Somebody posted a formula that confused me so much that I gave up the idea of doing French cleats but you have restored my faith. You were clear and straight to the point. I’m a 62 grandmother that likes to do simple woodworking projects around my home and guy just elevated my skill set. Thank you.
Two years later, you're still helping out new woodworkers not feel like absolute nincompoops. Thanks for putting out an excellent guide for folks like me!
I have search for a method of getting 2 equal width cleats with out all the scrap left from cutting to size. It seems that most if not all wood workers on RU-vid go by the mantra that knowledge is power. Thanks Adam for sharing the power.
Thank you! I really needed that. I must admit I make things tuff. I'll not tell you how many times I computed this and got it wrong. But here it is for you folks that like numbers. I'm working with a 6" piece of 3/4" ply and a 1/8" kerf blade. I want to cut this into 2 equal halves at 45°. 6" / 2 - 3/8" - 1/16" = 2-9/16" setting on my rip fence. 1/16 of half the kerf 3/8" is half the thickness of the ply. WOW! 34.5k views??!! now I don't feel so bad.
FINALLY! THANK YOU, ADAM! I have never made a RU-vid video, and I appreciate the time and effort required to produce one. So, at the risk of sounding ungrateful, how can any of the 100's of videos on cutting a French cleat not include a how to cut on the 45 to produce two equally sized pieces?! Adam, again, Thank you! God Bless you!
Adam...I cut my 3/4 ply today, following your suggestion...it worked perfect. After I had my plywood ripped to 5" wide strips, making most cuts with a hand held power saw and fence, I wanted to rip the 45's on my table saw. For accuracy I set the fence on the right side side of the blade to allow it to strike the middle of the measured line, and I rigged a fence of 3/4 ply on the left side of the blade to keep the 5" strips in place and not allow them to wander. Since the 5" strips were 8' long and I was by myself, I realized that I could use my Little Giant step ladder with the adjustable feet to rest the back half of the boards at the exact proper height. This allowed me to be closer to the blade to start with and have a nice steady even movement of the boards through the blade and onto my outfeed table. thanks again for your video and the easy calculations.
Wow, this is awesome! The mark of a good woodworker in my opinion, using all resources available to you to get the desired result, very impressive! You're quite welcome, I'm super stoked the video was so helpful!
This video is vital. Absolutely no one on any other channel explains how to do this. I even asked one guy how in the comments section, but I never heard from him nor from any other viewers. THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart!
Yes a beginning carpenter here... Was very confused... Now that your planned I may have success... Just got rained out, will get back to the planter project as soon as I can.... Thanks so much!!
This video was very helpful. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about a project I’m working on. I had a thought that if I could cut two equal pieces with a 45 degree cut it would make the job so much easier. Than i rolled and tossed trying to figure out how to do it. Found your video and it is quite easy when you know how. Thank you.
Thanks for the tip on making a 45 deg center cut. I was sorry to see you working with your wedding ring on. When I was a teen my neighbor lost his finger to that mistake. I helped clean up his shop, I'll never forget the mess.
I'm new at woodworking and was doing this today and could not figure out how to make two equal parts. Thank you so much for making this video to show how simple it is. Ready to try it out tomorrow.
Glad to help! I’ve had questions about other angles, so I’ll probably do another comprehensive video of different angles as well in the future. Thanks for watching.
Is this some big secret in the woodworking industry? Not a single woodworking professional has showed it. I'll admit it, I had not a clue how to do this until this video. Thank you. Have to also add I would rather not watch a youtuber that is so off the wall with antics and and jumping and yelling as if woodworking is like leaping into a mosh pit at a rock concert. Slow and steady wins the race and appreciate the way you make your video's. For that one thing alone, you get my vote and my subscription.
You’re welcome! Glad this is helping folks out! Be forewarned that my earlier videos are kinda cheesy may still be entertaining nonetheless. Thank you for watching!
Thank you very much. I have a Dewalt contractor saw and have not built an infeed table. So as an alternate I cut my cleats to 4 inches with a Kref Rip Cut. I used my speed square and marked the 45° cut that matched the table blade saw angle. Then I cut the the angle. I will definitely build that infeed table.
