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Started cleaning up dad's bandsaw. Same model as I already have so no surprises. Change plug and add a paddle switch. The tires are shot due to dad's proximity to the ocean. A lot of plastics and rubber products lose their mind down there. Dad had purchased new factory tires so I pulled the wheels and changed the tires. Adjusted for co-planer and basically checked all the nuts, bolts and screws. Here's my handy-dandy belt de-tensioner. The sea air ate the original casters as well. I put steel ones on my other G0513 series so will add those for this base as well. I'll post more once I get the blade on and table aligned.

Finally finished this bed frame and for it installed. Nice to have the job done and I’m looking forward to cleaning my shop up and getting back to work on my TV stand soon.

Don’t mean to make you all jealous, but I’ve got a Vizio soundbar for my tv. WITH a subwoofer…

Give tha man a cigar ----Bingo. Problem resolved. It was quite hot that day and the resin container was left in the sun too long (unmixed). After checking with the manufacturuer, he was back yesterday. Kept the product out of the Sun and mixed smaller batches. The combination of product being too warm, large batches and the fact the chemical reaction is exothermic created the problem. Got the first coat down yesterday along with the sprinkles. Clear coat goes on today.

I have to give credit to Stumpy Nubs. He came by one afternoon and gave me some pointers! We considered it, using the same glass in my door. We went to the glass store and decided that the dark glass would look better and help tie in the dark streaks in the ambrosia maple drawer fronts and the walnut top. A piece of walnut that will be used for the top, rests on top in the previous series of pics. Here is a piece sitting in place, that will be used for one of the drawer fronts. I wish the background of these were more whitish but, you gotta dance with the one what brung ya!

Almost forgot . . . under lighting. Adjustable to zero. Sorry for the poor camera snap.

This project was mentioned a few times in the What's on the Bench thread. I figured there was enough mentioned that it would be worth while to share the outcome as there may be some helpful information. The project started with some detailed plans. I used a booklets object to be held to determine a good spacing as well as angle. The angle chosen was 50 degrees. 1/8" kerfs were pefect to hold the booklets. A little bit of geometry told me the size of material I'd need. The plans were good for all of about 30 min until I realized that it was going to be too difficult to build. So i made multiple plan changes that really aren't interesting but it made construction easier. The overall case was made with hand cut box joints. I wanted to go this way as I really like the look they provide. I was also able to to use the box joints to make the glass holding work quite nicely. The first joint was sloppy and had huge gaps. By the time i made it to the final joint i had the technique dialed in. The next major problem as i outlined was that the case i made was WAY WAY too large and a single sheet of glass was both too fragile and too cumbersome. I decided on a method to use the existing dividers to divide the glass into 4 pieces. To hold the glass I'd need to install horizontal dividers and make grooves in the dividers for the glass to slide. Next problem was how the glass was going to open, slide obviously, but will the side frame be mounted to the glass? Naa it's easier if the glass just slides through a slot, I'll show a better picture further down. Now that meant I needed case dividers as the shelves were already cut and were too small.... I decided I'd cut some dovetails to set the dividers. Yep those are speed gaps for rapid assembly. Now is about when i got laser focused on construction and stopped taking pictures. To cut the slots in the sides of the case I took the case and ripped off the front edge were the groove would by. I then marked out the extents of the slot and took the larger portion of the side to the table saw and nibbled away until half the slot was made. Then the ripped edge was glued back on creating the slot. Too many words not enough pictures. It might make sense from the pictures below. The final construction item was the back. Walnut plywood was $200 a sheet, i needed less than half a sheet, so I decided to make my own. I bought some cheap ply and walnut veneer. I jointed the veneer, fyi 48" long veneer is really difficult to joint. My trademark Lumber Veneer Press (tm) wasn't really a good idea. I didn't get enough pressure and the veneer was wavy and had ripples. Construction Done. Finish was 2 coats of wipe on poly. So the glass will slide both directions out the side. To the left it perfectly clears the door trim by about 1/32". It doesn't really need to as there is 7-8 feet to the right of the case to a wall. Just a happy accident. The glass slides through slots in the side. The glass rides in grooves. The shelves the hold the booklets don't touch the horizontal dividers. I left space in case lights were desired in the future. The shelves are held in place by 1/4" pieces of walnut cut to set the shelf height these pieces were glued to the case sides. This was the easiest way to ensure the shelves were set right but also provide some adjust ability should something happen.

