Long term review of Boeshield T-9 and a question

[Tom Bunetta]

Hi guys... It was two years or so ago I packed my tools for a move from Florida to Tennessee. My plans were to move to temporary quarters while I sold my Fl real estate and then to build a home and a bigger shop (40'X60') on the 95 wooded acres we bought here. My timing sucked (as usual) and the bubble burst... still haven't sold the real estate (but have it all rented). So now I'm in a 20'X22' garage. I had brought a fair amount of wood with me and had it and the machinery all packed into the gar-shop. Finally reality set in and I built a storage shed for the wood which freed 4'X16' more floor space. Since everything I can't pick up is on wheels, I can shift things around enough to make it workable again. I don't have room to set up the cyclonic separator, but will have to empty bags (groan) on the three horse 4 bagger DC. When I left Fl, I sprayed every cast iron or steel surface with T-9 (several coats each)... 8" jointer, two table saws 1 Jet 10" and the Unisaw, 15" planer, 14" and 20" bandsaws and the Veritas router table plate. I was pleased to see that there was only one rusty place (and it wasn't REAL bad... minor pitting after clean up) on the outfeed table of the jointer (and it had a plastic sheet on it as well... which probably allowed condensation to collect and drip on that spot) on any of the surfaces. A little mineral spirits and some elbow grease took it all down to metal again, then I re-sprayed as usual. I finally got the 220 hooked up and am plumbing the 80 gal. compressor next. Then I'll have to check the jointer cause the moving guys used the tables as handles :

[nailshooter41]

SNIP

Tom, probably one of the most quoted sites for their information and usablility has to be these guys:

have instructions on every part of building your rig as well as the necessary components such as bags. Veneering has been on my "to learn" list for some time now so I always go dig around on that site to see what is new. It just gets bigger and better. There are others as well, such as the veneersupplies.com site, but even they are hot linked into the joewoodworker site for products.

I think the one thing I would comment on (just my opinion) is that to get started I would probably go with vinyl bags compared to the suggestions of going poly. Even if I hit my stride vacuuming I won't do more than a handful of projects a year. The heavy poly bags are made to be used over and over as a real tool.

With some care, poly bags can last quite a long while and are much cheaper to make. But a great point was driven home by one of the guys I corresponded with on the 'net a couple of years ago. He had just attended one of those marvelous 2 week courses on furniture making in one of the Carolinas, and the focus of is class was veneering.

His used vinyl bags for the following reasons:

- easy to make, easy to repair

- inexpensive compared to poly

- actual use to cost was great. His instructor claimed that he got as many as 50 bag jobs out of a bag. 50! No repairs needed. I don't know that I personally would do fifty jobs in my remaining years

- you can make a lot of different sized bags for the same amount of money that it takes to make one poly bag. So if you are making a large coffee table, you don't have to try to use the same bag you made for your mantle clock project, and vice versa. His instructor suggested 3 or 4 basic bag sizes

- they made all their own bags in class, and used the methods described on the JWW page. The valves, glue, and lots of other goodies were purchased a JWW's sister site, Veneersupplies. But the heavy vinyl was purchased in rolls at Walmart (!) in the fabric section sold as furniture protectant

It seems the best reason to use poly is that it is more resistant to puncture. That means that if you have long flat surfaces like cabinet doors or table tops, you won't see much benefit to poly. But anything with hard edges or corners will wear the bags at those points so poly might be the ticket depending on your project choice.

I hope post how your project comes along. Veneering is actually high on my list of things to do soon.

Robert

[LRod]

I processed an article last fall for WoodCentral that had one man's approach to vacuum bagging (I'm not the author--I just prettied it up with HTML). Check

, go to the Articles section and search on "vacuum". Should pop right up.

I hope it's helpful.

[Joe]

Build a tanked vacuum system, you'll extend the life of the pump ten-fold and don't forget shutoff valves, filters and gauges. A well engineered system can be used for vacuum chucking on the lathe as well as veneering. I prefer chamber or press vs. bag systems, more expensive though. At the current prices of vinyl bags I can't see why people use them instead of chambers.

"giggle - just kidding" Veneering Book By David Shath Square - reasonable amount of info, best I've seen so far.

The Marquetry Course By Jack Metcalfe, John Apps - has plans for bottlejack press, limited info on vacuum systems

Not necessarily a reasonable price, but when you're ready to upgrade or if you have someone local that can help you assemble a system, try the bio-tech auctions. Great deals on quality vacuum equipment and benchtop work chambers. (I didn't see many chambers this week, but they're often listed for sale.)

?ItemID=bio72289?ItemID=bov2204?ItemID=pch1058Used lab equipment is often in like new condition. Some chambers allow controlled heating while in vacuum. Many have accurate vacuum gauges, some have vacuum gloves allowing working with objects while in vacuum, interior work lights, etc..

I've seen gast vacuum pumps go for as low as $25, regularly $425 new. Simple 4'x3'x3' benchtop chambers without pumps usually go for around $150.

Recommend you wait for a sale in your area or find someone in the auction city (Michigan & Ohio have sales almost every month). You can view the equipment before purchase, which I recommend for items over $100. Plus at the end of the auction, pallets of equipment go for $10-$25.

