The Week of Carpentry

 

The completed loop of track

Fred posing with his 4-ft loop of roadbed

Fred Hutchinson was back at my shop to make road bed sections for G scale layouts for under a Christmas Tree. The road bed is an oval with 4 quadrants. The quadrants were precision machined using a CNC router. G scale track fits perfectly in the slot on the top. 

Disassembled kit ready for storage

My job was to drill domino holes in the ends so the  4 quadrants could be assembled into a loop. Fred is using Festool knock down connectors so that the loop can be disassembled after Christmas and stored with the rest of your decorations. Fred will be offering these for sale if you want one. Contact him for more info at fred@fhhutchison.com.

I don’t have any G scale equipment but I know a little granddaughter who might like to have G scale trains going around her Christmas tree.

Later that week I worked on a fixture for my miter saw that would allow me to safely cut small parts. I did some research and used a design based on this 

video, but made a few modifications to better fit my saw. The clamps holds the small pieces safely.  I included a moveable stop for repeat cuts.  I laser engraved a scale on both sides. 

It seems to work great and cuts nice and square. My saw has a depth limiter to prevent my cutting all the way through the fixture.

I plan to add a angle adapter to the right side to allow cutting oddball angles, especially bench work pieces on sharp angles. That is why I added the second track on the base.