I was going to put this in the WDYDT thread, but it was last Friday. Pam and her Sister had just buried their Mother on Thursday. Pam's Sister's Daughter Carey has been in the hospital for a long time. They had given up on her, and were sending Carey home on Friday. Carey has worked for my Nephew for years in his jet ski business, so she lives not far away from our place. BIL and SIL had just bought a new RV, and hybrid F150 to pull it with. They asked Thursday evening if we had anywhere they could set the camper up so they could be close to Carey. They pulled in Friday afternoon. They could have stayed in our rental/guest house any other time, but we have renters in it for a week starting earlier that day. I had an RV electrical box from years ago when Pam showed dogs, and we spent show weekends in the camper, but I needed to move the box to a better location. Some property that came with our rental house has another electrical service that powers some sort of a little office building. The only thing we've done with that service is put a chest freezer in the office building, and put the service in our name. I never thought about it. Carey died at home soon after she arrived there while BIL and I were setting up their Airstream that they had never used yet. Everything worked, and both air conditioners had cooled down the camper by the time SIL had taken care of what she needed to late that evening. Finally sitting in my chair at the house, I get a call from BIL saying the power was out. I went the couple of hundred yards over there, and troubleshot the electrical. One leg coming in from the Power Company was dead, so I called Power Company repair. They arrived a little over a half hour later, about an hour before dark. When they pulled the meter to check what was coming down the pole, one side of the meter socket crumbled out in pieces. The meter base was shot. It might have been from the 1950's. They didn't have a meter base on either of the two bucket trucks that had showed up, and said there was little chance of finding one after closing on a Friday. I told them about the girls burying their Mother yesterday, and Carey dying a few hours ago. I said I didn't want to get them to move. BIL was powering the Airstream with the F150, but that was not a long term solution. I asked the guys if they would reconnect the wires they had cut coming off the overhead lines if I replaced the meter, and they said they would. I had the meter base on the scrap metal pile that I had pulled off the rental house when I upgraded the service from 200 amps to 400 amps. The power company guys said they wished they could help me, but they really weren't allowed to. They watched as I worked. The old meter base on the pole was a 400 amp. The meter base I had was a 200 amp. The hot wires were plenty long enough, but the ground wires, coming into the socket from the top and bottom were too short by a couple of inches. I had to take some conductors out of the 400 amp aluminum service entrance wires to fit in the 200 amp sockets. I needed to lift the breaker box to get the ground wires into the lug sockets, and would leave the breaker box hanging on the wires. Even after that lifting, the conduit connecting the two boxes was too short.... I couldn't lift the breaker box by myself. The power company guys tried to help but could only get it up about halfway. There were several wires in conduits down in the ground. I told the guys I knew they weren't supposed to help, but if the boom on that truck happened to be under the breaker box, and lifted up, either something good or bad would happen, but it would be my only chance. In about 5 seconds, all I heard was, "Yes Sir". They had a strap they used. It took me about 15 minutes to get the hot wires trimmed, and in the lugs. They hooked the wires back up overhead, and plugged the meter back in. Everything went to work like it should. I tried my best to give each of the three of them a hundred dollar bill, but they wouldn't have it. They all shook my hand and left. The freezer is still working, and the Airstream is cool. I plan to put a whole new 200 amp pole there with a permit, conduit, and everything proper when I get the chance. This is the first time I've had to sit down and type this out since then.

Well I certainly tool the long way around the barn on this one. I eventually achieved my goals. A small wall hung form to make our room look bigger. Freeing up the old media cabinet so I can use it in the shop for stereo and computer stuff. I have a piece of wall-color painted wire mold to capture the wires and make them less obvious. I need to dig out a couple more long fiber-optic jumpers to finish wiring everything up first. Thanks for hanging in there.

