5 Ways to Joint Boards Without A Jointer | Woodworking Tip

- How are you? I'm Matt. Today I'm going to show you five different

ways

to join

boards

without a

joint

er. Five methods include a piece of plywood, building your own template, using a simple 4-foot level, just using masking tape, and then also using a circular saw. Let us begin. For many woodworkers, it is a big challenge to be able to find a way to join wood without purchasing a

joint

er because

jointer

s are expensive. So if you've watched this channel at any point, you know that I was previously blessed with that Wahuda

jointer

that I was joining with my table saw just using a level.

This is probably the easiest way to start joining

boards

. It's not the best way but it will help you. Therefore, there won't al

ways

be a perfectly tight seam, especially when dealing with boards longer than about four feet. However, on shorter boards it works very well. Let me show you how to do it. First of all, for this method to work, the blade must be 90 degrees to the saw. So if not, the sewing will not turn out well. It has to be 90 degrees. If it's not 90 degrees, you're wasting your time. Now, if you're interested, I'll put a link in the description below to one of those little digital angle finders.

So I'm going to join the edge of this board using a four foot level. And all this is, if you just take a four-footer, I like this style of aluminum I-beam because it won't bend or twist like a plastic. The reason this works is I get a lot of questions about why it works instead of just using the fence, so the real reason this actually works is to use a level on the table saw, I'm actually magic. I actually sprinkled some magic dust on this, some magic sawdust on this level, and now it works because it's magic. (laughs) The reason this method works is because you are giving this edge a flat surface reference on the other side.

So whatever is happening here on the right side of the blade, when this passes through the blade, that's what will happen here on the left. If I just used the fence, I'm going to overdo it, but if this board has a big arc like this, when I push it, it will actually do that on the sheet. You wouldn't believe it, but it does in a small way. But that will leave a non-flat, non-square cut on this side. When you use something like a four-foot level, you have to step at the same time or move with the board.

If it doesn't move with the board, you can also use the fence. If you just do this and push it, it's no different than the fence. All you have done is extend your fence. Let's try. (saw buzzing) I'm going to make two boards, then I'll line them up next to each other and show you. (saw buzzing) So now you can see it's not exactly perfect, but it's very, very close. I could probably run it one more time and do it much better. (saw buzzing) Alright, I check it again and you can see, man, this is very, very close.

I mean, you can tell the difference in the grain patterns there, but, and that's just matching with a level right there, so it's not bad. The second method for joining with a table saw is to build a simple jig for the saw out of 3/4-inch plywood. Let me teach you. So I'm going to reduce this to six inches. (I saw buzzing sounds) What I did was I marked where the riving knife and the blade are, and then I'm going to hold this here, move it out of the way, and just take the riving knife off. So I'll just turn on the blade or turn on the saw and lift the blade up and it'll make that cut.

Then I'll turn off the saw, release it, and move it back. In this way, until you reach the mark on the separator blade. In fact, I was originally going to lift the blade, let it spin, and then remove the plywood, but the threat of kickback is too much for me to want to do that. So what I did was just turn on the blade, lift it up, turn off the saw, lower the blade, move the jig, re-attach it, and then lift the blade that way. Once most of the material in there was cut, you saw me slide it back and forth a little bit.

And remove any irregularity from there. That's a big word, irregularities. (I saw humming noises) Well, it took me only a minute to figure that out, but it looks pretty cool, and in fact, the more I do it, the tighter the seam gets. You can see it's pretty tight when I push it in and then I can, you know, release it there. So one way to improve this even further as a joining template is if you could take, lay down a piece of vinyl and stick it here. Something this slippery won't damage the board as you go, but it does make the back stick out a bit, about the same thickness as what you're actually removing from the wood.

That will give you a flat surface for reference after cutting it on this side and will make joining with this method a little easier. However, it works even without that, but adding a piece of vinyl or something here on the back will help. So that method actually works pretty well just for a quick joint jig for your table saw. It's just a piece of plywood, pass it over there. It took me several passes to figure out what and how to do it correctly. Extremely light pressure and removes very, very little of the material at a time. 64, if so, I barely skim it.

Once you do that, you'll end up with a nice tight seam equal to or roughly equal to the level template. Now I have another one I want to try and see if we can make it even better. Let's do it. If this video brings value to you, click the share button, share it with your friends or family who also like

woodworking

and hopefully it will bring value to them too. (saw buzzing) This is just an eight-inch, three-quarters-inch strip of plywood. Now I'm going to make a template. So I'm going to make a jig for joining or you could also use it as a jig for sharpening tapered legs, that kind of thing.

