A Little Square

  Sometimes it is just fun to make a little jig or tool that you can use around the shop.   Especially if you have some scrap wood laying around that your not sure just what it would be good for and then suddenly you see a video where some guy whips out a tool from scraps and you think      "Hey, I can do that!"

  His plan called for some hard maple wood and some walnut.   (After the visit from my friendly neighborhood buddy, I just happened to have a few of those laying around.) 
      From the pieces above I milled out the boards to the left.   The picture makes them look a little longer than they are.   All those boards are 1/4 of an inch thick.  

     I trimmed those boards into the parts that I would need.   One set is in the picture to the right.   Actually I made two sets.   Actually I cut some extra pieces to practice on.   (Sometimes my "Hey I can do that" thought does happen in the first try.)   

  As I assembled those pieces together it is very important  that while you clamp everything tight you keep the inside corner square.   I had made a homemade triangle block from a manufactured square piece of wood I had on hand.  Each of the corners were a solid 90 degrees.  I cut that block diagonally and put in a couple notches in the slanted part for the clamps to grip on.  I used those to hold all the parts perfectly square as I glued up all the pieces.

  After those pieces dried I drilled 4 holes in the corner and inserted 1/8 inch dowel pins into those holes to help support the joint so it does not move.  Once those pins dried I sanded them smooth making a nice flat handle.  

   On the picture to the left, the one square is my purchased try square.   The other two are the finished product.   The inside was a perfect square.   The outside was 1/64th off. (Yep - maybe 1/128th)   Not sure how that happens, but we fixed that.    We'll see how well these will stand up.   I will definitely use them.

     Guess what?  I made a trip to the Big City Saw Mill and came home with a truck load of red cedar.   My idea was to have some cedar on hand to make a few more patio chairs for Christmas this year.   The problem is that this tree was just milled so these boards may not be dry enough by the end of this year.  I have to say that the garage has a very nice smell to it lately.     That is it.  I Swear!     No more lumber purchases until my scrap pile gets smaller.   There is so much lumber piled around that it is getting to the point that I can no longer park my pickup in the garage any more.  (By winter I will have to make sure the pickup can get in the garage.  Parked next to all my treasured valuable wood scraps.  To make that work, maybe the wife's car will have to set out in the snow and cold??? -  We'll see...)