How to Make a V-Block on the Table Saw
George VondriskaA V-block is a must-have shop-made jig, especially for safely cutting round stock on the bandsaw. The easiest way to make one? Use a two-cut set up on the table saw and it’ll be V for victory.
A V-block is a very handy thing to have in your shop. Handful of places that I use stuff like this, one is if you need to cut round stock, for instance, you want to cut it on the bandsaw if you just hold a round stock on a bandsaw table when the blade contacts it, sometimes it rolls. That's very dangerous. If we mount the round stock in a V-block like this, we can more safely cut it. We can also cut it this way, if you need to slit the round stack.
Additionally, when I do turning, I'll take a block like this to the bandsaw, make a cut, make a cut and that creates soft curves for my spur center to go into. So, in general, a useful thing to have. Here's how you make this on your table saw. First we're gonna start with a block of wood that probably comes as no surprise. I've got my table saw blade set to 45 degrees.
Now, the block I have here is two and a half inches wide and about an inch and a quarter thick. What I'm gonna do to start with is set my fence to 387 inch and three eights away from the blade. There's a little bit of trial and error here. That being, how high should the blade be so that when the cut is complete, it meets in the point of that V and the answer is, I don't know, usually what I do when I'm making V-blocks, I start with the blade in a position where it looks like it's probably too low and then I'll make a couple of cuts and we can raise the blade to finish the cut if we need to. So let's start with the blade in this position, we'll see where we end up.
Now checking out what happened there. We did not meet in the middle, so I need to raise the blade just a little bit more, easy for me to say, we'll repeat that process until we get that V to come out of the center. Now, I actually need to do one more cut. If you look at this real closely, there's just a little spot right in the tip of that V that's a little bit proud. Look at my other block, this is more of the way I want it on this one, you can see that each cut slightly overlapped the other one, in other words, I want to raise the blade to a point where it goes beyond the point of the V by just a little bit.
So let me raise the blade. We'll do one more and it's gonna be just right. Yeah, this is the result we want where each curve goes slightly past the other curve just by a tiny, tiny bit. That's gonna make it easier for our parts to nest into that V-block. Once you're set up to do this on the table saw, my recommendation is to go ahead and make three or four or five of these things so that you have 'em.
There'll be occasions where maybe you cut into 'em or you drill into 'em and if you've got spares on hand, you won't have to run back and make a bunch more right away. So V-block, easy to produce on the table saw and just a generally useful thing to have in the shop.
I cut my V block and my waste came shooting out right at me. The block turned out perfect but scared me.
Great video. Thanks for sharing.
I've had great luck eyeballing off lines for decades. Any reason you didn't draw lines to follow? As to the last cut, a straight up cut could have worked if you were pushing the limit of thickness. No?
My Triton 2000 Table saw cannot cut 45deg angle how now
You don't need even elementary trigonometry to determine the require blade height. If you want the cuts to start 3/8 inch from the edge of the block, simply subtract that distance twice from the block's width. That gives you the length of the base of the isosceles block you're cutting out, which is twice the height you want. (An isosceles triangle divides into two right triangles, and because you're cutting at 45 degrees, the height and the base of the right triangles are equal.) It's a lot easier and quicker to do the math than it is do describe it. (Thank goodness!) (width of block - twice the distance from edge) / 2 = blade height (2.5 - 6/8) / 2 = 0.875 = 7/8 inch This provides a quick check to see whether your block is thick enough to accommodate the cuts without trial and error ruining an otherwise perfectly good block of hardwood.
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