difalkner

The back plate is mounted to a faceplate and there is a 1/4" hole in the center for a bolt to connect the two plates. Each slot has a bolt and rubber gripper that holds the bowl or drum staves. Here's a video showing how it goes together and how it works when on the lathe. This is one of my customers and he gave me permission to use his video back when he posted it - David

I have greatly improved not only the process but the speed at cutting Longworth chucks so I thought I'd do another video. When I first cut these chucks they were taking about 16 minutes per disc followed by 5 minutes or more per disc of hand sanding the edges to clean off the tabs and to round the edge. Occasionally the Baltic Birch would chip where I cut a tab and that was frustrating. Anyway, it's now a fairly refined and efficient process for a small home workshop. It could be improved upon but for now it's working just fine. The tools for the entire process are circular saw to break down the BB, table saw, drill press, CNC, stationary belt sander, drum sander, and ROS. Here's the video - Enjoy! David

There's never been any alcohol in our house but we do drink water and coffee. Except for me and my coffee, for which I have a specific place to set my cup and to stand and take a sip, nobody brings liquids into the shop. No exceptions ever. Even though my tools are all heavy and industrial I don't allow anyone to lean on tools. My philosophy is that if you can't stand without leaning on something then take a quick walk through the shop and go sit in the house. I work in the shop all day every day and I don't lean on anything. Besides, as has been said I don't want your hands on my cast iron surfaces. And just as important, don't walk in and begin picking up pieces of wood or moving fences and such. Fences might have been set for a particular cut when you got here and I'll make the cut when you leave, so don't move anything. I welcome visitors and many from our Woodworking Club come by but all get the 'rules briefing' before entering the shop. David

I'll confess that I didn't read 100% of the posts above but probably enough to get the flow. I built a CNC router about 3 years ago and may have posted the build here (I don't recall, sorry). The main thing I cut with it is Longworth chucks that we sell on Etsy (we've cut almost 200 of them in the last 18 months). But the CNC is just another tool in the shop to me; I turn it on, cut something, turn it off and move on to the next step. What's nice about it is the repeatability and accuracy. If I can cut something on the bandsaw faster than using Fusion 360 for CAD/CAM and then cutting a piece on the CNC then the bandsaw gets used. But if that same part is one that I'll need a dozen more of over the next month then the CNC gets the job - it just depends but in the end it's just another tool in the shop. We don't (yet) have a 3D printer but I have looked at several. A good friend has two 3D printers so I don't need one right now because he'll print anything I need. The acoustic guitar, and related forms/fixtures/jigs I built last year, could have been helped by the CNC but I only used it for a small portion of cutting the bridge. The rest was completely by hand and I do a lot of hand work on a fair number of jobs/projects every week. And actually, the reason I built the CNC is to cut forms, fixtures, jigs, and templates for building acoustic guitars but I have yet to do any of that with the CNC. When I started woodworking about 45 years ago I used a handsaw. When I got a circular saw the handsaw gathered dust unless the circular saw couldn't do the job. When I got a table saw the circular saw got put away. But it is still used to break down Baltic Birch sheets for the Longworth chucks because it's the best tool for that task in our shop (no room to handle a 5x5 sheet on the table saw). Cuts that I would have done on the bandsaw a few years ago might today go to the CNC. They're all just tools and I use what makes sense for the job because I have them and they each handle the job for which they were designed. My $0.02 David

"haven't had that since 1969." Hotel California reference? Neat. Isopropyl alcohol won't work for dissolving Shellac. And it contains water which will make the finish blush even if it did work as a solvent. You'll have to find some real DNA or Everclear, I guess. David

In the next week or so I'll begin the upgrade on our HF unit to convert it to a two-stage dust collector. I replaced the 5 micron bag 'filter' with a Wynn 0.5 micron a couple of years ago because of the aforementioned fine dust on everything. One side benefit in upgrading to the Wynn filter is that I was having to clean the filters on our mini split unit sometimes twice each week, but after the upgrade I now can go 3-4 weeks without cleaning the filters. I won't be using a cyclone on this two-stage conversion, though, but will instead use a Thien baffle. I added one to my shop vac several years ago and it works great. David

