Using Toggle Clamps in Your Shop

I use a lot of shop-made jigs, and I ask of them a couple of different things. I want them to make my woodworking life easier, and I want them to make my woodworking life safer. Great rule I go by is start with 10, quit with 10. Big part of my shop-made jigs are often toggle clamps. They can get in here and put downward pressure in places I don't want my hands to go, and they can provide pressure that my hands aren't really capable of. Two different jigs here, one for the table saw, one for the router table. We're gonna head for the router table later and have a good look at what this one does for me. This jig on the table saw is specifically for cutting tapered legs. The way it works is that the leg is gonna nest up against the jig like this. Throw the toggle clamp, make the cut. I've already got one taper done on here. This is an important part, we wanna cut the taper, roll that tapered side up so that there's still material present on the bottom while we're making the cut, that helps prevent chatter. It's a subtle detail, but it makes everything work a little bit better. What I like about this is now that the material is held securely in the jig, all I have to do is feed the jig past the table saw blade. Now, a couple of things that are handy here. One, on-board ease of ability in adjusting how much tension we have on, in this case, is right here to increase or decrease how much torque I'm putting on that toggle clamp. The other thing that happens is that in some cases maybe I'm working with inch and a half stock, in some cases maybe I'm going thicker, the easier I can make the jump from one piece to another and not have to change clamps or do a bunch of resetting is also significant to me. So with that one clamp, there's quite a span, quite a range of thicknesses it'll self-adjust to, and like I said, very easy to control the tension that I'm putting on the material I'm cutting. It's an important part of making sure that that clamp is securely holding my work. Next let's head for the router table and have a look at what my favorite coping sled is capable of. I've got in the router table an end grain cutter for coping-style doors, so this would be what we'd call the coping bit, we would do the end grain of our rails with this. Now, there's no way that we can safely, effectively feed a piece of wood, a rail like this, past that cutter. A couple of problems. One, very unsafe, cause there's nothing to hold onto here. The other thing is that, as the bit exits our work, in all likelihood we're gonna have some chipping here. This very simple jig covers that problem. Backer board here, goes behind the material, so as the bit exits, it's supported, it eliminates the chipping. We also have a toggle clamp that'll hold everything in place. So now, I can very easily feed this. I don't have to worry about aligning the fence and the miter gauge slot 'cause I'm not using the miter gauge slot. This basically becomes my miter gauge. Get my guard back in place, and the easiest way to use this jig is to put it against the fence, let the rail slide against the fence, that registers their ends, then we can make the cut. It's really a nice way to cope the end grain of these rails. The other benefit we get out of this is that once you've cut into that jig the first time, that becomes a setup gauge to set the height of the cutter the next time you use it. So that little coping sled, like I said, one of my favorite devices for the router table. Speaking of routers, let's have a look at some work I can do on a benchtop CNC, where I also get help from a toggle clamp. One of the benefits, of course, to any CNC machine, this is a benchtop CNC, is repeatability, so in all likelihood, what that means is that if I'm gonna cut something, I'm probably not cutting one something, I'm probably cutting a bunch of somethings. That means getting it on the machine, making sure it's secure, removing it when it's done, putting another something on the machine. Great spot for a toggle clamp here, I've got a backer board screwed to my sacrificial board. My target board then goes against the backer board, and with horizontal pressure from that toggle clamp, that locks it in place, so it's very, very easy, very, very fast, to get material in and out of the CNC, get the next part in, back to work. Make sure, of course, that if you do this, this is low enough profile that it's gonna stay under your cutters so we don't run into that toggle clamp. Handful of great uses here for toggle clamps, making sure that your work is secure, safe, your shop-made jigs are doing everything for you that they should do, and in many cases, the key to that is the toggle clamp holding the work for you.