Roughing in the Bevel

In this series of photos the split strips are being planed into a rough set of 60 degree strips with no taper. Pic 1: Squaring up the strips. Pic 2: The roughing form for the first cut. This form has a bevel configured to cut the first 60 degree angle from a 90 degree square strip with one pass through the planer. The strip is layed in the form and run through the planer form and all. The planer pulls the form through and takes a thin cut off the strip above the surface of the form. Pic 3: The roughing form for the second cut and two final tune up cuts. This form has a 60 degree bevel. The 60 degree point from the first cut is placed into the bevel of the form for the second cut. The second cut produces a very rough 60 on all three points of the strips. Two more passes flipping the strip each time tunes the 60s up to a reasonable starting point for the next step. It takes a total of four passes through the planer to rough in the strips.

Here's a tip for any rod makers that might be reading this. You can't do this with just any planer. The planers that leave absolutely no chips behind probably won't work because of the vacum effect on the strip between the drive rollers. The vacum will suck the strip up off the form and into the cutter and make a big mess. This is probably best done with a cheap planer with no chip vacum at all. I have a shop vac hooked to this one. That doesn't seem to create a problem at this point. I probably won't use the shop vac when I cut the taper in the strips later. The strips will be smaller at that point and might be prone to lift off the form.