Forgot to check for staples...

[Eric]

chewed up a set of jointer knives.

Sux to be me.

[toller]

Feels lousy, but we all do dumb things.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Want to buy the matching set of planer blades? Cheap.

[Silvan]

I can top that. I made a crosscut sled with a piece of angle iron to reinforce the fence. I thought I had rigged it all so that I wouldn't cut into the iron, but I was very wrong. Brand new blade. Only a mid-priced Freud, but still. "Are those sparks? Oh shit!"

I still have the piece of angle iron around here somewhere, with a nice

| V | | |

cut out of it. Oops.

[Ba r r y]

Join the club.

I once recycled a factory table top, only to find 3" #8 screws inside. The blade will someday become a clock. 8^(

Sorry for your anti-gloat.

Barry

[MikeK]

I stumbled onto a new Garrett Super Scanner for $50 that I hope will keep me from the same fate.

m

[Patriarch]

Silvan wrote in news: [e-mail]:

The right end of my aluminum Kreg miter jig looks pretty much the same. I think the blade is ready for a trip to Bay Area Carbide...

I'm glad my fingers are still all at factory spec.

Patriarch

[Woodcrafter]

Get yourself something like this:

worth the investment. It has saved me probably $400-$500 in potentially ruined blades so far by finding nails I couldn't see buried with the naked eye.

-- Regards,

Dean Bielanowski Editor, Online Tool Reviews

70 woodworking product reviews online!

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- GMC BJ110 Biscuit Joiner

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------------------------------------------------------------

[Eric]

Thank you all for your kind words of condolences.

In lieu of sending flowers, please send donations directly to me ;o)

[Andy Dingley]

Although the idea is a good one, that's a poor piece of kit to use for it.

There's also the hazard of non-metallic grit. It's good practice to watch where you lay your boards, to reduce pick-up.

[good ol' Bob]

Andy:

I infer from your post that you have never actually used one of these gadgets. (If I'm wrong, the following rant is meaningless.) I have owned the Little Wizard for several years, and it has never failed me. I did learn to adjust the sensitivity before each use while holding the thing AWAY from anything else, like a workbench. (They hide metal parts within!!!!!) Scan from side to side in a small S shaped pattern. When scanning, I allow the sensing area to lightly ride on the surface of the material being scanned. I've tested it on small paper staples imbedded in wood, like the ones some lumber suppliers use to attach a bar code to the end of a 2X4. I have never missed even the smallest piece of metal. Your comment on non-metallic grit is a good one. If the wood you're using is old, dirty, or has been used to form for concrete, common sense should prevail. Of course it doesn't always.

[Larry Jaques]

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 13:20:09 GMT, the inscrutable "Eric" spake:

Why? You just "inherited" a whole bunch of tool steel. Whatcha gonna make with all of that? (Or was that Barry?)

-- Vidi, Vici, Veni ---

Comprehensive Website Development

[Silvan]

I should add, so I don't look like a *total* dumbass, it was a blade height thing. At a height high enough to cut through your typical piece of 4/4 test wood, everything was perfect. The trouble came when I went to cut something higher, cranked the blade up, and changed the equation completely. I probably wouldn't have been stupid enough to merrily feed the iron right into the blade at the speed I did if I hadn't been successfully using the sled for a number of previous cuts.

Maybe not. Actually, I bought a new blade to replace the new blade I had just abused, and then I did some test cuts to compare the two. Admittedly, I was using a direct drive benchtop saw with an extremely sloppy arbor at the time, and wasn't getting the greatest of cuts anyway, but I couldn't detect the slightest difference between the cuts. That was steel. I don't think I'd worry about a little aluminum, unless you've nicked it numerous times.

I took the original blade out of service anyway. It just didn't seem prudent to take a chance on having loosened a tooth or something. Sparks are bad, m'kay? Sigh.

[Tim Douglass]

Back when I did a lot of remodeling work we would keep some old carbide tipped circular saw blades around for cutting into things where there might be nails or whatever. I've cut a *lot* of small pieces of steel up to 20d nails and expanded metal lath without losing any teeth from the blades. Sometimes they came off, but usually after a lot of abuse. Cutting through plaster was the worst, it would literally grind the blade down to a smooth circle with no teeth on it. Composition roofing was next, made worse by all the tar that built up on the blade. Point is, those things are tougher than you think.

Unless you can see a flaw on a tooth I'd go ahead and use the blade. If you are particularly paranoid just send it off and have it sharpened and checked.

Tim Douglass

[igor]

goB -- FWIW, how good it is to read a politely-stated rejoinder. It takes a few more words (verus, "listen, ass-wipe ..."), but IMO (no H) it is worth the effort. (Also noted, you used infer when you meant ... infer.)

Keep this up and you'll ruin the whole rowdy atmosphere so many have worked so hard to create. (insert smilie here) -- Igor

[igor]

I had a similar experience with my al miter thingie. Sometime later, after some additional use of the blade, I sent the blade to Forrest for sharpening and they said that the blade was actually in fine shape -- didn't really need much sharpening. YMMV. -- Igor

[Andy Dingley]

I've used the orange one. Very unimpressed with it. It was prone to false triggering so much that you had to turn the sensitivity right down.

The quality measure for any metal detector isn't sensitivity, it's discrimination. I'm sure these things are sensitive to detect a gnat's fillings, but that's no use if you have to turn them down to make them practical to use.

[loutent]

Hi Eric,

The first time I used my brand new Porter Cable dovetail jig (about 5 years ago), I wasn't very careful (and somehat ignorant).

After I ran the router up & down the jig to cut my first half-blind dovetail, I was shocked (amused?) to see that I had also routed out some of the base metal on the jig.

Felt like an idiot, but I never forgot the lesson about measuring the bit depth correctly.

Fortunately the jig is still usable - as is the bit (aluminum base I think).

Lou

[Patriarch]

Tim Douglass wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Not paranoid. Only cautious. And it's time to take several over there anyhow. They are not out of the way, and less than $20 tunes up a blade better than new on their CNC tools. There are two or three ready for the trip.

Sharp blades are safer anyhow. And I have a bunch of oak and tanoak needs cutting.

Patriarch