# Made a spline jig today. Kinda.



## RobinDobbie (Jan 31, 2013)

Here's some pictures of a moron playing with wood. Just keeping up my usual practice of making everything as difficult and complicated as possible while not achieving a perfect product to show for all the effort. Oh and I forgot to take a pic of the completed jig. Tomorrow. 

I cut all the trough supports at the same time and still, some did not come out quite right. This same inconsistency is why I couldn't really get the gauge more accurate than .004" when doing the 5-cut test. 



















The pieces were close, so I just went ahead with the construction. 

I decided to attach the supports to the trough sides first. I drew lines with a square so I'd know if I was aligned or not. I used a scrap piece of wood to position the supports "perfectly" in relation to the trough side's beveled edge.










After applying too much glue the first couple of times, I limited my glue strip to just the middle of the support so that squeeze out wouldn't obscure my line. 










You can see it's a little out of alignment in this pic, I fixed it after the shot. 










After I attached the supports to the trough sides and let the glue dry about an hour or so, I ran the sides through the dado blade a couple of times. I gave it a 1-1/4" x 1/2" dado to make room for the incra t-track with the ruler in it. I figured that the bottom of the dado would be absolutely flat. It was, except for some skinny, slightly deeper lines left by the outside teeth of the stack. I used a Freud SD208 I picked up on CL for $35. 










One bonus of the holes in my TS3650 wings is room for clamps. I used a clamp to prop up the trough sides while I glued them.










I don't know if the trough sides were slightly warped, or if I pushed the supports too much while I aligned them, or if the supports were just too inconsistently cut. But, three of the supports on one side didn't quite touch the base of the sled. Maybe all of the above?










I read about a way to get glue in tight spots on another forum. I was skeptical, but it worked. I took a plastic straw, flattened the tip of one end by squeezing it closed, and sucked up glue from the bottle. After I removed the straw from the bottle, I sucked a little more to get the glue away from the very end of the straw. I cleaned the straw tip, then stuck it in the gap. 










I filled the gap with glue by squeezing the straw down toward the glue end.










I needed runners. I actually bought some oak for the job, but I found that the slots were only a hair smaller than the width of the melamine. with some sanding, I got the melamine to give me a perfect fit in the slots. 



















I had to pull the first set of runners off because I used too much glue. I only needed the glue to hold the runners in place while I lifted the sled up and screwed the runners in. But, I used so much glue that the runners expanded and wouldn't slide. I made some new runners and used poster tape to attach them. I lifted the sled up and screwed the runners in. Sled wouldn't slide. This time, the _screws_ had made the runners too wide, or the runners shift position. I unscrewed the runners and now they slide perfectly. I'll have to figure out something eventually, but for now they're attached and the sled slides nicely. 

When I get the t-track installed I'll update with a picture of the whole jig and examples of some splines in frames and boxes.


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## Chaincarver Steve (Jul 30, 2011)

Ahh, another shop-built jig! What could be more satisfying? Be aware that glue doesn't stick too well to melamine. Oh wait, you used screws as well. I'd like to see the jig in action. I'm trying to picture how it's going to be used.

I like the straw glue trick. I can see that coming in handy for sure.


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