Hi Keith, The runners we have been referring to are essentially sticks which fit into the miter slots of the table saw or maybe a router table or I suppose even the slots of a disk sander or a band saw.
I have cut them from hardwood, 3/4ths wide and 3/8ths thick but you can buy high density poly or aluminum or even steel ones already milled to that size. These are fixed to the bottom of a board to keep it tracking in the slots. Probably the most common use is a panel cutting jig where you take a piece of sheet goods, say quarter inch Baltic birch plywood, fix a fence to the trailing edge and runners to the bottom to form a huge fixed miter gauge for trimming doors and other panels square. Of course you can make them for any angle, wood turners make them to cut wedges to fit together to form 10 or 12 sided or more pieces for turning so that they have much less end grain in the outer edge. You can make jigs for cutting the cheeks for pennons, all sorts of things. Hope this is helpful. ----- Original Message ----- From: Keith Christian To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 10:22 PM Subject: [BlindHandyMan] Re: making table saw jigs Hi, I am very interested in the discussion about making jigs. I actually want to learn much more. I do not understand the terminology and the techniques quite yet. So if you can explain or point me to a resource that will be helpful, please share. What are runners and how are they used with a table saw to make jigs? It sounds like something that could be like an extra set of hands. I have seen them referred to in several posts lately. Posted by: "Bob Kennedy" [email protected] bk2909 Date: Mon Dec 22, 2008 3:09 pm ((PST)) Several places sell them. One of the places I use a lot is Peachtree. Their web site is ptreeusa.com Sometimes you can find things on Amazon that are less than what they sell their own things for. Here is what Amazon said about the Peachtree miter bar. Snip. The Peachtree miter bar sounds like it would be helpful with my table saw, but I am not sure how quite yet. There are times that I want a feather board to keep stock from shooting up or backwards. But I am not sure if that is a possible purpose of the bar. It also sounds like it may be a sliding fence or a replacement for my miter table. Can someone clarify what some of the uses of a miter bar is for? I have a Craftsman table saw. It is about 10 years old. It is not a high end unit, but it does alright. It is direct drive and has a table for attaching a router. The fence is not great, but it is ok. It has a sliding miter table which is a little small, but works fine on small projects. There are metal support bars on the back and front side of the saw. The fence, router table, and miter table mount to these bars and have a slot on the top side. This is for fixing attachments to it. But I do not know the size of the slot. But, I suspect it is a standard size. However, it is a Craftsman and may be different. The Fence has a similar slot on the top and router table side. It looks like this is made for similar attachments. The slots are larger on the fence than on the table saw. I imagine the t bar slides in this slot and can be moved around the saw for a variety of jobs. Below are different sized miter bar setups from PeachTree. Can someone explain how the 24 inch vs. the 48 inch bar might be used? What is the difference between the full sized t bar setup and the mini? The description on the web side said it was for smaller work. 24" Aluminum Heavy Duty T-Track System (with one free knob & bolt) $12.99 48" Aluminum Heavy Duty T-Track System (with two free knobs & bolts) $19.99 24" Aluminum Mini T-Track System (with one free knob & bolt) $9.99 48" Aluminum Mini T-Track System (with two free knobs & bolts) $17.99 Thanks, Keith [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
