I’m building a Central Valley truss bridge. Part of this project involves building those girders from two halves which I’ve managed to do successfully.
However, then you have to cut them to the correct length, and in some cases, create a but-joint to glue them together as one long girder (bottom of the side span for example).
In order for the but-joint to work, the ends of both pieces need to be absolutely square. I’ve tried sawing them with a razor saw to the best of my ability, but since these things are square, there always seems to be one side of the four that doesn’t line up.
Is there anyway I can build a jig or something to square off these ends?
I’ve tried hand filing them but once one side gets squared up, another side is now screwed up.
Atlas makes a nice miter box and saw for about $10.00 that should work. You could also take two boards and fasten them at right angles lengthwise. then after you cut your box girder hold it in the angle with your thumb and file or sand the end until straight.
If you don’t use the True Sander, you can improvise by using blocks of good clean wood. I save the maple/ birch scraps from jobs. One sanding block wrapped w/ fine wet or dry placed on a bench or other flat surface- slide another block along it’s edge. this sliding block with your stock will sand as near perfect a 90 degree square. minor adjustments or rotating the stock may be nec. Experiment w/ the # grit for the application. Also, for flat sanding any object I will place the sandpaper on the milled deck of a table saw and drag the item across. With doing stairs and cabinetry you are always having to improvise some odd sanding methods on the job site. Hope this helps.
Bob K.