After gluing up the point blanks & veneers to the forearm, it would be
nice to find a way to remove the excess stock on a bandsaw rather than
turning it all down on a lathe. I used to wing it by hand-holding
the forearm & guessing how much stock I was cutting off. With such
a crude method, I always erred on the plus side so I still had a lot of
turning to do. I finally made a jig that would be simple to set up
& virtually impossible to remove too much stock.
The base was sanded flat & the width was trimmed parallel. Since I
wanted to let the base slide along the fence, I had to do something to
compensate for the tapered forearm. I cut the pockets for the
center stands at the proper angle. That makes it possible to trim
the excess stock closely while eliminated any worries about cutting too
deeply & ruining the forearm.
I also wanted to set the depth of cut reliably with a minimum of hassle.
I simply adjust the fence so the saw blade just barely touches the other
side of the jig. At this setting, there will be only 1/8" stock
remaining, making the turning operation that much simpler & quicker.
Here's a look at the first forearm I trimmed. This will certainly
be a time & work saver.
Here's a
video showing it in
use!