I just had a disaster in the workshop. I tried to tighten up the joint by following the instructions in red. The result is a another finger about 1/8" and a gap between each joint. I thought the silver knob was for kiss calibration.
I have made MANY MANY boxes and didnt want to adjust the fit in the middle of a project.....but today I was feeling HOLY....
Does anyone have any ideas as to what went wrong?
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The short answer is that it's normal to use the silver micro adjust knob to tighten the fit (turning the knob clockwise tightens the next joint cut). The jigs are manufactured to produce a setup that's slightly loose, typically 0.010" to 0.020", to allow the user to dial in the desired fit.
If you're using a stack dado, this is a one-time adjustment because the kiss calibration isn't redone when changing cutter widths…each time you get the jig off the shelf, you'll just make a test cut at the desired dado width and spread the pin plates to fill the test cut using the red knob.
The longer answer is that the operator's "touch" during each of the three setup steps can produce a pretty wide range of tightness...there's no right and wrong, but each user will be a little different. If the setup is consistently loose, there are likely a few ways to tighten it when doing the setup-
- In the first step, bring the pin plates into solid contact with each other with the red knob. Not cranked tight like a bolt, but until you feel resistance at the knob.
- When "kiss" calibrating against the cutter, put a piece of paper between the inner pin plate and the cutter, then advance the pin plates just until you feel some drag as you try to slide the paper. I find that it's easy to inadvertently let the pin plates press against the cutter when doing this only by eye, loosening the joint in the process.
- After making the test cut, expand the pin plates with the red knob far enough to get some decent resistance when fitting the test cut over the pin plates.
If you have a set of calipers that read in thousandths of an inch, you can measure the pin width and the cut width and go directly to the proper fit with the silver mike knob. Whatever the difference in the measurements is, dial it out using the graduations on the red knob (thousandths of an inch) and the red pointer on the silver knob. I like the pins to be 0.001" - 0.002" shy of the groove width, maybe ha hair more on wide boards.
If I'm redoing the kiss calibration for some reason, instead of jumping into a full joint, I'll make the first two full cuts into a corner of two pieces of scrap and check the fit by flipping the boards around to assemble just the cuts at these corners. Number the corners of each board 1 through 4. Make 3-4 cuts into corner #1 on both boards, flip them around and check the fit. Micro adjust if necessary, then cut into corner #2 on both boards and so on. The reason for numbering the corners is that the test cuts can't be mixed and matched.
I have made MANY MANY boxes and didnt want to adjust the fit in the middle of a project.....but today I was feeling HOLY....
Does anyone have any ideas as to what went wrong?
+++++++++++++
The short answer is that it's normal to use the silver micro adjust knob to tighten the fit (turning the knob clockwise tightens the next joint cut). The jigs are manufactured to produce a setup that's slightly loose, typically 0.010" to 0.020", to allow the user to dial in the desired fit.
If you're using a stack dado, this is a one-time adjustment because the kiss calibration isn't redone when changing cutter widths…each time you get the jig off the shelf, you'll just make a test cut at the desired dado width and spread the pin plates to fill the test cut using the red knob.
The longer answer is that the operator's "touch" during each of the three setup steps can produce a pretty wide range of tightness...there's no right and wrong, but each user will be a little different. If the setup is consistently loose, there are likely a few ways to tighten it when doing the setup-
- In the first step, bring the pin plates into solid contact with each other with the red knob. Not cranked tight like a bolt, but until you feel resistance at the knob.
- When "kiss" calibrating against the cutter, put a piece of paper between the inner pin plate and the cutter, then advance the pin plates just until you feel some drag as you try to slide the paper. I find that it's easy to inadvertently let the pin plates press against the cutter when doing this only by eye, loosening the joint in the process.
- After making the test cut, expand the pin plates with the red knob far enough to get some decent resistance when fitting the test cut over the pin plates.
If you have a set of calipers that read in thousandths of an inch, you can measure the pin width and the cut width and go directly to the proper fit with the silver mike knob. Whatever the difference in the measurements is, dial it out using the graduations on the red knob (thousandths of an inch) and the red pointer on the silver knob. I like the pins to be 0.001" - 0.002" shy of the groove width, maybe ha hair more on wide boards.
If I'm redoing the kiss calibration for some reason, instead of jumping into a full joint, I'll make the first two full cuts into a corner of two pieces of scrap and check the fit by flipping the boards around to assemble just the cuts at these corners. Number the corners of each board 1 through 4. Make 3-4 cuts into corner #1 on both boards, flip them around and check the fit. Micro adjust if necessary, then cut into corner #2 on both boards and so on. The reason for numbering the corners is that the test cuts can't be mixed and matched.
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