The following plans are for building an edging jig for your table saw. As a woodworker, ensuring straight edges when gluing two boards edge to edge is crucial for achieving a strong, seamless joint and maintaining the overall quality of your project. Here are a few of the primary benefits of ensuring you have straight edges:

1. Ensures a Tight, Gap-Free Joint
   • Straight edges allow the boards to sit flush against one another, eliminating gaps. Any gaps between the boards can weaken the joint, as glue bonds best when there is maximum surface contact. Additionally, gaps can make the joint visually unappealing, especially if the boards are part of a finished surface like a tabletop.
2. Strength and Stability
   • A tight, well-aligned edge-to-edge joint creates a strong bond, essential for the durability of your project. Straight edges distribute the adhesive evenly, reducing the risk of weak spots. Uneven edges can cause stress points that may fail over time, especially under pressure or weight.
3. Prevents Warping or Misalignment
   • When boards with uneven edges are glued, the joint may pull unevenly during clamping, leading to misalignment. This can result in a warped or uneven surface, requiring additional sanding or planing to correct—if it can be corrected at all.
4. Enhances the Aesthetic Appeal
   • Straight edges contribute to a seamless, professional-looking finish. A well-joined edge-to-edge glue-up will be nearly invisible, which is especially important for projects like tabletops, panels, or decorative furniture where appearance matters.
5. Simplifies the Glue-Up Process
   • Straight edges make clamping easier and more effective. When edges align properly, clamps can apply even pressure across the joint, ensuring a solid bond. Uneven edges, on the other hand, can create challenges during clamping, requiring extra effort to achieve proper alignment.
6. Minimizes the Need for Post-Glue-Up Fixes
   • A clean glue-up with straight edges reduces the need for extensive sanding, planing, or trimming after the adhesive has cured. This saves time, effort, and material, allowing you to focus on the next steps of your project.

If you don’t have a jointer in your shop, you can use your table saw to get straight edges. You won’t want to just use your table saws fence to try to get a straight edge, as that can produce inconsistent results. But you can build a simple edging jig for your table saw out of a small portion of a sheet of plywood and a few pieces of t-track. The whole process should take less than an hour to build – and it will definitely save you time and effort over the course of the edging jig’s life.

Materials Needed

• 1 – 3/4″ plywood at 48″ x 18″ (base plate)
• 5 – 18″ t-track
• 4 – Large t-track hold down clamps

Tools Needed

• Table saw
• Router with straight bit or dado blades for your table saw

Step 1: Cut the base

The actual finished size of your base is not super important. We use 48″ x 18″ in these plans as a suggestion because it is a single cut off a 4×8 sheet of plywood, but the actual size can vary. You do want it long enough to be able to accommodate the typical length of boards that you use in your projects. A 4′ long edging jig should be able to occasionally accommodate boards up to 6′ in length by letting 1′ extend past each edge. However, if you plan on using this to edge joint boards that long on a regular basis, you may want to build a longer jig.

Once you have the base cut to size, you’ll want to add a few rabbets at 3/4″ wide x 3/8″ deep for the t-track. In our plans below, we space out five rabbets across the board. This gives us plenty of options for holding down boards of varying sizes with the t-track clamps.

Step 2: Add the hardwood runner

Now that you have the base cut, you’re going to want to add a hardwood runner to fit in your table saws miter slot. Start by gluing a hardwood runner scaled to fit your table saw’s miter slot, typically 3/4″ x 3/8″ to the bottom of your base. You’ll want to have this runner to be positioned about 1/4″ in from the edge further than your miter slot sits from your table saw blade. Once you have it glued and screwed in place, run the plywood base through the table saw, cutting off the excess and ensuring the edge is perfectly aligned to the blade.

Step 3: Screw in the t-track

Now that you have base cut and the runner attached, the last step is screwing in the t-track. One of the nice things of making this edging jig 18″ wide is that you can buy a few pieces of 36″ t-track and just cut them in half. Once you have the t-track screwed in place, your new edging jig is ready to use.

I hope you enjoy these plans and find them useful. Please check out our other jig and workshop plans. If you have any questions, leave us a comment below. And don’t forget to submit your build if you use these or any of our plans to build something of your own.

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