I use these from Big Horn, 6 mil (I think) - https://www.amazon.com/Big-Horn-11781-Disposable-Plastic/dp/B003NE5A9Q I bought the 5 pack in Feb 2017 and still have 2 remaining. About two months ago I finally changed the second bag because when I dumped the chips/dust in our trash can the bag caught on something and tore 3 or 4 holes that I couldn't seal good enough to keep using the bag. Seems like that's what happened to the first bag, as well. But these are heavy duty bags that last quite a while. However, if you're in the habit of one-time use and throw away then I would look for something like the trash bags mentioned above. David

They are really quite handy tools. You can very easily let the CNC dominate your woodworking and greatly shift your mindset to nothing but CNC work, but I prefer to just use it as another tool in the shop. There are some pieces we sell on Etsy and these designs have come about because we have a CNC. But there are others where the CNC just makes the job quicker, easier, and therefore more profitable - just a better tool for the job. Sometimes I use the CNC for very simple tasks and sometimes the engineering side of me takes over and manipulating the work piece on the spoilboard coupled with multiple bit changes begins to look like a choreographed work of art (or nightmare )! Below is a simple cut I made yesterday for our mailman. He has a CarveWright machine and engraved a sheet of acrylic but the engraving didn't come out like he wanted, so he asked me to just cut the outer circle. It took all of 5 minutes to draw it up in Fusion 360 and generate the G-code. Then I found center of the circle and used carpet tape to hold the circle and clamps to hold the entire piece. The cut took about 30 seconds. In this case the CNC was the perfect tool for the job, far better result than if I had used the bandsaw or rigged a way to cut this with a hand held router. David

Thanks, Guys! I know what you mean, Coop. I don't have a lathe but I really like seeing what those guys turn. And they use bandsaws, table saws, planers, joiners, miter saws, etc. to get that piece to work on the lathe. Same with the CNC for me - it's just another tool in the shop. I turn it on, use it, turn it off, and then move on to the next tool in the lineup. Sometimes it's the final step and sometimes it's just one tool of many to get to the final project completion. David

Those look really nice, Kev! The Curly Maple is perfect against the Bubinga. Good job. I just finished a large Walnut end grain Lazy Susan and they're cool to do. David

When I make cutting boards, even 2" thick boards, I have to be careful how I store them while they're in the process and stages of construction. At night or if I move on to other projects while glue is drying on the cutting board(s) I stand them on edge and out of the way. My table saw extension is unfinished MDF and I have found that it's safe to leave a cutting board lying flat on that surface but I still don't like doing it for more than a few hours. Our shop is climate controlled so I don't have huge humidity swings and don't usually have issues with end grain work cupping but if it has just been glued and not yet surfaced it's still subject to the moisture in the glue and will likely move, so that's why I stand them on edge. David

From page 18 of the SuperMax 19/38 manual - NOTE: TENSION ROLLER PRESSURE WARNING SIGNS It is important to pay attention to the tension roller pressure because too little pressure can result in slippage of stock on conveyor belt and kick back. Too much tension can cause snipe when sanding. I have mine set about as loose as they can go, fwiw. David

Not sure, Brendon, but I've read many times about others getting it on theirs (SuperMax and other brands, as well). It's mentioned in the SuperMax manual and they tell you how to set the pressure rollers but I still get it, so I've learned how to get around it with sacrificial boards. David

For those of you who use a drum sander you know that sometimes you'll get snipe just like on a planer. The quick trick to eliminating that is just like with a planer - use a sacrificial board in front of and behind the work piece. Now, that's all fine and dandy if you have straight edges on your work piece but if it's oddly shaped or round, then what do you do? Well, what I do is save the cut-offs from the work piece. They're the same thickness and should fit pretty closely to run in front of and behind the target work piece. A few weeks ago I cut a large Lazy Susan and didn't allow enough on my scrap pieces to use them on the drum sander. What I ended up with was a very beautiful Walnut Lazy Susan but at the correct angle, and if you knew what to look for, you could see some very faint snipe. I didn't take a photo but I could see it. So when I made this even thicker Walnut cutting board I was determined to not fall into that trap again. My cut-offs were large enough to go in front of and behind the cutting board and what I ended up with is a perfectly flat 18" round surface. I cut the scrap pieces down to where they fit just inside the width of our 19/38 drum sander and made sure to feed them in before and after the cutting board on each pass of each grit from 120/150/220. I've also done this with angled pieces where the leading edge is angled relative to the grain direction and it truly makes a difference. David

Ditto on the Walnut. Looks like some I just bought. David