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i’m james hamilton from stumpy nubs woodworkingjournal, and today i’ll show you how to cut variably spaced joints with my unique,incremental box joint jig. and i’ll give you a few tips to help you build it. if you aren’t familiar with the most recentbox joint jig i made, it’s a lead-screw based system that works much like incra’stable saw and router fences in that the interlocking teeth of the lead screw align with a pattern.i built another version of this jig a few years back, but this one has some new features,which are outlined in another video that i will link to in the notes below this video.do you need all of those features? nope. there are simpler ways to cut box joints for sure.but for me, building and using a complex jig

like this is a lot of fun. it’s sort oflike building marble machines and other wooden gizmos. but with a jig like this, you notonly get the fun of the build, but you’ll also have a useful tool for a long time tocome. i’ll place a link in the notes to a set of plans you can pick up for this jig.they aren’t free, but it helps support the hundred or so free woodworking videos we makeevery year. now, let’s look at how to cut this creativejoint using the pattern feature on my jig. then i’ll give you some tips for buildingit. we’ll cut the whole joint with a 1/8”wide, full kerf blade, never having to stop and change out the setup when the width ofthe fingers change. keep in mind that anytime

you cut finger joints with a saw blade ratherthan a dado set, you need to make sure your blade will leave a flat bottom in the kerf.i’m using freud’s industrial, flat grind rip blade, which is of high quality, but it’sstill affordable. i’ll link to it in the notes too. for variably spaced fingers, we have to cutone side at a time. we can’t stagger the workpieces like we would do with a regularbox joint; the â¼â€ section on one piece would overlap the â½â€ section on the otherpiece, it just wouldn’t work. if we were making a box, we could cut two of the foursides at once. as long as the layout on those two sides matched. but for the sake of thisdemo, we’ll just cut one piece.

at the top of my pattern that i originallymade for this jig, above all of the standard joint layouts, you’ll see marks for every1/8”, which is the width of my saw blade. i could just work from these marks, but i’mgoing to lay out a paper pattern specifically for this joint, so you can see how that’sdone, and then you can make your own patterns for other joints. i am attaching a strip ofpaper right over my pattern with double sided, leaving those little 1/8” marks visible.you could use a piece of masking tape instead of paper. but i like to save the pattern tore-use again later. just make sure your double-sided tape isn’t too strong so you can get itoff when you’ve finished. i use the cheap kind you get at office supply stores.

now, i’m going to use a fine point pen orpencil to lay out the joint. i’m starting about an inch from the end of the paper, andmaking a mark every 1/8”, using the scale marks above. my joint will have five 1/8”fingers, so i lay out five marks. from there i lay out the six â¼â€ fingers, and finallythe four â½â€ fingers. all of that adds up to 4-1/8”, which is the width of my stock.you can change the number or widths of the fingers if you like. just make sure it alladds up to the width of your stock. since i only cut every other finger on any giveside of the joint, i find it helpful to color in every other gap on my pattern. then onthe first half of the joint i’ll cut all of the dark spaces, and on the other halfi’ll cut all of the light spaces.

to set everything up, i release the quick-releaseand slide the carriage so that the cursor lines are just to the right of my patternlines; i engage the lead screw; and then i turn the crank to fine tune the start position.since i am just using a 1/8” wide blade, i only have to use the two cursor marks onthe right. if i was using a â¼â€ dado stack i would use three cursor lines, and so on.those represent both sides of my saw blade, so i can always see exactly where the kerfwill be in relation to my pattern marks. that will help me avoid cutting on the wrong sideof the lines. my starting position is when those two cursorsare right next to my first pattern line. then i’ll slip my workpiece into the carriage,placing its edge right against one of the

saw blade’s teeth. now i slide my fenceover and lock it in place next to the workpiece. this will keep the piece form getting nudgedout of place as the carriage moves it during the cut. and a clamp is always a good ideatoo. on this first half of the joint i am goingto cut all of the dark parts out of my pattern, one kerf at a time. to move the carriage betweencuts, i can either turn the crank, keeping an eye on my pattern, as the curser movesfrom line to line, or i can unlock the lead screw and move the carriage by hand. i amgoing to do it that way, because i don’t trust my eyes. so, i want to use the built-inincremental positioner feature to take the error out of it for me. every time i pushdown that handle, the interlocking threads

