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A guy at the lumber yard in Tacoma said stop buying plywood for shop jigs, and I owe him a beer
Three years back I was burning through 3/4 inch plywood like crazy for my crosscut sled and dado jigs, probably $60 a sheet every couple weeks. An old timer at the counter in Tacoma looked at my cart and said just use MDF and seal the edges with shellac. I smiled and nodded and bought my plywood anyway. Fast forward 8 months, my sled warped so bad from humidity that my cuts were off by a fat 1/16 inch on every cabinet door. Swallowed my pride, tried his MDF trick with two coats of shellac on the edges, and that sled has stayed dead flat for over 2 years now. Cost me $22 a sheet and cuts truer than anything I built with ply. Any of you still fighting warp on your jigs, or did somebody set you straight too?
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taylor_hayes2512d ago
That part about being off by a fat 1/16 on every door really stuck with me, because that's the kind of thing you can't see until you're hanging cabinets and nothing lines up. I'm curious about the shellac step though. Did you do the edges before or after you glued and screwed the sled together, and does it matter which shellac you use? I've got a can of clear Zinsser sitting on the shelf and I don't want to waste a sheet of MDF figuring out the hard way. Also wondering if you sealed the faces at all or just the edges, since I'd guess the top and bottom breathe different than the cut sides.
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