TAPER SANDER JIG
Having Long back tapers on shafts are well known to enhance the performance of wooden arrows.
About Some In Depth Testing
Many commercial shaft manufacturers, including ourselves, offer back tapering as a service.
However, one of the greatest attractions to this passion of ours, is generating our own independence, building our own tools and jigs, and taking ownership of as much of the building process as we can.
In our factory, we use our own semiautomatic, custom-designed taper machines to maintain a reasonable level of productivity within very tight tolerances. This taper jig here will not be as fast, but it is very accurate, infinitely adjustable, and costs only pennies on the dollar compared to our custom-made beasts!
Now, obviously, the materials in this jig can be upgraded, hardwoods utilised, fancier fittings, etc. However, the concept behind this tutorial is to offer an economical and easily constructed jig made from readily obtainable materials. Or if you are lucky enough to have odds and ends lying around your shop, then this may give you the opportunity to construct this jig with no or very little cost!
Happy building!
Materials Required:
1 x 8′ length of 2×4 or 4 x pieces 16″ long
10″ x 20″ piece of 1/2″ thick plywood
4″x 36″ sanding belt- 60 Gr is a good start
4 x 1″ x 1/4″ bolts
4 x 3″ x 1/4″ bolts
5/16″ drill bit
8 x 1/4″ T nuts ( with the spikes on)
1 tin of cat food- cat optional extra!
STEP ONE
STEP THREE
STEP TWO
Split the sanding belt in half.
Start a cut from the fabric side of the belt with a sharp knife.
Split the belt by hand carefully and slowly. The belt will tear square, but try not to pull against the lineal threads of the belt.
STEP TWO
STEP THREE
STEP TWO
Rip the 2×4’s into a 2″ wide piece. S that you now have a piece that is 1.5″ thick and 2″ high.
Cut the length into 4 x 15 1/2″ long pieces.
STEP THREE
STEP THREE
STEP THREE
I used a cat food tin with a diameter of about 2 1/2″. This diameter is not absolutely critical, but I found that diameter worked about the best.
Mark the radii on all the ends, on the 1 1/2″ side.
Cut and finish the marked radii.
A bandsaw and a bench sander are ideal, but a hand saw, and a good rasp will do the job just as well.
Try to keep everything nice and square.
STEP FOUR
STEP FOUR
STEP THREE
Now, make two centred marks 3″ from either end on the 2″ wide sides. Do this only on 2 of the 4 pieces.
Drill 5/16″ holes on those marks. DO NOT go right through the wood, but rather only drill about 3/4″ deep.
Put a T nut in each of the holes.
T nuts can be pressed in with a bench vice or can simply be tapped in with a smooth-faced hammer.
STEP FIVE
STEP FOUR
STEP FIVE
Thread a 1″ bolt into the T nuts. Mate this wooden piece up with one of the two pieces of wood that don’t have T nuts inserted.
Place the two pieces of wood on a flat surface and slip the sanding belt over the two parallel wood pieces.
Turn the bolts out so that they push the pieces apart from each other and, in turn, snug up the sanding be
Thread a 1″ bolt into the T nuts. Mate this wooden piece up with one of the two pieces of wood that don’t have T nuts inserted.
Place the two pieces of wood on a flat surface and slip the sanding belt over the two parallel wood pieces.
Turn the bolts out so that they push the pieces apart from each other and, in turn, snug up the sanding belt.
It's not too tight, just snug enough! You do not need to crank the bolt heads into the
opposing piece of wood, but you do want the belt tight and everything nice and square!
You should now have two of these completed "sanding platens".
STEP SIX
STEP FOUR
STEP FIVE
Make 4 “retainer tabs”, and drill a 5/16″ hole in each one.
You can simply just rip a piece off of the leftover 2×4. Make the tabs 1 1/2″ wide, 4″ long and about 1/4″ thick.
FINAL STEP
Now, simply assemble the unit!
Well done, now you can get started with tapering your own shafts!
Using your tapper jig
Set up your” Taper rate” using two scrap pieces of appropriately sized pieces of wood. You can either use two dowels or simply cut two slats of scrap wood to the desired thickness.
One of them is the size of the shafts, and the other is the desired finished end of the taper.
I like to leave the small piece clamped within the jig as an end stop.
If the end piece is too thin, add a layer or two of masking tape; if it's too thick, a little sanding will fix that.
You will need to run a few scrap dowels into the jig to make sure that you have everything set up right before you run a premium-grade shaft into it.
Feel free to call us; we can send you free CULL shafts that are perfect for this use!!
I have found the simplest and most economical way to attach the dowel to the drill is to wrap the last 3/4″ of the dowel in a piece of masking tape that ends up being about 5 layers thick.
Put this end directly in the chuck and tighten it so that the Jaws press firmly into the masking tape wrap.
The masking tape provides grip for the jaws and helps prevent the dowel from being severely damaged.
You can reuse the same piece of masking tape for 4 shafts quite easily.
TIP: leave a small folded tap on the end of the tape, it will make it a lot easier to remove and reuse the tape!
Set your drill for max RPM, and start to feed it slowly into the jig. High RPM and slow feed rate are the secrets to a good finish.
If the dowel stops spinning and jambs into the jig, you were simply either feeding it too fast, or didn’t have the drill chuck tightened securely enough!
Usually, a feed rate that is too high will cause the majority of the jambs!!
I like to hold the drill with one hand and then support and guide the shaft with my other hand. With my support hand right at the point where the dowel enters the jig. That is, in fact, the reason for the jig’s platform extending out the front a bit.
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