New Shop Aide & Frame Progress

One of the things that happen as you pursue this craft is that you learn about methods others have come up with to make life easier.  I just found one in Fine Woodworking magazine and decided to see how it worked.  For the picture frames I need to cut flutes in the panel with my router mounted in my homemade router table.  The biggest hassle here is the fine dust it creates while cutting.  Here's a good solution:

This is essentially a hollow box with a hardwood cleat (between fence and box) that has holes in it so that the clamps attach it to the tablesaw fence.  I drilled a hole to at the end to attach the shop vacs hose.  As we woodworkers tend to do I modified it somewhat by cutting a semi-circle in both the top and bottom pieces for the bit.  The purpose is so that I can use this on either side of the fence and still keep the vacuum hose at the rear.  Depending on the bit and my feed direction, the auxiliary  fence may need to placed on either side of the tablesaw fence.  I also added a baffle inside to hep channel the dust into the hose -- worked well, even when cutting all of the flutes on the panel faces!

Things are going nicely on the picture frames.  Many, many steps are required to make the 12 sides that are needed to create the 3 frames.  I'm making two extra pieces just in case. It's funny how that works, if I make extra parts I never seem to need them but if I don't, then I screw something up -- cheap insurance I guess!  Anyway, here's how things are looking now:

The pieces on the left are the panels.  Besides cutting to correct size each one needed to have the outer edge shaped and the tongue cut on the opposite edge, this was done on the shaper.  Then each needed their 3 flutes cut with the router table that I mentioned above.  The pieces on the right will become the sight edge. These had the bead formed on the shaper, a groove for the tongue of the panel, and finally the rabbet was cut for the painting to sit into.  Next up is sanding the flutes, planing the faces and then gluing them together as shown in the middle. Let's see, miter, biscuit, glue, clamp, dye, shellac ......... hmm, should be done in a week or two.