quick jig to hellp when the both shelf ends are irregular

[Benjimin Young]

I decided to install some adjustable shelving in the linen closet and was surprized at how wanky the walls were. I made this jig out of scrap and it saved me a lot of walking up and down the stairs and possibly a lot of missed cuts. Every shelf fit great. I wish I had of thought of this when I re-treaded my staircase which resulted in a mass amount of back and forth to the garage. Hope you find the idea useful.
shelf jig in use.jpg

[Jay Aubuchon]

Very clever.

[Jesse Busenitz]

I did trim carpentry for 1 year, and we did a ton of closets. I don't think there were more than a handful of corners that were even halfway close to being square. Got to where I could cut them out in 2 tries or so. The mudders loved filling up the corners to where often the back edge was 3/4" narrower than the front. Just got use to it after a while.

[Don Sundberg]

The last irregular shelves I did I took strips of wood about 3/4" x 1/8" and hot glued them together around the perimeter in place on the shelf pins. I then used these to mark the shelf boards and used a home made saw track with my circular saw to cut the shelves. I had plenty of thin strips as scrap.

[glenn bradley]

Cool idea. A real problem solver. They make something for your stair issue but, for the price I'd cobble one myself.

stair gauge.JPG

I never tire of the clever folks on here.

[Tim Bueler]

I built a similar jig out of aluminum some yrs (decades ) ago for fitting stair treads. Have used it many times since. For a one time situation I have also used cardboard. Take two pieces, scribe each into it's own corner. If they are long enough to overlap hot glue them together, if not you can hot glue strips of wood/cardboard/whatever between the two. Works well for onsite templating to take back to the shop. Lot's of space to make notes. My former granite countertop installers would use 1/8" luan, ripped to 2" wide. Lay out on all edges and hot glue the overlaps, make notes for finished edge/end, etc. Always a perfect fit.

[Benjimin Young]

now that might be cool to try and make. I have a lot of the hardware and it looks like it could be sized from scrap lumber. hmmm.

Cool idea. A real problem solver. They make something for your stair issue but, for the price I'd cobble one myself.

stair gauge.JPG

I never tire of the clever folks on here.