auto correct, nudging the cursor to the nearest1/8”. so, if i slide the carriage a little bit too far, the positioner will fix it forme. after i’ve cut the 1/8” dark areas, imove right into the â¼â€ ones. this is done the same way, except it will take two cutsfor every dark area. as long as i look at my two cursor lines as if they were the twosides of my saw blade, it’s easy to keep track of where to cut and when to stop. the half-inch fingers require four cuts tonibble out each dark area. a variably spaced joint like this can be a little tedious, butspecial joints always take a bit more work. if i was cutting a regular joint with allthe fingers the same size, i could put in

a dado set and cut it much faster. after i finish all of the dark spots on thepattern, i reset the cursor to the beginning, and put in my other workpiece, right againstthe tooth of the saw blade just as before. then i repeat the same process, only thistime i cut on the light areas of the pattern, working my way all the way across the joint.that’s all there is too it. if i was making a box, i would cut two of the sides at once,cutting on the dark spaces, then flip them end for end and do the same thing on the otherends. i’d repeat the same process on the other two side panels, only cutting the lightspaces on both ends.

now, when we released the plans for this jigon our website, i forgot to include the process for attaching a runner. it’s done the sameway as on a table saw sled. i made a video about that some time ago. i’ll put a linkto it below. the footage you see here is from that video, but the box joint jig works thesame way. you put a runner in your miter track, using washers beneath it so it’s up abovethe surface of your table saw top. put double sided tape on the runner. then, as you setyour jig onto the saw, keep the end flat against your table saw fence in the same way thati’m keeping the edge of table saw sled against the fence here. that will keep the jig squareto your saw blade as you place it on the runner. of course, you’ll want to set the fenceso that the jig will land in the right place

in relation to the saw blade. it’s not critical,but i set my fence 21-3/8” from the blade. that puts the kerf right about in the centerof the two inner support blocks. i only attached one runner to my jig, and i used screws tosecure it, not just the tape. there are a couple of other things you shouldkeep in mind as you build. for one thing, the toggle clamp can’t be allowed to movefrom side to side at all. that will introduce error into the joint. so, when i attachedthe brackets on either side, i made sure they were tight against the wood block on the toggleclamp. and i made sure the brackets themselves were secured so they wouldn’t move. i don’trecommend gluing them down, since you want to be able to make changes or adjustmentsdown the road. but use screws to keep them

in place. if the width of your fingers areinconsistent, it’s probably because this toggle clamp is loose. so, make sure it’ssecure. also, you want the carriage to move freelyso the incremental positioner can work. if you unlock the toggle clamp and the carriagedoesn’t slide really easily from side to side by hand, as you would expect a drawerto, then your slides are binding. use a combination square to be sure all four corners of thecarriage are the same height above the jig’s base panel. that will tell you if both slidesare on the same level, and if both are parallel to the base. and be sure that the distancebetween the slides is the same on both ends of the carriage so it isn’t pinching. ifyou built your jig carefully, these thigs

shouldn’t be an issue. but mistakes happen,so you can loosen the screws and shim the front or back of the jig body to align thecarriage if you have to. those adjustment screws are noted in the downloadable plansas well. finally, when you attach a pattern, whetherit’s the one included with the plans, or one you make yourself, you don’t have tofuss over its position. just place it so that when the carriage is slid all the way to theright, the cursors will be past the first mark on your pattern. it doesn’t reallymatter how much past the pattern, because you reset the cursor at the beginning of eachproject. you just want to make sure your cursor won’t start an inch into your pattern oranything like that.

i hope you have fun building and playing withthig jig. and i hope it inspires you to build more complex jigs and woodworking machines.i know i enjoy it. for more plans, check out the homemade tools section of stumpynubs.com,and while you’re there, subscriber to stumpy nubs woodworking journal, full of free tips,tricks, techniques and tutorials designed to make you a better woodworker. happy jigging!