Yesterday morning, I began to take serious the Bridge City Jointmaker Pro John Economaki had loaned me for a month. Im building a quick and dirty prototype of a Frank Lloyd Wright-style table for a future issue and I needed to make a bunch of crisp cuts for the latticework between the legs.
It was initially set up to cut miters from pieces measuring 5/20cm x 5/20cm x 13cm for a small square in the middle. The first lesson I learned is that you really need the sandpaper-faced fences to hold the work securely. Even with the awesome beveled hold-downs, the work would rise up a bit on the plain poplar fence. Economaki predicted this and he was right. So sandpaper is definitely your friend.
I added some #120-grit sandpaper to the fence, and the thing cuts like a dream now.
After that, I did a lot of straight cuts to make the latticework. That was when I got into the rhythm. One hand was on a sliding table, and the other was on the crank to raise the blade. It’s almost like riding a bicycle. Stroke. Raise the blade. Stroke. Raise the blade. Yesterday, I went from Herky-jerky: To: A-ha. Got-it.
I was pleased with the results: The cuts were perfect, as expected. As per plan, the latticework was assembled. However, Im not happy with the prototype. The legs are too chunky. This table will look much better if I put it in the dumpster.
Also, Drew DePenning, our associate editor for the web, shot some video last week of Enonomaki discussing how he developed the Jointmaker Pro. It was enough of an interesting video to show it here. See below.
