Shop-Made Shims
George VondriskaIf you routinely use shims in your shop or on your DIY projects, stop running to the home center to buy them. You can make shims in your shop using your table saw and a really simple shop-made jig. This video gives you all the dimensions you need to build the jig. When it comes to blade selection, a 40-tooth ATB works really well for this process.
Most commercially made shims are pine. A nice benefit to making your own shims is that you can use any material you want. A hardwood shim often works better than a softwood shim, giving the project more support. You can also make your shims from a variety of thicknesses, giving you a lot of shim options. All those short offcuts that you’ve set aside for “someday” can finally get put to use.
Shims are just for wedging things into the right spot. Jimmy Diresta has a great sanding tip that uses shims. Check it out.
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4 Responses to “Shop-Made Shims”
You had a woodworking shop. Why would you not make your own wood shims. Shims are a generally useful thing to have around. Certainly. If you're ever installing cabinets, you need shims to install them.
And even just in general in the shop, I find I'm using the all the time. If you saw the video when Jimmy Dre was here, he was using these as a sanding block to get into really tight spots. So lots of applications for them and you can very easily make them yourself. You just need this little slut. Here's the deal with making your slut.
Three quarter inch plywood works well for this. You need to cut it to a width that you can easily remember. I made this 10 inches wide and it's also then 12 inches long. The layout that we need in order to be able to make a sh is on this bottom corner. I'm measuring over 5/16 of an inch mega mark from that same bottom corner.
I'm measuring up nine inches, make a mark 5/16 over nine inches up. Connect the dots. We need to cut that angle away. That's what creates the angle. The taper in the shims.
When we start cutting, I'm gonna go do that on the band saw. Then I'll come right back and I'll show you what else you need to do in order to finish this baby up after you've cut this. Now, keep in mind we're not making fine furniture here. We're making a jig for cutting shims. You don't have to go crazy sending your band saw marks off.
But you do want this to be a straight line. So I gave that just a little kiss on my belt sander to knock those marks off. Then what you need to do is glue a foot on here. That's another piece of three quarter inch plywood. Then you need to glue a handle on here.
So this needs to angle a little bit toward the fence like this one. And I find that's a good, easy way to keep pressure going toward the riff fence as you're using the jig. Now, there are some parameters that then when you come to the saw, it's gonna be best if you remind yourself of. So I'm gonna write on here. So at 10 inches because that's this width blanks nine inches long.
So that way, every time you grab the jig, you've got a constant reminder there of what you need to do in order to use the taper gut. So again, let's walk through this little bit of assembly, you're gonna glue a foot on the base that catches the sham, you're gonna glue a handle on. It doesn't have to be a beautiful sped maple, but it could be, you're gonna glue a handle on with a little bit of an angle in this direction that helps keep that nice and tight to the rip fence. You're gonna cut your blanks at nine inches. So just like you saw, we're gonna very easily be able to make shims.
Now, part of the deal with using this is watch for the flip. I'm gonna grab a fresh piece of this so that I have a nice wide one. So watch, I'm gonna rip flip, rip, flip, rip flip. Wait, the wider the chunk is you're starting with. The more efficient this will be, I don't want to keep going with this piece now because it's just getting too narrow for me to be comfortable handling that.
So starting with a two by eight, even a two by 10, 2 by 12, that's going to give you like a year supply probably of shims for your shop. Simple jig, very handy to have and a great way to make sure that you're never shim free in your shop.
Why not use a little trigonometry calculate and cut the angle of the plywood base using the table saw miter gauge? Also, to add some safety, cut a piece of plywood similar to the base with a foot and a handle on it to push the shim stock through and keep your fingers away from the saw blade.
I am amazed that you still have all your fingers. In this video, you are pushing a block toward the blade, fingers within an inch of the blade, multiple times, while a pushblock is visible on the table less than a food away. My wife screams and threatens to cut the cord off my saw if I do anything half this dumb. I was sensitized to the safety issues in your videos a few days ago when the other guy was pushing a workpiece into the bandsaw with the blade guide about 6 inches above the workpiece and his hand only a few inches away. I always lower the guide to less than a finger's height above the work, not only to guarantee that I can only cut a fingertip instead of cutting off an entire finger, but it also improves the accuracy of the cut. By the way, I like the idea of a simple taper-cutting jig like you showed. It is much more accurate and safe than eyeballing a slice off the edge of a scrap as I have been known to do.
HIand too close to the blade
If you already have a shim, which most shops do, why wouldn't you use that shim to cut the angle on the board? Attach the shim to the base (standing like it was cut in the demo), place the shim against the fence, cut the base on the table saw, remove the shim, rotate the base 180 degrees, and continue with adding the stop, the handle, etc.