A Handy Little Jig

  I'm not sure what I enjoy doing the most - building some project for the house/someone, or building jigs to use in place of buying some kind of fancy tool.    I think I am more like one of those wood workers who enjoys spending a lot of time building stuff or jigs in an attemp to enhance his wood working skills.  (Skills?)   Especially if those jigs work well.    I enjoy shopping for tools also.   (I wonder if I will ever get past that phase.)    Three things seem to be happening since I retired:   1.   A lot of my retirement funds seem to be going for wood working tools.    My thoughts to support that lately are "does one reinvest his dwindling retirement pension into stocks or does one try to help the economy out by buying additional tools for the shop"?   I guess I'm doing my part for the future of America by following the latter of those two choices.   2.   I have built several jigs over the past eight months to help me to do a more accurate job with some of the projects I've worked on.   I surprise myself at how well they work, but a jig is a jig and only I know what it is made for.    When it comes to my estate some day,   the wood tools will most likely show up on a garage sale and the jigs will provide a nice campfire for the kids to sit around some evening.   3.    As I spend more time buying tools and building jigs the space in the garage gets smaller.  Plus my one room shop in the basement (that I can claim as my portion of the house that we live in) is also starting to get a little cluttered.   I mean how many things can one suspend from the ceiling?

      To the right is a sample of a jig I made this summer.     I took some hard wood scrap oak and cut it into two equal boards.   I would join the boards on the ends with a 5 1/2 inch bolt and on the ends of the bolts I would use jig knobs to squeeze the two boards together or to open them wider.   I would use this jig when gluing several boards together to make one larger board.   This jig helps keep the board flat while they are pressed together by clamps.  

   To the left you can see the clamps in action.   There are four different maple boards that are being glued together.     Those maple boards could be cupped a little or maybe slightly twisted from when they dried out, but this jig will hold them flat while one squeezes them together with the clamps on the side.   You leave it clamped up this way untill the glue dries.     I smear paste wax on the inside of the clamps so if there is any squeeze out glue that come in contact with the clamp it does not stick to it.     In this case, once dried I will trim the glued up boards into one board that is 16 inches wide and 36 inches long.    To make it work well, you have to make sure that all the boards are the same in thickness and all edges are square.  

     A piece of information to share:   back around the 10th century a king or ruler would expect the people of his country to give him the respect he would want and deserve as king.   It was the king's responsibility to keep the people in line.   Often a citizen who had done a wrong would find himself placed in an instrument called a pillory.  A pillory is a­ set of two parallel wooden boards clasped together, with holes for the neck and wrists. When opened, the victim places his or her head and arms through the holes. Then the pillory is closed, and the victim can't possibly escape.    Sometimes they would be locked up for a couple hours in the public square.  Sometimes for longer.    Sounds kind of cruel, but if one did not behave well then maybe it was a form of punishment that worked.     

    

 It's just a bit of history kitty that I am sharing with the human race...    And that piece of wood in front of you is just a clamp.   It is nothing that you should be fearful of...    I mean so long as you respect the king of this household I can't imagine that you have anything to worry about.    It's just a coincidence that those holes would fit your neck and paws.       Yep.   So long as you behave and don't beg for more cat food --  I would say you are safe from any ideas that a human could possibly use that clamp as a Pillory.   

  
To the left is my wife's cat.   I think she is laughing at the idea that I could think that I am King of this house.    I don't think she is worried at all about anything called a pillory.   Shortly after this picture, she went in to the only room of the house that I can claim as mine and used her litter box (which you should know is placed in a corner of my basement shop).   Grrrrrr.