DaBear

This is one of the cuts where I LOVE my 'GRRRRIPER' (pardon my spelling).. Control through the whole cut is key IMHO..

Ok, not to be contrary, but who cares? So long as the face is FLAT, and no twist, then the jointer has done it's job. Any other attributes, are another tool's job, the planer typicaly... If your knives were wrong/mis-aligned, you'd get other issues like either a concave or convex board.. If that's happening, yes, definitely start adjusting things on the jointer. If all you are worried about is that off the jointer, the board is wedge shaped, well, that simply may be a factor of that being the shape the jointer needed to use to get one face flat.. Hope that makes sense... My 2cents, your mileage may vary.. Ciao..

+1 To what Oz said. My only comment would be on the finish. For me, a gloss finish works well on something that has a smooth surface. For something more 'sculpted' like this, I would suggest going with a more flat finish, or perhaps oil, so that the 'glint' of the finish doesn't distract from all the other great things going on.. My 2 cents, and definitely a great start..

I'm getting ready to finish a spalted maple bowl, and during the turning I used some thin CA glue to stabilize a few spots. Now these spots look 'wet' (no surprise). Once I hit it with the poly (General Finishes 'Salad bowl Finish'), should I expect these spots to blend in and disappear, or should I do some sort of extra treatment before putting on the poly? Thanks to all. David

Sure, I'll add to the confusion .. As someone already asked, "what do you want to do"? A bandsaw is a GREAT machine, and I love mine for ripping and doing curves (as well as trimming bowl blanks for my lathe, but you don't want to do down that rabbit-hole yet ).. If you're looking more at building furniture, then I'd have to say planer as well, and get used to using a sled until you can get the $$s together to get a jointer (I'd advise 8").. The current crop of lunchbox planers give GREAT bang for the buck, but don't skimp on the jointer. As noted by a previous very wise poster, a crappy jointer is pretty much worse than none.. Plus a planer and sled gets you effectively a 12 or 13" jointer... Trust me, it's really fun being able to make a kitchen tabletop with 3 planks.. Also, you noted you are learning how to use a handplane, so with that and a couple winding sticks, you can get close enough to flat to get it through the planer without a sled, and again, Bob's your uncle Welcome to the club, coffee's at the back of the room.. David

Ya, ran into an 'overlap' scenario a while back. I've since tried to ensure I always have a small gap between wraps (a 16th or so), and try to check after a couple passes to re-tighten. Seems to have eliminated that issue.. Another question for you folks on this same vein: Is 'jumping' grits nearly as much of a concern in case of a drum sander? Currently, I go from 36 to 80, and it seems fine (other than the streaks left by the 80, but I don't see anything that tells me going to 60 in between would help at all). I want to now go to 120 from 80, so I will be using 3 grits, 36, then 80, then 120.. Crazy?

Thanks..

Ok, some great feedback. Just to be clear, I'm making multiple passes on the 80 grit, enough to get rid of the scratches left by the 36, and all the lines are left by the 80. I can tell this by changing the angle I put the boards through the sander, the lines follow the new orientations. Some points I'm going to work on here: 1. Get some 100 or 120 grit belts, maybe even a 150. 2. Make sure the drum is absolutely clean, along with the back of the belt when I put the new paper on (never thought of this, but makes complete sense..) If anyone has any further suggestions or comments, keep 'em coming Thanks to all..

Just trying to make sure I have accurate expectations. Building a bunch of endgrain cutting boards for my wife (Real Estate agent, uses them as closing gifts.) and having some 'fun' with my drum sander. Once I have my boards glued up, running them through the drum sander to get read for final finishing. Starting with 36 grit to get everything level and get the last of the glue off. I've been reasonably good at getting the glue-ups aligned well, and most of the extra glue scraped off ahead of time, so this step seems to go pretty good. I flip back and forth until both sides are flat, but obviously still pretty rough at this point. My problem comes next... For my next step, I go to 80 grit paper, and I'm able to get rid of the scratches left over from the 36 grit, but the 80 grit leaves 'gouges' of it's own. I don't see any buildup on the paper, and I've tried several different pieces and they always have some sort of 'defect' like this. I'm guessing it's just a spot where there might be a small 'blob' of grit on the paper. Using VERY light cuts, and not seeing any indication of burning. In any case, to get rid of these lines, I'm forced to use quite a coarse paper on my orbital sander (I jump down to 60), then I can start moving back up the grits.. To be clear, these aren't huge gouges, but when you'd trying to sand them out of endgrain maple, walnut and purpleheart, it doesn't take much... My questions are: 1. Does this sound 'normal', and am I just asking too much of the tool? 2. Is there a 'premium' paper I can get to avoid this, or do I just need to go to a slightly higher grit as a 'third step', say 100 grit? Both? 3. Any other things I should change? For reference, I've used both Jet branded paper and some third party stuff I picked up at 'Busy Bee' (seems to be roughly the Canadian Harbour Freight..) I can't see a difference. Hope this all makes sense, thank you all in advance... David