What if you wanted to make a higher degree cut? So the spinning blade would be even closer to the long plane of the board. I have something like a 1 x 8 that I want to cut on its full length so that when it sits flat, any water that gets on it rolls downhill.
Thank you Adam thats exactly what im looking for .. its hard to cut identical pieces at 45d without a table saw i use a circular saw and its off every time .. definitely ill need a table saw in my workshop
Great! Happy to help! So did you figure it out with the circular saw? You would just need to line up the blade to the cut line and with the saw base edge I assume. You could clamp a wooden fence too. Thanks for watching!
Thank you! Yes you could if it’s a shorter piece. I wouldn’t try cutting anything narrow as your hand is too close to the blade, you would want to cut from a larger piece and most miter saws will only do 12” long depending on your saw. Hope that helps.
Your method is great, but I'm to lazy to pull my miter gage off my saw if my speed square is handy. I appreciate your comments as we learn from each other. Good video!
yes the 1st one would be nicer if you used metric like most of the world, but you saved me with the second "no math inch to mm conversion just angles" method thumbs up :)
How is the wall board dimension? what is the width of the narrow side and what is the width of the wider side? and what distances between the battens on the wall?
The plywood you used was 1/2 inch thick and the offset was 1/4 inch. This changes for 3/4 inch plywood? The offset would be 3/8 inch, right? For 1 inch think wood the offset would be 1/2 inch and so forth?
A much easier tool to use for doing the "X method" is your combination square or a speed square. On the "math method", one COULD also simply add 1/2 the blade thickness to the offset rather than trying to hit the center of the line. For the common 1/8" thick blade, that would mean adding another 1/16" to the offset. Me, I would simply aim for "close", and then, with the pointy end against the fence and the blade back to 90, trim ALL of the cleats to exactly the same width. Takes a little bit longer, makes a bit more sawdust, but not as fussy. Great video.
@@WorkingTimbersCo I picked up the Bosch GCL 2-55. I don't think that getting the wall plank level is going to be an issue. I am mounting several 2'x4'x6" acoustic panels and am a little concerned about the cleat that is going to be screwed to the back of said panel. Especially, given the fact that some panels may be mounted next to each other with only inches or up to a foot separating them. Sorry about the super long reply by the way!
No worries at all. I’m trying to visualize what you are explaining. So your dilemma is getting the cleats level with respect to the acoustic panels or not having enough room to determine level? Message me on IG too maybe you can send a photo.
old lady here, so a tad slow.... is the offset then equivalent to half of any board thickness. You were using 1/2" so your offset was 1/4". Suppose I had a board 1" thick. Would the offset then be 1/2", not the quarter?
Now worries! You got it! As long as you are doing 45 degrees the answer is yes. Offset of 1/2” if using 1” thick. If the angle changes, it all changes. Make sure and run a test piece through anytime you are trying this and then confirm the results. Thanks for watching! Let me know how it goes.
@@WorkingTimbersCo thanks so much for the quick reply. I'm setting up french cleats in my shop and without a table saw I am using the circular saw. Will let you know how I did.
An easy way to do it at a 45 degree angle using math is: Devide the piece in half and then subtract half of the thickness to that measurement and viola!. Example: Piece width is 6" and is 1" thick. Half of 6 is 3 Half of 1 is.5 3 minus .5 is 2.5. If you set your tablesaw to cut 2.5" then the pieces will be identical. Don't worry about the blade kerf unless you need a very specific measurement in which case you have to start with a piece that is a blade kerf wider. Referencing the example above, i stead of starting with a 6" wide board, start with a 6 1/8" board.
I'm new to woodworking and about to purchase my first table saw I just have a dumb question: Could I set my blade to 45 degrees and adjust the fence to where it acts as a 'stop block'. Since the fence and blade is set, couldn't I make repeatable 45 degree cleat strips everytime, or do I always have to keep measuring the middle with a guage/square/pencil? I'd be using the gripper push block since I heard making cuts with the fence is dangerous. I'm trying to understand, sorry.
