Day 31: Cutting More Sharps

It turned out that I couldn't really cut all of the sharps on the table saw after all because the gap on the insert is too wide and the finished keys would fall against the blade or into the machine. It was just too big a pain in the rear-end, especially when I have other saws in the shop that are perfectly capable of making a 10-degree cut.

In this case, I switched to the band saw where I set the table at 10 degrees and cut with abandon. As you can see in the photo below, the insert gap is small enough that it did not cause me any problems at all.

You might have noticed an additional piece of wood clamped to the band saw fence. This is to keep the angled part of the key from sliding under the tiny, little gap between the fence and the table and reducing the width of the angle cut. I did something similar on the band saw, but it was not enough to save the keys from pretty significant harm after each cut.

You might also have noticed that I'm not using a piece of scrap to guard against tear-out here. It's been my experience that such a piece is just not necessary with a band saw. Yes, the cuts are a little rougher, but they're nothing some sanding (my favorite task) won't clean right up. I completed 14 of the little buggers tonight.

Because of the clean cut issue with the table saw, I'm going to keep the key I cut yesterday on my desk at work to remind me of what I really love doing (hint: it's not working the day job), replacing it with another I cut tomorrow.

I did trim the boards down with the planer to 7/16" from 1/2". I'm not including a photo of the planing process because, frankly, I forgot to take a picture. The next step is to complete all of the sharps, sand each and every one and begin the somewhat tedious process of gluing them to the longer pieces of the sharp keys.

On a final note, I have not yet cut the slots into the guide rail ends of the keys or sanded/filed the balance rail holes that I punched on last week. I will complete these tasks before gluing the sharps, and it will take quite a bit of time because I'll be measuring my progress in 1/1000th of an inch.

Until then...