What I want to use to do that is a router, this quarter inch relief bit and a quarter or half inch dovetail bit from Micro Jig, as well as some dovetail clamps that will go on this template. It will make joining on a table saw much easier for you if you don't have this material; there will be a link in the description below of this material. It's not that expensive to get started with this and they have other options you can choose from if you want to get into that system. Alright this is what I did, I cut my sheet of plywood and marked four inches from the end on each end, I want to draw a line because that's where my dovetail slot will go. (marking wood) And you just make this board no matter how long your fence is and then you'll mark half that distance, whatever that is for you, make a line and then halfway between these two lines we'll make another one. line so we can have another rhythm here.

And then we have two marks, two inches from each end, we'll make a mark there and then those will be our slots that we'll cut. I don't have a router table, so that will make things a little more time consuming, but it's not, I don't think it's impossible to do. You put in this quarter inch relief bit and we have to cut the quarter inch slots first, that way the dovetail bit doesn't have to remove as much material. It will make it last longer, it will make the cut cleaner, etcetera, etcetera. So what I have to do is set up a line, route it, change bits, route it and over and over again until I have them all done.

So that will take a little time. So all I did was align, put my router there, lined up the center of the bit with the line, and then just measured from there to the line and squared everything up. (saw a buzzing sound) There will be many blade changes. Man, I need a router table. (saw a buzzing sound) I don't know why I was going the wrong way, but I was, don't do that. That's the dovetail rail and I bought these clamps that fit the dovetail rail. It's that simple. That's great. This will be an amazing sled.

Here we go. I have to finish these beats and then I'll show you what this can do. (saw a buzzing sound) Lesson number one: Don't lift the drill bit or you'll make a hole. I think everything will be fine, but don't lift the router with the dovetail bit. Bad idea. So I've got all those grooves cut there, those dovetails cut there with that palm router. The router table would have been a lot easier, but it wasn't too bad, I just had to change the bits and make sure they were the right depth each time and then set that ruler up.

It's pretty clear, if I do say so myself. I'm going to put a 45 degree chamfer on only three sides. I'll show you why. (saw a buzz) So I'm going to measure over an inch from the edge and make a mark, same thing here, make a mark, and then I'm just going to line up my sheet and remove a one inch corner at a 45 degree angle. I'm going to do that in all four corners. I should have done this before putting in the chamfer, but live and learn. Boom! There is! I like it. I like it a lot.

I have high hopes that this will work better than the other two methods. It was very simple to do. It just took a little time to change those parts. If you have a router table, you'll be done with it in no time. Put a little paste wax on it, I prefer Trewax because it doesn't smell bad. Johnson's paste wax actually has a very unpleasant smell that Trewax doesn't, which helps it glide and stay buttery smooth on the table. I like it. So the way this works, I have the board that I want to attach, I have my dovetail clamps and we're just going to slide one in from the side.

I've run this fence - (tool falls to the ground) I've run the fence to where this sled is right next to the blade. Now you can put in a miter slot or a miter, what's that called? You can put a miter slide, a piece of board over there, a three-quarter inch piece of board, and have it run in the slot if you want. But for a binding sled you don't need it. Good. Because you are going to put pressure against the fence. So all you want to do is make that board stick out of the mit, the sled itself. (the clamp closes over the wood) And that's why it sticks out about an eighth of an inch, maybe.

Just a little wider than the blade. It doesn't really matter what the alignment is as long as the blade cuts the entire board or cuts a strip of the board. Because it's in the air and it's going to cut that edge flush and then you're going to turn it around and put it against the fence and you're going to go through it without the sled and that's going to give you two parallel sides, which is what I'm doing next. (saw a buzzing sound) That makes me happy. That looks good, I like it. (saw buzzing) Boom! That's the best joint so far.

Assembled sled, man, I should have built one of those a long time ago. The level works well, but the articulated sleds win this challenge by far. It's easy, it's quick, I think if I put a miter sled underneath, a board that actually runs on the miter sled, or Micro Jig actually makes a 360 sled kit that attaches to the bottom of this and you can use like this is. Now this can also be a tapered jig, making it a multi-function jig, as an added benefit for you. If you want to use this as a template to taper all you need to do, if you have a board that you want to taper from, say, four and a quarter to three and three quarters, all you have to do is line it up, your Mark here, that will be the cut line on your blade at four inches and then back here you'll make that mark at three and three quarters and clamp everything together.

Really quick, the reason you keep this side square instead of beveling all four sides is that you want to leave one side square as a reference for tapering. So if you're going to have a table down here at one inch and then up here at four inches, you're going to need something to reference that. Then this square border will help you with that. If you are going to use this as a sharpening jig, I highly recommend placing a zero play miter bar underneath to run on this track, or simply cutting a strip to fit there like you would with a slaw sled. .

