Helpful home-made jigs for building Pocketship
Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2014 10:04 pm
I will reply to this post with a series of detailed write-ups for jigs that I have made and used during construction of my Pocketship. I realize these are probably very basic and well-known to most of you; rather, these are intended for a woodworking beginner like I was when I started this project. I wish I could have seen this list written down in one place, and hope it will help aspiring boatbuilders in the future. None of these jigs are my original designs; all are described online in various places, and were simply adapted to fit my materials and needs.
Lumber scarf joint circular saw jig
This jig will cut a beautiful scarf joint (say, for the rub rails) with a circular saw. Screw down two strips of wood (maybe 1.5inch high by 12inches long) parallel to each other in a plywood base. Then, screw a second piece of plywood on top of the lumber strips. This forms an enclosed channel where you will insert the wood to be cut, which will be placed firmly against the right-side lumber. You can either screw the wood into the plywood base, or use wedges placed next to the lumber to hold it in place.
On the top piece of plywood, screw or glue in two strips of lumber that will act as guides for your circular saw. The saw will run tightly within this channel, cutting a perfectly straight line. The angle of your channel (and hence, the angle of your cut) will be determined by your scarf joint size. For scarfing pieces of lumber as we are doing here, you probably want 1:10. So, measure back 10” from the end of the right-side lower piece of lumber, then 1” out from that. This makes a right triangle of base 10 and height 1. Connect the ends to form a triangle, and align your channel so that the saw blade cuts directly on that line (the blade kerf should be to the LEFT of the line, since we want to keep everything to the right of the blade). Screw down the channels securely.
Make sure you set your blade depth to not cut deep into the plywood base.
Lumber scarf joint circular saw jig
This jig will cut a beautiful scarf joint (say, for the rub rails) with a circular saw. Screw down two strips of wood (maybe 1.5inch high by 12inches long) parallel to each other in a plywood base. Then, screw a second piece of plywood on top of the lumber strips. This forms an enclosed channel where you will insert the wood to be cut, which will be placed firmly against the right-side lumber. You can either screw the wood into the plywood base, or use wedges placed next to the lumber to hold it in place.
On the top piece of plywood, screw or glue in two strips of lumber that will act as guides for your circular saw. The saw will run tightly within this channel, cutting a perfectly straight line. The angle of your channel (and hence, the angle of your cut) will be determined by your scarf joint size. For scarfing pieces of lumber as we are doing here, you probably want 1:10. So, measure back 10” from the end of the right-side lower piece of lumber, then 1” out from that. This makes a right triangle of base 10 and height 1. Connect the ends to form a triangle, and align your channel so that the saw blade cuts directly on that line (the blade kerf should be to the LEFT of the line, since we want to keep everything to the right of the blade). Screw down the channels securely.
Make sure you set your blade depth to not cut deep into the plywood base.