Cobbled together out of scrap plywood, the jig shown in the drawing makes it easy to fit stair treads between a pair of walls or skirtboards. To use the jig, loosen the wing nuts and lay it across the tread cuts of the stair stringers, with its back tight against the riser cuts. Then extend the legs so that they’re snug against the walls or skirtboards and tighten all the nuts. Remove the jig carefully, place it onto the tread stock and scribe the end cuts on the stock. When cutting, leave just a trace of the cutline for a perfect fit.
—Robert Plourde, Atlanta, GA
Edited and illustrated by Charles Miller
From Fine Homebuilding #78
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Great jig!
I'll see that jig, and raise it!
FHB published and paid me for my shooterboard version: simpler, with no routed channels, the two 1x1 telescoping legs simply slip through a short length of rectangular aluminum tubing, and are clamped in place by a setscrew.
No tracing with a pencil, then frehanding the cut. You just set the jig on the tread, set your saw on the shooter board ends, and cut.
Voila! Fini.
They republish my tip from time to time...
My tip is still there. Buried back in FHB #173, but it's still there:
Nice approach, HK. As much as possible, you're taking the human factor out of the operation and that's a good thing.
I recommend reading John Carroll's "Working Alone" and Gary Streigler's articles on routers for a good understanding of the advantages of making jigs. Almost every time you're going to do something more than 3 or 4 times, it pays to make a jig to guide your tools. Likewise when it has to be accurate and even more so if you have to be repetitively accurate.
Thanks, Bobbo,
I've got Carroll's book. My kind of guy! I adopted his 100" stick trick, and it has helped me install crown solo, among other things.
The cover pic has him using a C-clamp as a handle to haul a sheet of ply up a ladder. I've also used the tin-knocker's trick of welding a lift eye onto a pair of Vise Grips to haul stuff up with a rope. Run the rope down from the roof, through the eye and back up, and you've just gained a 2:1 advantage if you need it.