If you don’t have a jointer, and you need a straight edge on a board, there’s a new option - coupled with your table saw - that is simple and economical - the Ripeeze! We’ll put it through the paces and show you what this great little tool can do for you!
We love it when we find a tool that solves a common issue. The story is even better when there is an entrepreneur in the story, the tool is made in small batches and the company owner is engaged every step of the way!
That’s the story of Frank, the developer of the Ripeeze. Frank is a retired U.S. Marine and was in the construction industry for many years. Later in life, he owned a custom stair installation company. In the field, he found that many times he would have a piece of stock that needed to have a straight rip on the table saw, but neither edge of the board was true. An idea began to form in Frank’s mind that later came to fruition as the Ripeeze tool.
Simple, well-constructed, and fairly priced, the Ripeeze positively affixes along one edge of the board, providing a secure edge to run along a table saw fence as the stock is fed through the blade. This results in a precise straight edge on the stock. The Ripeeze is then removed, and the straight edge is run along the fence as the board is fed through the blade a second time, resulting in a board that has two straight and parallel edges.
While shop-made fixtures can be made in lieu of the Ripeeze, the economics, accuracy, and ease of use of the Ripeeze tool would suggest the purchase is a better idea.
At the time of filming, there were two models available - the 5’ (1.524 meters) and 6’ (1.83 meters). Pricing was $72 and $86 respectively. For each of the models, the board length capacity is 4” (10 cm) shorter than the overall length.
This made-in-America tool is a sturdy all-aluminum I-beam straightedge with sliding solid aluminum brackets and sharp threaded gripping pins (which can easily be replaced if the need should ever arise). The brackets are slid in place on each end of the board, tapped in place with a soft-faced assembly hammer, and tightened in place with the knurled knobs. The end caps of the main I-beam are constructed of a robust rubbery material, not brittle hard plastic. Nice!
The brackets slide nicely and securely on the rail, and there is a nice knob provided for you to grip to securely guide the board through the straight-edging process. This allows you to get a straight-line rip faster than a jointer - and your table saw will cut right through any grain direction changes without tear-out. When you are done, the Ripeeze easily and quickly detaches from the wood.
We do have a couple of suggestions for future editions of this tool.
To keep it handy, we drilled a hole on one end to allow us to hang this up near the table saw. We suggest you do the same thing.
Also, the points that grip the wood could be installed a bit higher in the adjustable blocks. They are very near the bottom edge and have a tendency to “blow out” the bottom. To counter this, we had to raise the straightedge portion of the tool to get the points to be more centered in the thickness of the stock. Another approach may be to put a third point in for a grip that resists rotation.
These are minor areas, and we feel the product is a great value and solves a problem that many in the trades encounter.
To learn more, or to purchase a Ripeeze tool, visit www.ripeeze.com. You can support a small company and solve a common problem at the same time! We think you’ll be happy with your purchase.
Disclosure: Ripeeze provided us with one of their tools, as well as paid a small production fee to us. We agreed to provide an authentic product review and state what we liked as well as mention any improvements we felt were needed. Frank of Ripeeze readily agreed! There is no further compensation to DirtFarmerJay should you purchase any Ripeeze product. It is our pleasure to find great tools and solutions and feature them on our channel.
Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com.
If you don't have a jointer,
but you need a straight edge on a board,
there's a great new solution out in the field right now,
coupled with a field table or shop table saw
that'll put a straight edge on a board quickly.
Stay tuned and let me tell you all about it.
Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com.
Well, there's a new product available
for straight edging boards called RipEase.
Now, this is a cool tool,
and you can do shop-built ones of this sort of thing,
but for the quality of the tool and the price point
that's been created by this micro company,
I think you're gonna love what you get.
Now, what this does, it allows you to clamp a straight edge
on a crooked board or a board
that needs a straight edge applied,
and then run it against the fence of your table saw,
ending up with a straight edge,
which you can then roll and put against the fence
to get two parallel straight cuts.
Well, let's walk you through this,
but first, before I do,
I wanna tell you a little bit of the story of this.
The inventor of this is Frank.
Now, Frank is around my age, in his 60s or so.
He's been in the construction trades for many years
and is a retired Marine.