A few days ago one of the amps in my home theater puked out it's guts. It powers the L, C, R and two of the surrounds, so without it, there is no joy in movieland. That modules I need to assemble a new one are out of stock for who knows how long (surprise, surprise). What's a fella to do? No music, no videos, no movies. Weekend evenings are always dedicated to music and/or movies. Seriously, this is a depressing situation. @pkinneb will back me up on this. The bay next door to my work is an electronics recycling depot, so on a whim, I check out their website. They go through the donations and offer up for sale anything that might be good for parts or even still working. There's a suggested price and you counter with an offer. So I end up with a fully operational Yamaha 7.1 AVR with separate audio channel inputs. They were asking $149, I offered $65 and they accepted It's a little underpowered, but will do just fine for temporary When I get my new amp built, I'll give this one back to them with my thanks (they are a non-profit). Now tonight it will be Party On About the new amps; they will be a beauty. 14 channels at 2000W RMS per channel. I don't need that much power for all channels, but the 7 subs do and the economics are that it's cheapest for me to purchase all of the same modules.

Now just waiting on a holesaw and then it's time to figure out how to mount all this with the blower itself.

I touched on this in the WDYDT thread but I ended up doing enough that I thought posting a separate thread might help somebody out. Basically I inherited a G0513X2. I have run a G0513X (no cast iron trunnions) for years so the setup was familiar. I added a paddle switch, swapped the plug to my typical type, cleaned up the guide bearings (none needed replacement at this point), co-planered (is that a verb?) the wheels and replaced the tires. Dad was well known for making "just this one cut" without turning on the DC even though the DC fob was hanging from the bandsaw . This resulted in some pretty crusty guide bearings that I cleaned up. For contrast, here is what my bearings look like after months of use BUT using dust collection. I used a 3/4" Timberwolf to test tensioning, aligning the table, and the fence. I don't know if I've posted about this here but I have a problem with the fence lock handle design on this series of saws. If you have stock on the table positioned to cut you cannot unlock the fence for minor adjustments. I took care of this on my old saw and will do the same mod to the newcomer as well. Unscrew the original handle and cut out a blank from some scrap (3/4" x 1-1/8" x 3-3/4" in my case). Drill a through hole for the 8mm bolt and counter bore it so the head is recessed. Mill a recess in the back to capture the locking mechanism dog and keep the handle oriented. Soften the edges, slap on some shellac and there you go. Now you have a handle that you can unlock for minor adjustments even when stock is present on the table (shown unlocked here). I tested the table and fence alignment with the 3/4" Timberwolf. OK, perpendicular and parallel alignment look good. I swap out the 3/4" blade for a 3/16" x 4 TPI blade that I use for tall curves. This machine will not be used for resawing but, this testing makes me feel good about making curved cuts in thick stock. Now I need to clean it up and cobble together some dust collection.

Put some miles on my honing guide. First time using it. So far i really like it. I also finished my first can of paste wax. My wax rag barley fits now.

Night Blooming Cereus. A tropical cactus. It is growing on a palmetto tree. I have planted orchids on this tree. So the cactus gets watered and fed because of the orchids. Warm summer heavy downpours stimulate the cactus to bloom. The flower, as big as my head, is once and done. The bloom opens around midnight and is closed by 11 AM. Peaks at dawn. In the middle picture at the bottom there are some unopened blooms that opened the next morning. It will bloom several times in the summer. This cactus produces dragon fruit. No good bought in the store. But if you can get one vine ripe it is a delicious taste. For those that don't eat spinach because of its looks will not taste this either. Same is true for persimmons. They must be tree ripened.

They'll do fine with grade 9 education You can get a lot of Rockler for a few year's university tuition.

This is way over my head. Think I'll go back to my shop with my transistor radio.

I got myself another project: sorting through all this: My wife has taken to trawling estate auctions in our area, and today we picked up this pile of wood. Most of it will undoubtably end up in the burn pile, but there's some solid chunks of turning stock, some mahogany, purple heart, and walnut. The true hidden gem was a 23"x23" 4/4 S4S dead flat board of honduran mahogany. Not a glue up, and it even still has the lumberyard sticker. Not bad for less than the price of a 2x12.