Let's try it and see what happens. (saw a buzzing sound) Look at that. So simple, so simple. So if you are tapering the legs, whatever you need to taper, taper the jig bar, attach the jig bar, now you have a tall fence, if you need it for any reason, you have a board that is taller and is cutting a slot. that, or cut a rabbet or whatever, you need a tall fence, this just became a tall fence. So this is a multipurpose template and you get it as a bonus for watching this video. I am very happy with this sled.

It works very well. It's actually an ingenious design that Micro Jig came up with. I bought all these things. What really alerted me to this was that one of you viewers sent me the 360 ​​sled kit, so just this piece here. When I got this I started looking into it and I saw that they had all these other things which were the dovetail pieces, the relief piece and then these clamps and then I watched some videos, they actually have a video on how to make this sled exact. I'll leave a link to that in the description below and you can check it out.

It has free plans, everything, so you can create one of these yourselfyourself using your guide. But this works very well, it works perfectly. Actually joining the edges of a board and sharpening, things like that, will be a big change for you. If you have a table saw. So I didn't actually come up with this idea, I saw it in a 3x3Custom-Tamar video from there. If you want to see how it does it, you can go check it because it is also working without a assembler. I don't have double-sided tape, so for the video, I'm going to improvise with some good old-fashioned adhesive tape.

In fact, I wouldn't recommend using tape for this because when you fold it like this it will be very thick. That's why you should use double-sided tape, it will all be very thin. But, just for demonstration purposes, you'll just grab your sled tape or a piece of plywood, that'll be it. You'll take the board you want to join and just hang it over the edge of the plywood so the blade can actually make the cut. And the same thing down here. (wood slaps) Place it on top of that tape. That just keeps everything from slipping and moving, similar to what clamps do on the sled.

Once it's stuck, you should be able to run it without any problems. (saw buzzing) It's that easy. That is easy. Then all you would have to do is peel it off and remove the double-sided tape from your board. You have a hinged edge. Now that I built the sled, it got me thinking. I know that's dangerous. Can I put the sled together without a table saw? Just using a circular saw? Let's find out. So I'm going to hold this tubasix, tubasix here. Turn this around. This is going to work for everyone. Who believes? You have to believe in me.

I think! That's going to work. ♪It's going to work, I think I can fly. ♪ It has to work, right? I've been trying to think of how to do this for years. Kabam. Look at this. Who thinks this is going to work? (saw buzzing) Boom! AHA! That works. I am a genius. I know. You can tell me, I don't care. That works, it works well and it will be a nice flat edge on this side, and now obviously you would need a table saw or something like that or even, maybe the kreg ripcut could flip it over and use this side as a flat reference as well. .

Yeah, I think that would work actually. And then you would have two parallel edges and, with a circular saw. Now it would be difficult to do it with a tubafour, or anything smaller than a tubasix. You probably could still do it, but it would be much harder to do. (laughing) It's flat. That's as close as you can get to a rough cut board with a circular saw. And in case you don't know, a Kreg rip cut is just a circular saw guide. Any circular saw will fit in there and you can put it down to, say, a couple of inches.

It will shrink to about an inch. And the circular saw will come in here like this. And then you could reference this edge to cut it, and you would have two parallel sides. Union with circular saw. Those are the methods you can use if you don't have an assembler. If you have a jointer, I want to include this in the challenge, just to see how it compares, especially to that sled because that sled was (bulb hits) (saw buzzing sounds). For speed and convenience, obviously, the assemblers win. Once you bring them together, the gap becomes non-existent. As you can see there, smash them together and then of course I can separate them.

That's really cool, I really liked this sled it makes perfect, flat edges. Perfect. They combine perfectly. As long as your blade is at 90 degrees to your table, and as long as your board is not tilted, follow the path ahead. Now the recording method, loud, loud? The taping method also works great, you'll just have to stick and peel each time. But that's an option for you if you don't want to use T-tracks or the Micro Jig adjustment system. To fit in? Yes. But now that I have this sled, I can use it for multiple uses, taper, tall fence and then also jig for joining if needed.

Multi-purpose sled, so I think it's really the winner because you can actually do more than just join in with it. Hey, if you liked this video, click on the box there and it will take you to the next set of videos. Click that box and you'll get that big virtual fist bump. Also, if you haven't subscribed yet, go ahead and click the subscribe button, it really helps the channel. Especially if you share this with someone you know who can benefit from it. Thank you.