I've purchased vacuum pumps, gauges, air valves & T's, shaker/stirrers, drill press and other items this way, better than ebay or garage sales.

Here some current shop tool auctions, standing drill press ~$100, large chop saws ~$50. I only shop on-site and test before purchasing, or have someone else shop for me if auction is in another city.

?ItemID=wsw1789?ItemID=wsw1759 other industrial and commercial auction sites online. Also many university and tech schools often sell and re-stock equipment each summer. Valves and gauges can add up, I purchased a box of double stage oxygen gauges, vacuum gauges, y valves, reverse flow valves, etc. for $25.

[Tom Bunetta]

Gentlemen... Thank you for the VERY helpful advice and all the links... I have only had the time to go to one (Wood Central) and briefly looked around. Due to a crash back in Fl, I lost all the links so carefully hoarded (but not backed up... I know :

[Puckdropper]

"Tom Bunetta" wrote in news:z2SIj.25668$ [e-mail]:

Tom,

It should be fairly easy to back up your bookmarks. I'm a big user of Netscape and Firefox (they're based off most the same codebase) and backing up bookmarks is a simple matter of opening the bookmark manager, and selecting the "export" function from the file menu. Save the file on removable media, and you'll not only have a backup, you'll also be able to access your bookmarks by opening that file. (So you can transfer your bookmarks to another computer!)

Unfortunately, IE doesn't do the same thing.

Puckdropper

[Lee Michaels]

"Puckdropper" wrote

Actually IE will do the same thing. You just have to know the secret handshake.

Open up My Computer, click on Documents and Settings, click on Owner and look for the star shaped icon. This would be your Favorites (bookmarks) folder. Click on this and you have all your favorites (bookmarks) in an open window You can copy, move or perform any other function you would with any other file.

I routinely backup to both my hard drive and an external hard drive. I also clean out my favorites and e-mail folders regularly because if they get too big, they slow down system performance.

The Favorites functions just fine in a separate file. The IE e-mail does not function in a separate file. If you want to read or access past e-mails made in IE, you must import them back into IE. I understand that there is an inexpensive database that you can buy that will read the .dbx files that IE uses. I have not really checked this out though.

But the Bookmarks are just URL's listed in a folder. It is a little inconvenient to open the My Computer window to use it. But the sytem performance dividends make it worth it. I have thousands and thousands of bookmarks.

I should point out that this is a recent change for me because I bought and installed a new computer in the last week. The biggest change for me is my new external hard drive. This made transferring over all my old files to the new computer a breeze.

[Paul Franklin]

There's an easier (well, more direct anyway) way if you just want to export or import bookmarks.

From IE: File>>Import and Export

This will open a wizard that steps you through exporting your favorites into a single .htm file.

But accessing them directly in the favorites folder as Lee describes is an easier way to organize them into levels of folders, when you have lots of them. The organizer built into IE is cumbersome if you have many favorites or need to move many around at once. You can create whatever folder structure you want underneath the top level favorites folder and IE will pick the structure up next time you start it.

HTH,

Paul

[Swingman]

"Puckdropper" wrote

With Firefox, I use the "Foxmarks" plug-in ... automatically saves your bookmarks online, updates them automatically, and syncs them to Firefox on any computer you use, behind the scenes, when you're online.

Got rid of one more of a wired world's minor irritations ...

[Tom Bunetta]

"Puckdropper" >

Alas, I use IE... but other posts below suggest ways to back them up. Tom

[Lee Michaels]

"Paul Franklin" wrote

If you want to just lump everything together for backup purposes only, you can also go to Tools - Acounts - Export. Then Import to back up. It won't give you capability to use the files though.

[Puckdropper]

Paul Franklin wrote in news: [e-mail]:

*snip*

*snip*

The single .htm file is important... at least to me. You can open that in your favorite browser and have access to all your bookmarks. There's no need to import them, so if you want to show your family your collection of Lee Valley tool links you can simply put the device in the computer and open the file.

This isn't a roaming profile or anything, so don't expect to easily save new bookmarks, but it's a fairly easy way to take them with you.

Puckdropper

[Mike]

A single file means its VERY easy way to loose them all - i has happened to me with Netscape in the past and I'm sure it will happen again. It's the one feature I just wish they would change in Firefox, the IE way of doing bookmarks is just so much better in every respect. Pity IE is and always will be such a shitty browser.

[Maxwell Lol]

organize Bookmarks=>Import and Export=>Backup

It even give the file a unique name based on the date, so you can have multiple backups.

[Tanus]

In Firefox, I got an add-in called Foxmarks, available on the mozilla site.

It's not primarily designed as a bookmark backup but that's what it did for me. Its primary function is to store bookmarks on a remote server so that you can synch two PCs with the same bookmarks. But it's a copy of what you have on both.

Tanus

[Swingman]

"Tanus" wrote

Deja tu ...

[Upscale]

I use a small program called BackRex which saves all my bookmarks, windows setting and stuff like that. Very easy to use, I run it about once a week. It's saved me from ripping out my remaining hair more than once.

[Mike]

Which is basically what I do manually by copying the bookmarks.htm file - I've never even seen that specific feature in Firefox before, thanks for the tip!