+1 to all of the above. The only item I would put at the top of the list, at least based on what I understand you have is GOOD dust collection. I think at this point something like the clearvue or equivalent is pretty much a 'lifetime buy', and if you plan on spending long hours in the shop, protecting your lungs (not to mention keeping things clean) is a high priority.. I know for me, I've got tools I'd like to replace (crappy TS, underpowered BS, only a 6' jointer), but I'm saving up for my clearvue next.. Once you have that squared away, then I would look at which tools feel like they annoy you, or are holding you back.. My 2 cents, your mileage (kilometerage) may vary Happy sawing...

Are you sure the wood is fully dried to start with? Is the 'inside' of the cup the resawn face (IE the inside of the original plank)? Do your offcuts cup the same way? If so, I'd say the wood simply isn't completely dry yet.. Hope that makes sense.

Likely the final update on this, but some good news, I have been able to significantly improve performance by simply tightening the belt a bit. Mike's comment about segmented belts is likely a very germane one, as well as the fact that in my case, the pulley on the motor appears to have a slightly smaller groove than the pulley on the lower wheel. This causes the belt to not seat as low as I'd like in the lower pulley (seems to sit fine in the upper, fully in the groove without bottoming out). This in turn likely was causing it to slip when under load. Tightening the belt a bit seems to have resolved this, but I'll keep an eye on it. Note that I didn't really tighten it a lot, just enough to get the slack out.. It's still only a 3/4 HP motor, but I think I'm getting all it can provide now at least Thanks again to everyone's input, and let me know if you have any questions about what I'm seeing or what I've done.. Regards, David

Thanks to all for the feedback. To answer the previous question of 'how fast', the current motor is a 1750RPM one, and with the pulleys, it runs the bandsaw wheels at about half that, so if you were looking for FPM, it should be (14*(1750/2)*3.14)/12 = ~3200 FPM currently (assuming my math is right).. To expand on the current 'user experience', I can cut with a VERY slow feed rate, but anything above a snails pace is simply not possible right now. I don't believe it's a case of the blade binding due to sawdust however, as I don't think I get moving fast enough for that, it just feels like the machine is 'grinding' the wood off instead of cutting.. Hard to describe I guess.. Current plan it to do some more tests to ensure I'm not just hitting a case of the belt slipping, and try to do some more investigation on the blade end of the equation as well. Assuming neither of those directions yield results, I plan on swapping the motor out for a 1.5 HP one, same RPM. I'll then use the existing motor to built myself a low speed grinding rig (currently only have a 3500 RPM grinder), so I'll be reducing the 'waste' if I go that route.. Comments welcome..

You will get a huge number of responses on this, but my vote would be to get a cheap set of chisels to start with for a few reasons: 1. Gives you a way to try a lot of different tools to see what you might like and then want to upgrade.. 2. With turning tools, you sharpen a LOT and learning to sharpen well is key. It's much easier on the nerves to make your early learning mistakes on 'cheap' tools, then once you're comfortable, get the tool you want (Mine is a 'real' Ellsworth 5/8" gouge, you mileage may vary..) 3. Once you get the 'nice' version of a tool, you can then set up your 'old' tools with grinds that you don't use as often. To use the gouge example again, you might sharpen your 'old' one with a very steep bevel to get at the bottom of deep bowls for example.. Anyway, hope this gives you useful things to think about.. Cheers, David

Well, one advantage I see is to give even pressure over a large flat surface when you are doing an operation like shown in the picture. Most featherboards are only the thickness of a board (3/4 or so..).. My 2cents..