Micro Jig MJ
Splitter
I found this great little product at the woodworking
show in Kansas City. It is from Micro Jig. They are the same folks that make the
Gripper. If you run zero clearance inserts that are wood or plastic and don't
use a splitter I would highly recommend that you give this product a try.
They are available for $14.95 in kit form. The kit includes a drilling
guide, the necessary drill bit, the screws to attach the guide to the setup
board and 2 different splitters. Each splitter offers a different offset
depending on which side is mounted toward the fence ranging from zero to .009 to
the right of the blade. That way you can fine tune the setup to act like a mini
feather board holding the stock tightly against the fence after the blade. I did
some test cuts and decided to leave mine in the zero position for now, but I
will continue to experiment as I go along.
I bought a couple of new zero
clearance inserts from Woodline at the show(just $10 each by the way!!). I'll
show the installation process on one of these, but you could make your own zero
clearance insert from wood if you prefer. I drilled a couple of 7/8" holes in
the insert with a forsner bit in my drill press to give me a place to stick my
fingers to get the insert out of the saw and to provide a bit of dust
collection.
I
installed the insert in the saw, leveled it with the adjusting screws and raised
the blade through he insert until it was as high as it will go. The fence was
placed over the edge of the insert and locked in place to insure the new insert
would not be lifted out of the saw during this operation.
The
drilling jig has to be mounted on a setup board. The instructions suggest using
1/2" mdf, but I didn't have any so I just used a scrap piece of 1/2" baltic
birch plywood left over from some drawers. The setup board is cut 4 1/8" wide X
15" long.
A pencil line is marked 3" from one end and the fence is set
to 2". Run the blade through the setup board stopping at the line. Turn off the
saw and when the blade is stopped you can remove the board. Fit the drill guide
in the kerfed end of the setup board and attach with the included screws. It
will look like this when you are done.
The saw should be unplugged
for safety from this point on during the splitter mounting
process!!!
The setup board is then filpped around and placed over
the blade. The blade should be all the way up.
Here is how that should
look.
Make sure the carbide on the
blade is fully engaged in the drilling guide.
Clamp the guide in place. Drill
the 3 splitter mounting holes using the drill guide holes and the supplied drill
bit. Unclamp the guide and that's about it!!
Here is the insert with the
holes drilled. You can see here how the splitter mounts.
And here is the setup ready to
safely cut some wood. The splitter can be installed and removed in about 2
seconds, The two different splitters are marked with none, one, two or three
plus signs. These denote how much offset each side of the splitters have.
Experiment and choose which one suits your needs the best.
I drilled a hole in the setup
board so I could hang it on the wall. The drill bit and the extra splitter store
right on the drill guide.
This is one neat setup. There is simply no excuse for not
running a splitter when it as as easy and cheap as this. I have no idea what
kind of plastic the MJ splitter is made from but it seems super tough. It comes
with a 1 year warranty and my gut feeling is that they should last for years.
Well worth $15 in my book.
The Micro Jig Website
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