Eli the Bearded on Wed, 15 Jul 2020 23:13:01
+0000 (UTC) typed in rec.woodworking the following:It is a start. I find that while I would like to make some Fine Furniture, mostly I'm making things I need right now. Eventually ...
Sigh, sometimes it seems that what I make most are plans.
Yup... ripping a bunch is why I got the power feeder. It's going on the table saw first, then the jointer, and then the shaper for the flooring project. For the architectural trim project it will go on the table saw and jointer... from there the wood is going through my planner/molder. I did use a hand rip saw recently to rough out a new axe handle from ash... a bearing failed on my bandsaw and rather than wait for the parts I did the whole thing with hand tools. A fun little project to rehab an axe head I got off Craigslist for $5... 3.5 lb. Michigan pattern that I turned into a felling wedge beater for tree falling... it's plenty sharp for chopping too.
I generally use the stationary tools to dimension the wood and then use the hand tools for the joinery and final surfacing... the latter steps require more "feel."
I used the term "inherit" loosely... Some really were inherited but many were given to me by people who found them in their father's or father-in-law's shop and had no interest in them. In many cases they had no idea what they were... some are woodworking and some are machinist's tools. A woman I worked with brought me a box of machinist tools and woodworking tools. She was delighted when I identified things for her and assembled a transition plane from parts in the box--the family had no idea what those parts belonged to but managed to keep them somewhat together.
I inherited two union carpenter's tool boxes from a friend's father... they were his and his father's. He directed his wife and daughter to give me his tools a few days before he died... He had no one to pass them on to in the family who would know what to do with them or would want them. The father died at about age 86 to give you an idea how old those two tool boxes are. The grandfather's tools were well used... a couple chisels had been sharpened so many times that the blades were as short as an inch... handsaws came to points. There were however very nice specimens of a Stanley router plane, Stanley No 6 for plane, a wooden scrub plane and a couple block planes in the grandfather's box along with a sliding bevel, folding rules, and other layout tools. The father's tool box had braces, a complete set of auger bits, compass bits, screwdriver bits, reamer bits, etc.
When I bought this house there was a Stanley No 45 combination plane complete with a set of cutters, the original steel box, instruction manual, nicker package, etc. in the garage. The cutters had never been sharpened... It was essentially a new tool.
The vast majority of these tools took a trip through my electrolysis set up to remove corrosion. In some cases the tools simply needed to be cleaned of "dirt" and sharpened. In other cases just sharpening was needed... i.e., the
All that said, I'd let people know you are interested in old tools to use. You are not a collector and aren't looking to sell them... You may be surprised how much stuff will come out of basements and garages for free.
We all started somewhere... I don't know anyone who came out of the womb as a skilled woodworker! Keep at it!
I suspected as much.
Best I've gotten for free, so far, is a bench grinder in nearly new condition. Probably ten years old, definitely under twenty. Only thing "wrong" with it was missing a bulb for the work light. It was literally being thrown away -- probably not because of the bulb though.
I live in San Francisco, in a house that's been in my wife's family for long time. None of my neighbors seem to own as much as a hammer. People in the city lack basements and attics and get rid of things quickly. My father-in-law did leave some tools here, but not many or that exciting. Screwdrivers and wrenches. A miter box and saw.
I don't have good photos of it, but I made my bedside table as well. I wanted something fairly tall and narrow to fit the space, and clipped the corners of the top (making an octagon) for lamp and charging cords to fig nicely. Also plywood with dado cuts for pieces to snap together (at least until the glue dries), but half inch, not 3mm.
On the large scale, I built a shed for myself, roughly 8x8x10. No foundation or power, just balanced on concrete blocks, because that makes it kinda-sorta within no-permit-needed building code for the area. It keeps the rain out and is solid still ten years later, so I think I did an okay job with no experience and making it up as I went along.
Elijah
------ did have to replace the first roof, learned a lesson there
"John Grossbohlin" on Thu, 16 Jul 2020 01:02:47 -0400 typed in rec.woodworking the following:
B-)
Power tools as "apprentice" - "you, feed these boards into the saw."
But as I said when I started tech school, and we shifted from manual machines to CNC "think of it as a really dumb apprentice who does exactly what he's told, even if it is wrong." (I had a 'neat' modern art piece resulting from some one making a lateral move and a downward one, and it plowed into the aluminum block a ways before breaking the tool off.)
My father served an apprenticeship as a tool a die maker early in his career. Now 86 he still talks about how they gave the apprentices a block of steel and told them to file it into a square cube... When I worked in the Gunsmith Shop at Williamsburg the litmus test for whether they spent any time on you was whether you could make wood screws with files... If you couldn't do that there was no way you'd ever be able to make a flintlock. Windows and Mac operating systems have let pretty much anybody use a computer. Cars, houses, guns, etc... the skill knowledge is being concentrated by a small number of companies who will generate an income stream by letting others license the technology.
"John Grossbohlin" on Fri, 17 Jul 2020 13:49:12 -0400 typed in rec.woodworking the following:
I've heard that a lot. Royce machinist could make a hex head free hand with a file, etc.
Not sure how that would be done, but, I've never tried.
