Already done mine
A friend is a Chippie, and pops round every now and then with a need to improve some of his tools. Latest one was for a Festool Domino Jointer (like a biscuit jointer). Very clever tool and well designed with lots of features and adjustments. However, for cutting a joint in short sections, such as 1x1, you flick a clip and swivel the support/guide plate casting through 90 deg, but unfortunately in this configuration theres no fence to set on top of the wood to set the centre height for locating the cut, even though the centre height is adjustable in steps from 16-40mm (hope that made sense
).
So..todays project was a 130x110x12mm bit of aluminium, milled down to 6mm thick across most of it to leave a stubby L shape ledge on the bottom. Then set up with angle blocks in the vice and a vee notch for sighting cut into the middle of the step. The plate was then drilled, reamed and counterbored in 4 positions. Two positions had stepped guide dowels turned up from mild steel and loctited in place, the other two had stepped bosses drilled & tapped M4 through the middle, then loctited in place to accept retaining screws. The plate was then dropped on the surface grinder and the last few thou taken off the back of the bosses to allow it to sit flush on the cast face plate. The top edge was given a 98mm radius on the rotary table to match the edge of the Festool casting, and finally the jointer casting was drilled on the face on 4 positions, 2 x 8mm reamed for the guide dowel pins, and 2 clearance holes for M4 capscrews.
Friend is as pleased as punch that he now has this and can fit and remove it in a repeatably accurate position in about a minute, but I was a little bit unhappy that one of the location dowel holes in the casting (a bugger to hold in the vice) was low by about 0.15mm, which gave an equivalent drop in height end-to-end across the fence. However, he assures me that this is of no consequence in carpentry.
Sorry no pictures, but might snap one or two next time he comes over.
Peter