As my doors get a panel of dark tinted glass, I chose tongue and groove construction. After cutting the rails and stiles to length, I cut the grooves in all of the 8 pieces on the ts using the dado stack. I ran them thru and flipping them end for end thru again to insure the groove was centered. Using a scrap of the same thickness, I set the blades to cut the tongues. After these came out of the clamps, the rabbet on the inside was cut on the router table with a rabbeting bit. The corners were squared up with a chisel. I installed the Blum Euro soft close hinges after closely following the instructions. The doors are made from the same maple as the case sides and this was the last of that lumber so no room for errors. I’ll tackle the legs next.

A few years ago Frank Strazza posted up a jewelry box he made for his niece- it’s beautiful and it got me thinking I’d love nothing more to someday make something like it for my daughter. and then I want to make a raised panel book shelf. Can’t draw for crap, and I haven’t spent enough time with SketchUp to be worth a crap, so the idea is just in my head for now. Nothing too special, but If I could execute it just as I envision it I’d be super pleased.

Little project I made for my mother and aunt. Both are made from twice turned oak.

Talking with people that have different hobbies then I do has made me realize that any hobby done right is expensive.

Looks like you'll be busy for a while! Our first ever Rockler opened up this week. I might have to make up an excuse to go out that way soon to check it out.

I think this is is the universe telling you to cover the mess with one of those spectacular spiral veneer patterns

I've been spoiled by the small profile, unobtrusive, LED goose neck light on my DP and smaller bandsaw. Dad's Delta had the original lamp fixture which works fine but . . . This outlet is always hot so I can use the light for setup prior to turning the DP on. I could have hardwired the LED lamp in but I've been doing this long enough to know to future proof my builds when I can. Now I have to decide whether to keep the Rockler table dad used, move the Woodpecker table I'm used to, or shop build a custom one.

@RichardA shared this with me and I don’t want it to stop with me so I thought I would share with others. Sometimes we loose sight of the history of our freedom. Enjoy.

And money may not buy happiness, but it sure buys good hobbies

Garage floor is done. Larraine is delighted. Therefore I am delighted. We will start moving light stuff back into the garage this afternoon and the cars can go back in tomorrow night.

Without further discussing the merits of the mdf torsion box, If I thought that I might need more holes sometime in the future, I would install a continuous wide spacer in my torsion box along the line where the dog holes will be.

Tom, there has been a lot of grief in your family of late, and you are an awfully good "in-law" to do so much to help them keep it together. God bless you, and all of them.

True story. My wife bought me a Record block plane about 30 years ago, knowing nothing about planes. I left it in the drawer for about 20 years because I thought it was a cheap piece of junk. Then one day I spent about an hour tuning it to perfection. I'll reach for it more often than my LN block plane. Not sure why, but it just works better in my hand. About the only thing I could do to improve it is get a thicker iron made of better steel. the one it has sharpens easily, but also dulls easily and is a little thin. It was really a great value at somewhere around $20.

I'm liking the table lift a lot. It allows for the table to be swung side to side. It's also much easier to fine tune depth of drilling than the depth stop built onto the drill press, even though I've always liked the depth stop on the 1150's. The LV drill press table, that came Jan. 20th, finally got put on today. The preinstalled threaded inserts to mount it to the table wouldn't work with this drill press, but they had included some extra threaded inserts, which were fairly easy to install where I needed them. I'm all set up to drill holes for the handrail balusters, but will watch the hearing today, and will probably drill the holes tomorrow. My BIL was helping me. They're staying here for a while in their new camper. He was most impressed with the drill press mobile base I built, and is ready to sell, or toss, all his mobile bases.

Those two link examples posted above are pretty typical of written history. I thought it funny that in the first link it said Key as likely 6 to 8 miles away, and then on a map in the second link it showed that he was 2-1/2 miles away. I've found with history, you have to read several books on any particular event/subject to get a fairly clear picture. I wish we'd had the internet when I was in school.

Seems like Grizzly is having a sale until Thursday. I saw their 14" bandsaw is down from $995 to $695.

Quick project for my wife. She has some spools of thread that are too large to fit on her sewing machine. This allows her to put the spool next to the machine, the thread goes up and over the “finger” an then over into the machine. No plans, just eyeballed and built it as I went so I’m sure it could be done better. Cherry because… cherry. Still needs some edge treatment, sanding, and finish. Felt good to do something in the shop other than organize and clean, which it seems like is all I’ve done lately. The shop is coming along though.