So he was framing, doing all sorts of things,
and later in life, he began doing custom staircases,
stair building, and what he found,
many times in the field, you'd have a piece of stock
that wasn't quite straight on the edge
or came from the lumber yard,
but you needed a straight edge,
and instead of snapping a line and that sort of thing,
he would start to clamp straight edges on it,
run it through the table saw,
and end up with a straight edge.
Well, that was the genesis of the idea.
Frank then took his idea
and put it through the manufacturing process
and has come up with this great tool
that is really well-constructed.
So let me show you a couple of the features on it.
The first thing is, there are these adjustable blocks
that slide very nicely and are very solid,
but you'll notice there are some needle-sharp
hardened steel pins on both sides of this.
Well, this is what's going to grip the wood
in a few minutes here,
but these, with just a little bit of pressure,
you slide these.
Now, when you're done with the tool each time,
Frank really recommends you do that right there
and close that up to get those pins
so they're not out in the open,
because if they get you, they'll get you good.
Okay, now, at the time of filming,
the Rippies was available in a five-foot,
which is about 1 1⁄2 meters long,
and a six-foot, which is about 1.83 meters.
Pricing is $72 for the five-footer
and $86 for the six-footer.
Another great feature of this tool is the end caps,
and if you notice, these are rubbery.
They're very substantial, very thick.
They're not brittle plastic,
which cheaper tools would tend to use on this,
so this is a nice quality feature.
That's going to help you
when it's being handled in the shop and out in the field,
so nice touch on that feature.
One thing that Frank and Rippies does
is he goes ahead and mills in this threaded section
right here, which you can put this knob in first,
like that, and then you put it into this section
and screw it in, and what I would use is some thread lock.
Now, this is not a handle to lock it up and down
to extend the pins.
The pins are stationary,
but when you are running this against the saw
or against the fence,
this gives you a place to grip to push it through
and to counteract the torque action of the wood
as it enters the saw,
so that's really just a handle
that allows you as the operator to grab onto this fence.
Well, let's go ahead and put a piece of wood into this
that's got a little bit of twist in it,
like what you're going to find in site conditions
out in the field, as well as has an edge
that's not quite straight that needs to be trued up,
so let's grab a piece of wood and do that.
Okay, after we've put on one straight edge,
we're able to flip it over, put it against the saw fence
and end up with two beautiful straight edges
that are parallel to each other,
so very handy in getting that done.
All right, let's talk about the Rippies tool itself,
just some general observations about it.
One, the extrusion is very stout, so are these blocks.
This is a great straight edge
that gives you a reference edge
to put it right up against the table saw fence.
Well, there's a couple of little enhancements
that I think would take this tool even to the next level.
One is, at the end of each extrusion,
that there's a hole that's drilled here,
perhaps a 3-8 or 1-4 inch hole,
and I would do that at both ends.
That allows you to hang the tool on the wall
on a nail or peg, get it out of the way
and not use up floor space or being laying someplace,
but there it's ready to go to work
the next time you need it, the straight edge of board.
Secondly, the locations of the pins,
if you can see right here,
they're a little bit low in the block for crooked stock,
so let's suppose you have something that's banana-ed,
that you're trying to straight edge over here.
Well, you get the pins in the other end in place,
then this end's going to want to ride high.
So that means you have to lift this manually
and have the board edge hitting somewhere in the middle
instead of letting this fall to its natural level
along the board when it's on a flat surface.
So these do have a tendency then
to blow out a little bit on the bottom
if you have a board that, like I said, is banana-shaped.
So I would suggest that these be moved up a little bit
in the tapping process,
and or potentially putting the third one in the middle
that allows you then to have less tendency
for the wood to pivot as it goes.
But as I said, neither one of those disallow this
from being a great tool and a great gift item
to give to the woodworker or the contractor in your life
that needs to straight edge board.
You can go straight to rippies.com
and purchase them right there
and tell them Dirt Farmer Jay sent you.
We don't get a rebate on any of this.
It's our pleasure to find great tools like this
and put them out there for you to make use of as well.
You know something else a lot of people struggle with,
whether it's in the shop or in the home?
That's getting the right AC adapter for their devices.
Well, check out this video over here
where we'll show you exactly the steps
to identify what you need for your specific device
so that it is kept safe and it performs perfectly.
And while you're at it, check out this other video
that we made for you as well
that we know will be of interest to you.
And until the next time,
this is Dirt Farmer Jay from DirtFarmerJay.com.
