position or applied to the workpiece.
The milling cutter is designed for cutting parts made of different materials:
Using a hand router, different types of material processing can be performed. These include the following operations:
- Milling of recesses of various shapes - grooves, sockets, grooves and other elements;
- Profiling edges - creating shaped (curly) surfaces, milling quarters;
- Milling of special structural elements - recesses for hinges, locks, handles, tenons and sockets for them;
- Trimming curved and complex edges of furniture parts or special elements.
To ensure the accuracy and cleanliness of the cut, the design of the router has a lot of adjustment and adjustment elements. With their help they produce the following
Which is better: heated floors or radiators?
Warm floorBatteries
Important! For mass production of large volumes of products, a manual milling machine is not suitable. It is most rational to use it only for domestic purposes or in small workshops engaged in small-scale production of custom-made products.
Corner box connections
Boxes and boxes are assembled using box joints. They are made for a straight tenon, a dovetail tenon, and a round insert tenon (dowel). The types and sizes of box joints used in joinery and furniture products are shown in Fig.
a-UYA-1 (on a straight open tenon): S1=S3=6, 8, 10, 12 and 16 mm; S2 not less than 0.3S0; spike length l=S0; ,b - UYA-2 (open dovetail on the spike); S1=0.85S0; the resulting size is rounded to the nearest cutter diameter: 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 mm; S2 - no more than 0.75S0; S3=(0.85...3)S0; a=10°; l=S0 it is allowed to connect with a dovetail tenon in a half-blind manner: in - UYA-3 (on a round insert tenon (dowel) open): d= 0.4S0; I= (2.5….6)d; I1 is greater than l by 1... 2 mm: l1 and b are not less than 2d; the number of dowels is at least 2; the resulting dowel diameter d is rounded to the nearest size 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16, 20 and 25 mm
Expert opinion
Strebizh Viktor Fedorovich, leading construction foreman
A hand router is a power tool, which is an electric motor with a collet for installing a cutting tool on a shaft. If you want to clarify something, please contact me!
Making a device for picking out a tenon
When parts are processed manually, the milling cutter itself does not have additional spatial fixation. But the overall result of the work and the accuracy of the connection itself in the future depend on this.
To assemble the simplest design that can cope with the task, you will need to use:
- Several guides that remain stationary. They should be side and top or bottom.
- The length of the sample is adjusted through the use of an appropriate movable bar.
For manufacturing, the following sequence of actions is used:
- A plywood sheet is taken, from one edge of which the side elements are mounted in a vertical plane. It is necessary to create appropriate cutouts in the center of the material.
- The sides are equipped with guides. The base of the hand cutter moves along them later.
- The side strips are fixed on the upper guides. Then the movement of the working milling cutter associated with these parts becomes limited.
- The plywood sheet, which became the basis for the installation, also serves as a surface for installing the moving element. Then the amount of edge overhang for the future workpiece is easier to control under any circumstances. Fixation is ensured with ordinary screws and other types of fixing devices.
There are several points during manufacturing that require special consideration:
- The upper guides have a height corresponding to the sum of the thickness for the part under processing and a small gap at which the wedge involved in fixation is installed.
- The forming tenon has a certain length, which is taken into account when determining the vertical thickness of the cutouts in the side elements.
When such devices are used, the work is carried out with the participation of hand-held milling cutters of any modern model.
Fixtures are made in the following way if dovetail connections are required.
- A hole is created inside a sheet of plywood with several layers. The cutting part at the cutter itself protrudes from this part.
- A plywood sheet is prepared in advance, on the bottom of which the manual router itself is fixed. Clamps and screws are perfect for doing the job, as are other types of fastenings.
- The board, 2.5 centimeters thick, is attached to a plywood sheet, which subsequently participates in the movement of the prepared part. The function of the guides is taken over by the design. Boards are consumables with one-time use.
Driving screws
You have a choice of mild steel, stainless steel, brass or aluminum screws with straight or Phillips slots and countersunk or pan heads. Semicircular heads stand out clearly on the surface of the wood, countersunk heads are either flush with the surface, or edged with brass washers, or hidden by wooden plugs. The screws are screwed in with a hand screwdriver, a drill with an appropriate attachment, or a screwdriver.
Driving screws with a drill or screwdriver
When using a drill, install the locking mechanism so that the screw is screwed in to the required depth. If the wood is soft, the installation hole can be made with an awl; if it is hard, drill it with a drill of a smaller diameter.
The installation hole can be made with an awl
To be able to hide the screws under the wooden plugs, you will have to drill a hole for the plug with a countersink drill and a corresponding cutter for the plug. Don't use steel screws on oak - they react with the wood and moisture and cause stains. Instead, choose plated steel, brass, or stainless steel screws.
Creating tenons on bars and boards
Processing is performed using the following sequence of actions:
- The part to be processed is mounted on a plane from the bottom side.
- The edge of the part where the tenon is formed accommodates the cutouts at the guides at the top. The structure moves inward until it hits the end.
- A movable type element must be fixed while maintaining a certain position.
- We use a wedge tool to connect the guides and the plane located at the top to each other.
- Connection of a hand router with the upper guides.
- Using a router tool on a home router table, wood is removed from one side.
- When the first side of the workpiece is processed, begin the second.
The operation will be successful only with high performance and accuracy parameters. Setup refers to the required steps before the instruments are turned on. To resolve the issue, actions are performed in the following sequence:
- The milling tool is lowered until it reaches the surface of the base.
- Measuring the thickness of a part.
- The thickness result is divided by 4. The result is the distance parameter that is maintained when lifting the cutter above the base.
What does drying out lead to?
A typical case: you made a shed at your dacha to store household equipment and for other needs. They did it for themselves, so they pulled together the boards from which the walls were made, carefully, without the slightest crack. Two or three months pass; the boards dry out and the entire wall glows with cracks. In winter, snow blows through them; in summer, the wind blows dust inside the barn.
To prevent this from happening, you need to use quarter boards for wall cladding. A wall covered with such boards will never have through gaps. With their quarters, neighboring boards overlap each other and when they dry out, through cracks no longer appear.
Unfortunately, lumber is very rarely sold with a quarter finished. Therefore, an amateur craftsman should know the ways in which boards can be modified if necessary.
Wood cutter "Dovetail"
For mortises and tenons under similar circumstances: only half the normal width. This is explained by the characteristics that compounds of this type have.
The main thing is to set up the device correctly and fix it in a suitable position.
The tongue-and-groove joint should end up with some clearance. It is necessary so that later you can conveniently use the adhesive composition.
How to choose a groove with a router?
The solution to the problem depends on where the grooves are located and what size they are. Here are some recommendations for home craftsmen:
- The use of open grooves involves securing it to the tabletop and guiding the workpiece along the cutter.
- Accuracy is determined by the height of the cutter and the location of the bar.
- It is recommended to use wood waste for trial operations. This allows you to avoid mistakes.
- Sampling is carried out in stages, with several passes being carried out.
The main thing is to get rid of wood waste in a timely manner after completing each stage. Then the instrument will definitely not suffer from overheating. When doing the work, it is easiest to use a template cut out of plywood. They pass through it with the cutter itself, with the bearing installed.