It's easy.

It's a shame schools have changed so much since I was in Elementary and High School (1956 to 1968). Now I know that history might carry more weight in Virginia than a lot of newer States, but we had that drummed into us from probably the 5th Grade on up. I can't say the number of times teachers in different grades went over that with us, and I'm sure I gave a report on it probably more than once. Also, every morning, from 1st Grade through graduating High School everyone stood with their hands on their heart, and pledged allegiance to the flag. The commentator in that video looked like it was the first time he'd heard that history. It made me wonder how much American History he'd ever heard or read. These days, most who claim to be Patriots are at the other extreme. I don't trust anyone who wears that self appointed badge on their sleeves. I have known some real ones.

I have a Sandvick that I inherited from my father. It is one of my favorites. I will probably rehandle it someday. My father cut the ears off if the handle so he could cut with the saw upside down when doing remodel work. He was a remodel and repair contractor. It sharpens nicely and saws well.

I fell deep into the rabbit hole for diy audio. Have you looked into outlaw amps? Made by the same company that makes Macintosh amps. They also under spec their power unlike other companies. On their 5 channel its advertised at 125 per channel but audioholics did a dino test on it and it consistently at 135 watts per channel. I'm currently building lcr for my living room im just too lazy to make the crossovers. I built some theater speakers like the ones in the cinemas.

Once you hear a good Atmos system for music or movies, it's hard to go back. I actually rarely listen to music anymore outside my media room. I'd just rather save it for the best listening experience.

Probably best that way. Once you head down that hole... If you want to see over my head, check out this home theater build by @pkinneb I've looked at tons of builds on that site and his is right up there with the best of them. Just gorgeous. Mine pales by comparison, but it's more of a multipurpose room with full home theater quality AV. And folks say woodworking is an expensive hobby

You say that you are interested in more hand tool work. Especially with chisel work where you are hitting the chisel with a mallet downward on the bench, a solid surface is much better that a flexible surface so the energy of the mallet all goes into cutting the wood. You may want to consider solid blocking in that portion of the benchtop where you will be working on you dovetails and other joinery. I would make a solid wood top.

It's right next to where we go buy bulk food every 4-6 weeks too so those could be expensive weekends. Just got back from my youngest's "graduation" from preschool. Some of that savings might be diverted to Rockler...

That's a dangerous situation, my friend. I have a Lee Valley 5 minutes away from work and it's a constant battle.

Looks like it had taken a lightning strike too. That breaker on the right is blown apart, the black wire burned in two, and a hole blown through the inside cover over the breakers, and it was well rusted so that happened a long time ago. I don't think there is anyone alive that knows the history of it, or why it was originally a 400 amp service. I don't think I had ever opened the cover on that box before. Thanks for the comments. I just keep doing what needs to be done. Some days are more of a fight than others, but it often seems like I'm getting help. Nothing but dumb luck that I had that extra meter base. I think they slept for over 20 hours in the camper that night, and well into the next day.

Short of hold fasts or hold downs I don't think the torsion box would be all the limiting. You mention a great idea. John Heitz with I Build IT recently did a work bench from plywood where he faced it with solid wood. I think that's a great way to keep cost down but also create a more durable surface than MDF provides. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulZf1GTcWlk I'm not sure the region your in nor your budget but even $150 is dirt cheap in my opinion. A nice bench is worth the cost, that said I started out with a pine bench from box store garbage and still have it to this day. The bench has served me well for 5 years with no complaints. I had to re flatten it after 2 years due to the lumber drying a bit more and the top changing shape but that was no big deal. I've done the MDF torsion box thing, I'm trying to give it away currently. Being able to plunge a dog hole where i need it when i need it is way more valuable to me. The other thing with the MDF and planning out all your dog holes ahead of time is that it doesn't really provide much room for flexibility. Shannon Rodgers with Renisance WW has a lot of good insight on dog hole position. His main advice is to not put any in a bench and drill them as you find that you need them where yo need them.

I'm a little behind here, but I do love me some finger joints. They are my go to for drawers. Easy, fast, and strong as a bull. And they look darn good too.

Sometimes it really helps to walk away from a problem for a while.

