Finishing Touches
Mill a sliding dovetail joint on your router table to connect the edging strips and workpiece stop, routing then ripping the edging strips from one piece of stock.
While the finish dries, make up the workpiece stop and edging strip (pieces 14 and 15). I routed a dovetail pin along the front edge of the stop and a corresponding dovetail slot in the edging strip so these parts fit together. Make up a bunch of edging strips while you’re at it — they’ll get chewed up by the blade during tenoning. You can trim off the damaged portion and reuse the edging several times, sliding it farther down the stop. When it gets too short to work properly, switch to a fresh strip.
Install the long carriage bolt that will move the carriage across the base, then attach the adjustment knob and jamb nut to the bolt with two-part epoxy.
Use a pair of carriage bolts and knobs (pieces 16) to mount the stop on the fence, and slide an edging strip into place. Wrap up your handy new tenoning jig with a hardwood runner (piece 17) for the miter slot — attach it with short screws driven down through the base. I used hard maple because it is so dense that it wears well in this sort of situation.
Square up the piece on your table saw and tighten the knobs, then fasten your toggle clamp to the jig with short panhead screws.
Test the piece in the miter slot to be sure that it slides freely along the length of the slot. The last task that you have is to fasten a toggle clamp (piece 18) to the stop about midway along its length.
With the jig in place on your saw, clamp your workpiece to the back of the jig and run it along the saw blade, making adjustments as needed for your tenons.
Once that work is done, you’re ready to start cutting tenons, safely and accurately, with your hands well away from the saw blade.
