Quick T-Bevel
2019-04-02 18:52 - Making
My bed sofa project is progressing nicely. I expect to put together a detailed post, once it's complete. Over the weekend I picked up some nice plywood, for the seat backs and center shelves. Cutting those pieces right is challenging. I've got the main frame assembled, at home. I've got tools, at the shop at work. I want to transport as little as possible. And I also have some angles to cut, and hopefully get just right.
I've seen one of these before, probably on This Old House, and that's the article I found when I went looking for the name of the thing. I decided to make one quickly today. Laser cut a shape that allows me to match angles like the commercial equivalents. Tighten the nut to just lock it down, then push it into the angle to squeeze it perfectly flush. Then just scribe the same line onto the real material. (After tracing it onto a piece of paper, to measure more easily, it seems I'm at about 22.5°. I was aiming for 20°, but shifted some of my measurements around. And some of the cuts were probably not perfectly to plan!)
In this case, I'm trying to cut the top and bottom of the seat back, which is an angled piece. So that the cuts are level, flush with the neighboring pieces of the frame. I've got a jig saw at home, which I've used to divide the pieces down to the smallest possible size, for transport. The band saw in the shop has a tilting table. I can match that table to this angle, and get exactly the cut I want. The only challenge will be getting the right height, after cutting this tiny bit off.
I could have spent about ten bucks to buy one of these, but it was much nicer to make it! This was all spare materials except $0.33 for the thumb screw at a local hardware store on the way home! Access to a laser cutter really helped.