You can certainly try to eye ball it if you are cutting pieces in half. It’s not as easy as it sounds though just using the fence and blade. Remember that the pieces will be opposites of each other after the cut and the blade will eliminate some of the width of the piece. Hope that helps.
@@WorkingTimbersCo Thanks, it makes sense now. Would you recommend the Dewalt 7485 or the Dewalt 7491rs table saw? I wonder if the 8 1/4 is sufficient for woodworking or having the 10 inch is more better in the long run.
Personally my next saw will have a very wide cutting width because I’ve had to work around not having the width I need on my current hand me down saw 😁 so I’d go with the 10” if it were me.
4:38 For some reason (my fault, not yours) I kept trying to use your formula to solve for the numeric setting on my table saw fence. After producing 4 or 5 failures, I figured out that the measurement on the fence didn’t matter. What matters is-once the offset bisect angle has been marked on the end, focus all effort on the saw tooth hitting that line dead center. THEN, tighten the fence and don’t even look at the measurement window. It also helps to know that these markings are on the LEADING edge of the stock being cut and that the offset needs to be to the right of the center mark (as you view it from the infeed side of the table saw. This will orient the cut line to correspond with a table saw that does NOT have a compound mitre capability and only tilts to the left.
Thanks for that advice. Its exactly what I was trying to get my head around the other day, now I've bought my first table saw! Now I'm trying to understand is it better to have your 'cut off' piece between fence and blade, or the other way around? Or can it be either way, decided by size of material/cut off. Hmm... Learning all the time.
Glad the video is proving useful to some folks out there! Congrats on the table saw purchase! I make my cuts with the work piece(the piece assigned to the project) between the blade and the fence and the forward, downward and inward pressure against the fence. The off cut side should be free of any pressure against the blade for safe and accurate cuts. Just so happens that the cut I made here, the off-cut also resulted in a second work piece but the piece against fence should always have the pressure on it. Hope that helps! Thanks for watching!
@@WorkingTimbersCo Thanks very much. Really helped. I've also got myself the Microjig Gripper, so can't wait to put that to use, and assist me with pressure/control where needed!!
What are you using as a fence to make cuts? If you have your mark set and you can cut straight, should work the same but ripping small narrow pieces isn’t recommended with a circular saw where the blade and saw are moving instead of the work piece. You can’t see the piece usually
Thanks new subscriber!! Can you make a video on how to mate longer sheets of wood at different angles? I make sub boxes and have a build coming up where the trunk isn’t flat (1987 Monte Carlo) and I don’t know how to mate the three different angles. Would be highly appreciated!! Thank you!!
If you are going to be regularly ripping cleats, once you have gotten the fence set correctly, draw a line along it. Then place a strip of tape along the line. Label the tape for the size of stock that it is for and save yourself a lot of repetitive work.
Appreciate the suggestion! The only down side is if you use your fence at a width wider than the tape mark then the stock will sit on top of the tape and lift it up slightly. Probably not significant enough to cause issues on one piece but if you cut pieces for joinery I could see it compounding the slight miter and creating gaps. Excellent idea for cutting all your cleats at once though! Thank you!
yup! i did trial and error on a scrap piece, moving the fence about 4 times and remeasuring. this was much faster, simpler, cleaner. i wonder if there's some sort of mathematical equation that helps putting the saw fence quickly and consistently. if a piece is 6 inches, y=6/2-(1/4") or something.
This was very helpful as I'm a newbie woodworker and just putting a workspace together. I must say on a side note and I just want to bring this to your attention, You seem to be a guy who is very perfection oriented with all the Woodpecker tools you have on the wall, and your investment in Maple plywood and french cleat system. Your table saw needs attention, I am by no means a master carpenter but you are missing a blade guard, a riving knife, and the gap between the blade and the insert seems excessively large and I think it invites a potential safety hazard. For a guy who invests a lot of money in good tools, I think it would be wise to invest in safety on the most dangerous tool in the workshop. Just a friendly suggestion not trying to criticize.
David! Could not agree more on that table saw! Was my Dad’s. Hand me down. I’ve just been living with it for now Trying to be extra careful. I’ll hopefully have a SawStop soon. Glad the demo helped some, thank you! 🙏
