Box joint blade set

bobfowler · Feb 28, 2006

For those who haven't seen it yet, Freud is making a wonderful blade set for making box joints on the table saw, the SBOX8 Box Joint Cutter Set. I picked up a set over the weekend and they are FANTASTIC! The teeth are designed for cutting end-grain cleanly and a simple swap of blade position changes from a 1/4" to 3/8" joint. They are shown on the new products part of the Freud web page, scroll down and you'll find it. They're not that expensive (about $80.00) considering how much better they are box joints than a traditional stacked dado.

Richard Wasserman · Feb 28, 2006

Bob,
Thanks for the heads up, this looks very nice indeed. Is there much tearout on the back side of the cut, or is it as good as it sounds?

Richard Wasserman

bobfowler · Feb 28, 2006

disfromage said:
Bob,
Thanks for the heads up, this looks very nice indeed. Is there much tearout on the back side of the cut, or is it as good as it sounds?

Richard Wasserman

With solid woods, there is little or no tear out. Plywood tends to splinter a little bit, but that will happen with just about any blade design. I cut some test joints with baltic birch ply, red oak, and cherry. The "real" woods cut beautifully. Going slow through the ply and using a sacrificial backing reduces that to almost nothing. I used thin masonite as the sacrificial material behind the birch.

The set comes with instructions on making the necessary fence mounted jigs.

John Bartley · Feb 28, 2006

bobfowler said:
..... Going slow through the ply and using a sacrificial backing reduces that to almost nothing. I used thin masonite as the sacrificial material behind the birch.

Yup - I agree with Bob on this. A sacrificial backing solves most if not all of the tearout problem. That's how I make mine, only I've been using a set of Delta dado blades and home made jigs.

cheers

Richard Wasserman · Feb 28, 2006

I use a backer also, I was just curious how good these blades are on their own. They sound very nice, I'll be ordering a set.

Richard Wasserman

bobfowler · Feb 28, 2006

disfromage said:
I use a backer also, I was just curious how good these blades are on their own. They sound very nice, I'll be ordering a set.

Richard Wasserman

I wouldn't use them as a single blade. A "normal" blade has teeth set alternating to both sides, these are set either to the left or right, which is why you just switch blade positions for the different joint sizes.

Jim Chinn · Feb 28, 2006

Just a quick prop for Freud. They make some excellent tools for the woodworking shop.

David Brown · Feb 28, 2006

Opps, oh, sorry. Thought I had stumbled into "rec.woodworking" there for a second ...

(Glad to know I'm not the only toolhead here.)

reellis67 · Feb 28, 2006

Interesting. I've always used Rockler for fine woodworking tools. Thanks for the tip!

- Randy

rbarker · Feb 28, 2006

I thought "real" woodworkers hand-cut their box joints with their dozukis and fine Japanese chisels.

Seriously, these look like interesting blades, Bob. Thanks for the heads-up.

Curt · Feb 28, 2006

I use a Systematic dado set ($$$) on a Powermatic 66 ($$$) and also have a Canadian made Leigh Dovetail Jig that does box joints also. It's a bit of a setup, the goal is a square bottom cut not done with most table saw blades. Of course a chisel and mallet can do wonders if you are skilled enough. I prefer the tool route myself.

Have you hear of a Rotoplaner? I am luck to have one, it was made by Delta.

Jim Chinn · Feb 28, 2006

rbarker said:
I thought "real" woodworkers hand-cut their box joints with their dozukis and fine Japanese chisels.

Seriously, these look like interesting blades, Bob. Thanks for the heads-up.

That is how my dad always worked. Rarely used a power tool for any kind of joinery. So little time today to learn.. Could go through a lot of wood learning how with hand tools. Doing such fine work by hand brought my dad imense satisfaction with the completed peice.

dylder · Mar 1, 2006

I make and sell Pool Cue and Gun cases. I use a lot of box joints. The best, cheapest and easiest way I've found is this simple jig on a router table.

dw

smieglitz · Mar 1, 2006

dylder said:
...The best, cheapest and easiest way I've found is this simple jig on a router table.

dw

dw,

I'm such a woodworking newbie that I can't quite tell what is going on with the jig. Is it a board that has been dado grooved multiple times at a certain interval equivalent to the finger width?

How do you square the piece for the first cut and what is that dark strip? Some sort of miter gauge groove?

I'm taking an adult woodworking class at a local high school which has just recently been decked out in January with brand new, top-of-the-line Powermatic tools. The shop has the first planer of a certain type in the US (don't know what model but it is supposed to prevent that defect where the board is miscut a bit because of the rollers and table feed vary the end thickness of stock {can't remember what the defect is called}] and a fancy pneumatic dovetailing machine. Unfortunately the instructor has the dovetailer set up for large (3/4"?) dovetail joints instead of smaller box joints like those used in cameras. Last week the instructor was also assembling a 3-D router table that looks really slick. It has a horizontally-oriented router motor and bit and a series of stages that hold work and can be manipulated smoothly in the x,y, and z planes without removing the stock. He said it cost about $2000 but looks like it might be worth every penny.

But anyways, my next session will be devoted to making the the front panel as well as the front and rear boxes of a camera so I'd appreciate any tips on how this jig works. I'm planning on the fingers to be 1/4". I had planned to either use an Incra jig on the router table or a series of 1/4" thick boards removed sequentially along the fence on the table saw to do the box joints, but if this jig is easier, I'd like to learn more about it.

