I went by my local BORG this morning to grab some screws and naval jelly and noticed they had a clearance area with quite a few tools. Good deal on a Dewalt cutoff saw and a Dewalt cordless tool set but there are too many other things I need right now to buy them just because it was a good deal. They had about 5 of the little toy Ryobi BTS10 table saws marked down to $87.00. I picked one up for the fun of it. I did one of those deals where you lift something up higher than you mean to and nearly throw yourself off balance because you are expecting it to be heavier than it turns out to be. And I wasn't expecting it to be very heavy. I put it back down and laughed with a little shake of my head to be sure the guy standing next to me wouldn't think I was considering actually buying one or anything. Gotta protect your image ya know. I paid for my stuff and went home where I took apart the Baily #7 I got off Ebay to see what I'm in for with my first plane restoration. It looks to be in pretty darn good shape by the way. I picked up new Hock blade and cap irons for it yesterday at Woodcraft but the ones in it were surprisingly square and even somewhat sharp.
Anyway, this is where it gets sad. I started eying that Mahogany over in the corner my wife expects me to have cut and joined into something that looks like a box pretty soon. I got a great deal on some scrap pieces that start about 2.75" X 2.75" and taper to about 2" X 2" ten feet later. Seem perfect for making corner posts to mortice so they will support the rails of a frame and panel side. I started trying to figure out how to get the taper out and said to myself for the 1,000,000th time lately that a tablesaw would sure be nice for this. Too bad I'm not going to have one until Santa comes to visit in late December. Then the image of that little Ryobi popped into my head. I tried to resist but ended up driving over there and grabbing one. I had a $50.00 giftcard anyway so it only cost me another $50.00 out of pocket and I bet I can sell it for that when I get a nice saw. I plan to just use it for rough cutting and then clean up with hand planes afterwards. So, I now have a tablesaw that requires a table to sit on. If I say a couple hail Powermatics or hail Unisaws will I be forgiven?
I didn't plan on making such a long post about this but it sure turned out that way.
-Chris