Like many others I used a drill press vice set-up for years, but like others, I find that from key to key there are variances in the squareness of the key. Shimming one side or the other became an "every-other-key" endeavor. Big time-waster. I made a different clamping mechanism which works better. I took a bolt and sharpened the end to a point, ran it through a block of wood and mounted it to a small platform. The key rests on the platform, (which has a stop at the front) and the point of the bolt contacts the side of the key in the center of the head of the key. To hold it in place, I mounted a piston style toggle clamp with another sharpened end. Hold the key down to the sled securely, clamp with the piston. The points penetrate the sides of the head of the key, forcing it to stay flat on the sled. The amount of penetration is minimal, and only leaves a couple dimples. This has worked quite a bit better for me. I've used the genesis jig before, but it did not clamp the keys squarely. The mechanism tended to tilt the keys. I've thought now (after selling it) that I could modify it to make a couple points and it would work better, but....... At any rate, I'm still not satisfied. My primary objective is to keep the key bottom flat on the sled. The sides of the keys are not an accurate reference to squareness from one key to the next, and therefore generally don't make a good clamping surface, IMO. Does anyone freehand the keys under the Safe-T-Planer, just holding them to the drill press table with hand pressure? Attached a photo of my clamping set-up. William R. Monroe On Fri, Dec 7, 2012 at 6:11 AM, Jon Page <jonpage at comcast.net> wrote: > I use an end cutting router bit in a drill press and the key is held in a > drill press vise. The key is passed under the bit and a fence stops the cut > at the back of the new keytop thus producing a square fit. Setup can take a > little time to get the top square to the sides but well worth the effort. > > -- > Regards, > > Jon Page > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20121207/60fb4caa/attachment-0001.htm> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: IMG_8778.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 139409 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20121207/60fb4caa/attachment-0001.jpeg>
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