I am building some bat houses, and they need rough wood so the bats can hold on to it. It is suggested to run a series of 1/32" deep cuts with a saw, going both ways, but that will take forever.
I was thinking of having the outside blade, a 1/4" spacer, a chipper, a 1/4" spacer, and the other outside blade; so I am cutting three cuts at once. It will still be work, but only one third as much.
Any reason this will make the dado set explode, or anything else undesirable. Any better suggestions for roughing up wood?
I've seen suggestions in WW magazines suggesting that to cut the groove for an interlocking joint, it's appropriate to use a dado blade, then a spacer, then a regular blade. Raise the dado blade up high enough to make the groove as deep as you want it, have the spacer set for the distance you want the dado cut from the edge of the board, and you can groove and cut with one operation. I don't see that what you're proposing is any more difficult than that. And I'm imagining that most of these magazines are litigation sensitive enough that they're cautious about suggesting stupid things, but I'm sure it happens on occasion.
But for something that's only 1/32 of an inch deep, can you almost scratch that in with something sharp? I'm thinking even laying the board down on the ground, sharpen up a metal lawn rake, and have at it. May not be pretty, but you'll rough it up nicely!
BTW, what does a bat house look like? I've heard of them, and thought they'd be kind of cool to have around (got lots of skeeters up here, and the kids would be impressed), but never dug into it any further. I know, I could DAGS, but since I threw in my $0.02, I thought I'd try to get some value from it! :)
Howdy.......I'd try a rasp rough it up a little bit......What type of wood were you planning on using......dig the rasp in a bit but don't push it the whole way across and it should give the little critter plenty of stuff to grab onto...
Here's a link for some bat house plans........
formatting link
I'm not fluent enought to make it a link.............
Anybody have suggestions for getting bats to move out of my house and into a bat house? I have an older (circa 1890) home and the bats just love it in the awnings.......
You don't need to have the grooves every 1/4". Just run it throught the saw blade every 1" or so. Bats aren't particular and will surely find any groove to get a toe-hold on. Heck, I've build them using luan in the back and made utility knive cuts across the grain with firm pressure. They pay their rent on time and eat a lot!!
Thanks for the link. Around here, some of the most readily available cedar is 1x6 fence boards. Not sure if that plan could be scaled down by 2" less width, because otherwise, those boards would be perfect. Nice and smooth on one side, and rough (furry rough) on the other. I think the bats around here are pretty small as well, at least, the ones I've seen, so maybe that would work. Ah, well, might have to try it someday. Got some extra boards kicking around the shop even as we speak.
ISTR hearing about someone who made finger joints using four ordinary blades separated by 1/8" spacers. I don't see why you couldn't use three ordinry baldes separated by two quarter inch spacers.
You could also use a very coarse toothing plane, which you'd probably have to make yourself but would be easy to do.
I just resawed my timber on a Woodmizer with a damaged blade on it (around 100 bat boxes)
For making one-offs, I'd use the corner of a rebate plane held at an angle, or a wooden beading plane I hadn't yet got round to tuning up. Bats aren't fussy and I could do this quicker than changing blades. A couple of strokes will put a bat-claw sized groove into soft larch or cedar.
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