Some counter top aids

[Cherryville Chuck]

Been busy doing some counter tops and there have been a few jigs I had to make to the job go better. The pieces have been long enough that I had to cut them to length with a circ saw. But it leaves a bit of a rough edge even when you are using an exact width cutting guide so I made an exact width trim jig for a router and used a spiral compression bit to trim the edges dead smooth. It's the same idea as the circ saw jig. You leave it a bit wide and cut off the extra with with the first pass of the router. That way you don't need to measure an offset every time, which is usually not totally reliable anyway.

The other jig is to sand the edges perfectly smooth. For that I take a scrap of 3/4" mdf and screw a straight piece of 2 x 4 to it. I rip the edge of the 2 by square first to get rid of the rounded edges. Then I glue some 80 grit sandpaper to the edge of the 2 by. I always use fish glue because it's water soluble and makes it easy to replace if I need to. The scrap is wide enough that it stays flat on the top surface of the top and the 2 by is dead on 90* to the top so it stays square and it's long enough that it works like a jointer plane does. Every surface is hard so it doesn't round edges like other type sanders do. The handle I think can off a grout float or trowel of some kind. I don't throw them away if I'm able to reuse them.