That came out real nice gee-dub no matter how long it may have taken. Great looking piece. Thats what I did I really like the clean look. We have a newer TV that sits a few inches higher then in the picture and that makes me even happier that there are no wires.

Yes it acts like both a pore filler and sanding sealer. I applies it after a coat os shellac as sealer so I do't know how well it acutually penetrates pores. Very little sanding between coats - I used 400 grit. It sands like butter and the fine white dust can clog your sandpaper - keep shop vac handy. It does not level as well as and epoxy so you will have little ridges hear and there from your spreader. It cures with UV rays so if you are using a rag on a turned piece it will not harden on the lathe and I am not sure what the result would look like. Have the impression that the filler is not really hard enough to protect the wood from abuse and because it sands so easily I don't think that it is very abrasion resistant. Keep in mind that I have only used it once - on apple wood veneer. I know that shellac can be used as a finish and I have heard that products like ARS will work. For sure you could use shellac and then ARS. Solarez has other products that can be used as finishes but I have no experience with them

Been awhile... Walls The T1-11 went up without too much trouble, aside from the usual errors that creep in when measuring for outlet boxes. Should have measured thrice. I got some help from my wife, but most of the panels were cut and wrestled into place solo. After the lower 8' was done, I switched to 5mm underlay plywood for the upper layer. It's pretty floppy and bulges out over the insulation, but it's cheap, decent looking, and protects the insulation. I still need to trim out the transition to keep the underlay flat. I'm considering doing a french cleat all the way around, because why not? I'm doing all the loft walls in the 5mm ply, since I'm not really worried about hanging stuff on it, or routinely smashing into it. Most of the walls up here will be covered in shelves anyways. The front wall is framed every which way to sunday... It's also more than 50% door/window, so I've been kind of avoiding dealing with it until the easier part of the structure is finished. I'm alternating between just buying a bale of 4" insulation, or furring it out to use my remaining 6" batts. The spacing is all over the place though so I'll have to cut every batt to fit regardless. Back Window I wanted to make the shop a little less cave-like and bring in some natural light near the planned bench location and allow a nice cross breeze on pleasant days. My father had a 5' window laying around which I was able to snag for free. Almost could have gone larger, but not at the prices of new windows. A fine homebuilder I am not, but I was able to cut a notch in the old fiber siding, flash, seal, and trim it up well enough for my needs. This window faces south across the neighbor's pasture. Dust collection I've been holding off on running ducting because I didn't like the idea of redoing it soon and my little HF collector and Oneida cyclone just wouldn't be up to the task of 6" pipe. Luckily I was able to snag an old 3HP blower, so I'll be running a 6" metal ducting main. I'm not 100% sure if I'm going to go with 6" or 4" drops to the machines. From reading it seems the increased airspeed of the smaller diameter will be more important with such tall ceilings than volume. And I'm much more willing to swap out verticals than redo the entire system. Tables and Benches and Storage oh my! Another thing I did was expand the rubber flooring under the loft. I'll still need one more trip to the tractor supply to cover the entryway, but at least now I can roll my carts anywhere in the shop as needed I got this stack of flat files from a local surveying business, and added 3" casters so I can access the underside of the stairs for deep storage. I removed two drawers, and extended the drawer fronts with plywood so as to have two double-height drawers. The flat storage is already starting to fill up with hardware and materials, and I'm treating the top as my "red tag" space for collecting miscellaneous things that haven't been sorted or are otherwise missing a home. This is what I'm calling my finishing corner for the moment. I don't have a real spray system, but this area is still designated for finishing tasks and has already been used a few times. I'll probably add a small exhaust fan to vent fumes outside, and might add a curtain or something to protect the rest of the shop (and reduce dust intrusion) when using rattle cans or the like. While a little cart-before-the-horse, I added a dedicated sharpening cart. Still extremely basic, but having my grinder and stones always available should help me keep up with my sharpening. It'll live next to the lathe, but with wheels I can easily drag it over next to the workbench when needed. The vari-grind setup is absolutely worth it. If you're considering one I heartily recommend it Next steps will be tearing down the entry-way shelves that came with the place so I can get the last of the walls up, running DC ducting, and insulating the front wall as best I can. Bonus shop dog.