45 Degree Board Holding Jig for Chamfer Planning

FREE WOOD!

I had gotten some free wood that was used, as runners, to ship MDF sheets on. I was going to use it to make the walls and roof of a tree house, for my children. It was nice wood, but rough. I used a power planner, to smooth it down. A bit time consuming, but worth it.

When I started to plane a chamfer, on the four corners, it was a bit cumbersome and dangerous to hold the power planner at a 45 degree angle while planning the board sitting loosely, on the saw horses. I decided it would be worth investing a little bit of time to make some board holding jigs to hold the boards securely at a 45 degree angle.

I came up with something simple. It worked so well that I thought I would share:

Step 1: How It Works

The jig works by having a valley that one corner of the board sits in. This holds the opposite corner up to the top, where it is easily planned.

Step 2: Easier and Safer

The power planner, that I was using, was easy to hold horizontal, but difficult to hold it at the 45 degree angle, needed to make the chamfer. And when I used it that way, the edge of the planner would bump on the saw horses.

Step 3: Faster Too

I had a lot of boards that I was planning a chamfer on. The two pieces of the jig were clamped to a board that was secured to the two saw horses. The board being planned was held securely by gravity and the pressure of the planner on top. The jig piece on one end had a stop piece that kept the board being planned from being pushed off the end. Since there were no clamps that had to be placed, on the board being planned, I was able to plane one corner, rotate the board 90 degrees, plane the second corner, rotate the board 90 degrees, plane the third corner, rotate the board 90 degrees, plane the forth corner. I was able to rotate the board with one hand while holding the planner in my other hand. This made to process fast and efficient.

Step 4: How I Made It

The boards I was planning were 2 inches x 3 inches. I just kind of eyeballed the dimensions of the jigs to work with that size wood.

I made two jig pieces. Both pieces are made the same dimensions, one just has the extra stop piece.

I used a scrap piece 2x4, about 10 inches long, for the base and then glued and screwed two corner pieces that I cut (at a 45 degree angle) off the end of some scrap pieces of lumber.

The stop piece was a scrap piece of 3/4 inch plywood that I glued and screwed onto the side of the 2x4 base piece.

I think the screws were #8 x 2 inches long.

I made sure the jig pieces were lined up with each other by placing the piece of wood I was going to be planning in them and then clamping the two jig pieces to a piece of wood that was clamped to two sawhorses.