Thanks,

Joe

dylder · Mar 1, 2006

Its just a flat piece of plywood with a hole in it for the bit. The dark strip / guide is a 1/4" strip of wood - dado'd into the plywood and stands about 1/4" proud of it. You simply clamp the plywood on the router table so the bit is exactly 1/4" from the guide (I use a 1/4" drill bit as the gage). Hold your work against the guide wood, push it through = 1st cut. Place that cut in the guide, push it through = 2nd, 3rd .... For the dark strip/guide I use cocobolo because its hard and has natural oils.

I clamp several pieces together and sacrifice a scrap on the outside for chipout.

Sorry about the photos, where it looks like the plywood is grooved, thats just sawdust from making joints.

My tablesaw is a powermatic with a vega fence. Great tools.

dw

MenacingTourist · Mar 1, 2006

Thanks for the heads up Bob. I'm with Curt and use an Akeda jig which is similar to the Leigh. Of course this required me to buy another router just to make things easier...Kind of like photography

Curt · Mar 1, 2006

And then there are the router bits to buy, it never ends does it? I have a Vega fence on my Powermatic also. It came as a package with a Bessemeyer (sp) fence but I had the Vega on another table saw and like it better. The other saw I have dedicated for metal cutting with a metal cutting blade for soft materials like aluminum and brass etc. I can make some aluminum lens boards with dados that are nice. I wanted to make furniture but my back is shot and I am looking for a good chair so I can sit at the bench and make some cameras instead. I hate the thoughts of spending money on a metal lathe and or mill though. How many pursuits are possible in a life time? I call it the curse of having ability. It's way too easy to get side tracked.

bobfowler · Mar 1, 2006

There's a really good woodworking store on RT22 in Union, NJ called Force Machinery. I could go broke just standing next to their router bit displays...

bobfowler · Mar 1, 2006

MenacingTourist said:
Thanks for the heads up Bob. I'm with Curt and use an Akeda jig which is similar to the Leigh. Of course this required me to buy another router just to make things easier...Kind of like photography

One can never have too many routers... well... maybe 3 are enough...

epatsellis · Mar 1, 2006

bobfowler said:
One can never have too many routers... well... maybe 3 are enough...

I use this to make all my box joints, dovetails, signs, cabinets and nearly anything less than 8' x 12'... Dead Link Removed

erie

then again Dead Link Removed is what we have for a tv in our living room. (older pic from about 1 1/5 years ago, alot finished since then.

bobfowler · Mar 1, 2006

HOLY CRAP! When you make sawdust you MAKE sawdust! That router setup looks bigger than my entire shop...

epatsellis said:
I use this to make all my box joints, dovetails, signs, cabinets and nearly anything less than 8' x 12'... Dead Link Removed

erie

then again Dead Link Removed is what we have for a tv in our living room. (older pic from about 1 1/5 years ago, alot finished since then.

barryjyoung · Mar 1, 2006

I cut my first box joint with an Xacto razor saw. I had a camera come into the shop for repair. It had a broken piece of wood in the rear box. I cut out the fingers of the offending piece with the razor saw then chiseled and filed the remaining fingers of the mating pieces. Then I tried to find wood for the replacement. It is hard to find wood like that on a camera made in the 40's. Finally, I found something as close as I was going to get. After planing it with my trusty #8 Stanley jointer plane to width and thickness and rough cutting the length with the razor saw, I sanded the final length and transferred the fingers with a paring knife. It was quite a challenge to make the fingers straight, square and parallel using only the razor saw, a 1/8 inch chisel bought for this project (which I did not know how to sharpen) and needle files. In the end the joint was pretty much perfect. This was the first project I ever did with hand or power tools. The only power tool I owned at the time was a drill.

epatsellis · Mar 2, 2006

bobfowler said:
HOLY CRAP! When you make sawdust you MAKE sawdust! That router setup looks bigger than my entire shop...

bob, table size is 8'x12' with room to spare, overall size is 13'x18', basically a one car garage.(though you really need an extra 3 or 4 feet to walk around it) I'm building a smaller 5'x12' table, since a friend is letting me leave that machine set up in his shed, but I don't want to be one of 'those' kind of friends that wears out a welcome.

You'd be surprised how much easier alot of things become when you can draw it on the computer, then go over to a cnc router and cut it. I've got tons of 1/8" thick aluminum sheet drops (mostly 2'x4' to 4'x4', as most of my suppliers only stock 4x12 foot sheets these days), as well as a boatload of 3/4" and 1" square, 3/4"x1 1/2" rectangle and enough aircraft hardware to choke an elephant.

My next self build camera will be a modular monorail, similar to a toyo, hoping to keep the out of pocket expenses to under $50 (nearly $20 more than what I spent on my 8x10, no less!). Though it's really not fair, as I have alot of tools, hardware and resources that most don't, but hey, that's life I guess. For the first time in my life, I've been in the right place at the right time.

BTW, I'm working on a 4x5 monorail design that can be easily routed out of mdf, and uses readily available hardware, ideally selling them for very low $$$ (<$100 less bellows, which straight bellows aren't that hard to make, heck my 2nd attempt at tapered bellows was workable, should only get better as I make more), and a future design that has either an octagonal or circular front standard, with the same shape bellows. (I've really go to stop thinking this stuff up, that's what happens when you spend your entire life being creative and finally have some of the tools you need to make it happen.)

erie

Box joint blade set

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