The skills are being built into the machine. Been saying that since the first mechanized widgets.
tschus pyotr
woodworking excellence. It can be something you purchased or built or found in the trash. It can cost anywhere from free to $1000's. Please refrain fr om value judgement comments like "too expensive; not worth it; etc". To som eone its worth it. I am just looking for inspiration and ideas. Please expa nd on how or what you accomplished that caused you to say "Wow, this is a r eal game changer".
ach screw seemed to try to pull it out of alignment. I bought the bit and r e-drilled all the holes. the installation was perfectly aligned and all the screws centered and flush.
a great tablesaw.
't even know this was possible. Prompted by Leon "Bob, you gotta buy one of these"
I am in full agreement with your view of the PM66. The sawstop industrial saw was the closest i could get to a pm66 with sawstop safety features.
I think I have one of those tool rests (made by Veritas). I used it with a hand turned grinder for sharpening and it worked well, but I got tired of turning the crank and manipulating the blade to be sharpened. I've thought about getting a Jet variable frequency control grinder. What kind of grin der are you using with your setup? My current 3600 RPM grinder is too fast for sharpening. I have a worksharp but its painstakingly slow for initial shaping of a blade.
Bob
a hand turned grinder for sharpening and it worked well, but I got tired o f turning the crank and manipulating the blade to be sharpened. I've thoug ht about getting a Jet variable frequency control grinder. What kind of gr inder are you using with your setup? My current 3600 RPM grinder is too fa st for sharpening. I have a worksharp but its painstakingly slow for initi al shaping of a blade.
I cut out and glued a 60 grit piece of sandpaper to a Work Sharp glass whee l. That works pretty quickly on a dull chisel.
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Be interesting if anybody else starts pushing the envelope on the expiring patents over next few years...surprised weren't more efforts than have been for workarounds...
Of course, everything else now off-shore w/ no margins for R&D doesn't lend to more than minimal product evolution rather than real innovation.
I picked mine up at the factory in McMinnville, TN, back when were still in full-swing production. Some of the piles of rough castings in the back yard were 15-20 ft tall "seasoning" before final milling operations.
Now, last I looked, it's all bare, vacant industrial property; all the buildings had been razed.
They would have to build a quality saw to compete with SS. I can see Powermatic doing that but no other American brands.
LOL Well I responded above before reading this. Totally agree.
Bob you might want to change to new paper and or a more coarse grit. I have the Work Sharp and it is pretty fast for me.
FWIW I also have the Ken Onion WorkSharp knife sharpener. That works extremely well until the belt dulls. I did not realize my belt was dull until it broke and I replaced it with same but new. WOW that cut so much faster. LOL
h a hand turned grinder for sharpening and it worked well, but I got tired of turning the crank and manipulating the blade to be sharpened. I've thoug ht about getting a Jet variable frequency control grinder. What kind of gri nder are you using with your setup? My current 3600 RPM grinder is too fast for sharpening. I have a worksharp but its painstakingly slow for initial shaping of a blade.
I bought the coarse grit kit for the worksharp. It was better. It still is awfully slow for something like changing angle from 30 deg to 25 deg.
Changing shapes is something that doesn't happen often. There is also the n eed to repair a blade if you happen to run into a hidden nail. I find a lo t of my tools just languish because I don't want to spend a couple of hours reshaping blades. I guess if I had a sharpening station set up full time, it would be easier.
Maybe I'll break out that old hand cranked grinder.
Bob D wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:
I'm using a Performax 6". It's a 3600 RPM grinder. I put on Norton 3x wheels that help it cut a little cooler. I also dip the tool frequently in water, and try to do it before the tool gets hot. I dress the wheel any time it feels like the cutting slows down.
If you're really trying to hog off metal, you'll want a belt grinder like they use on Forged in Fire. The Harbor Freight 1x30 is ok, but remember how much you paid for it...
Puckdropper
I got thinking about this a bit and I'd have to say that discovering the utility of the the card scraper is way up on the list of game changers for me. Card scrapers are amazing tools... not only for smoothing difficult grain but for tweaking surfaces at flush joints, removing finish, tweaking the fitting of tool handles to heads, tweaking the faces of tenons, tweaking surfaces that were created with spoke shaves, smoothing finishes, etc.... A very simple tool that has a lot of utility.
This may be an old topic but I am too lazy to search for it.
Do you have an item that has been a game changer for you in pursuit of woodworking excellence. It can be something you purchased or built or found in the trash. It can cost anywhere from free to $1000's. Please refrain from value judgement comments like "too expensive; not worth it; etc". To someone its worth it. I am just looking for inspiration and ideas. Please expand on how or what you accomplished that caused you to say "Wow, this is a real game changer".
I will start it off with some game changers for me.
Bob
Sand-O-Flex. Now that I'm more of a woodturner than a woodworker, I've often said I wouldn't turn most of what I do if I didn't own one. Probably the only way to sand bark, bark inclusions, voids, etc. I've had one since I used to sell them in a hardware store I worked at in the 70's-80's. I used it to debur routed edges when I did flat work, but only rarely. Now I use one nearly every day.
Phil
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