Woodrat - question on sliding dovetail

[RogerS]

I would like to run a sliding dovetail down the side of the legs of a utility bench. The legs are 70mm square and even with the raisers there is not enough room underneath to mount the leg East-West.

So the conclusion I have come to is to fix the leg North-South. Is that right or am I missing a trick somewhere? Seems to me that this maybe is one of those jobs better done on the router table :wink:

Separate question but when do you actually use those raiser pieces?

Last one - has anyone thought about fixing a couple of Incra's T-track and stops on the sliding carriage? Seems to me that that would be really useful...he says after playing with the 'rat for all of ...oooh..60 minutes

Cheers Roger

 

[Alf]

So the conclusion I have come to is to fix the leg North-South.

And why not?

Seems to me that this maybe is one of those jobs better done on the router table :wink:

Tsk. D'you want the 'Rat to hear that? It'll sulk and you'll be sorry...

Separate question but when do you actually use those raiser pieces?

Generally round about the time you say "Blast, there's not enough clearance room under here. What I need to do is raise up the baseplate a bit..."

Last one - has anyone thought about fixing a couple of Incra's T-track and stops on the sliding carriage? Seems to me that that would be really useful...he says after playing with the 'rat for all of ...oooh..60 minutes

I have a feeling you might be a 'Rat natural... But, why on the sliding carriage? Which is the sliding carriage as far as you're concerned? Expand and discuss - I'm intrigued. And also confused. :roll:

Cheers, Alf

 

[RogerS]

Hi Alf...well, because I needed to mount the leg NS it needed supporting at the other end...but my roller stand was too short...so I needed to make something to raise it...so I ended up bodging some bits together and then thought....aha....loose tenon....mortice..let's see how easy it is to make a mortice.
So ...you can fix little sliding thingies in the aluminium rails to limit the NS movement...note to self...must get a better set as the one that comes wth the 'rat fouls the plunge bar ..which restricts further an already limited plunge depth on the deWalt (seem to remember being warned about that!)

But you rely on eyeball mark one to limit the E-W...so.o.o. that got me thinking that if you were using the 'rat to make a lot of repeat mortices for example then it would be really useful to be able to limit in that direction as well. Just seems logical to me.

Plus it will stop be messing up the mortice when I turn the handle the wrong way...again...and again

 

[Alf]

Ah, I see. A while back on UKWW we all looked into that, but I'm blessed if I can remember whether we came up with an answer. I think the idea was to use the T-slot under the main body of the 'Rat to take stops which would bear against the clamps in some way, but I don't think any of us actually obtained a Tuit to give it a try. One method I did bother setting up is a rule underneath and an acrylic pointer on the sliding carriage. Probably got a picture round here somewhere; I'll have a look. Although Aldel's site is really a better resource.

Oh, and I realised there's a way to do the leg e/w; use the mortise rail and clamp the leg to that.

Cheers, Alf

 

[RogerS]

Thanks for the suggestion, Alf. What a sublimely obvious answer to use the mortice rail! I had also completely forgotten about Aldels' excellent site and one of his links points to someone with similar ideas.

Cheers, Roger