Von's shop tour and setup log

[wtnhighlander]

Maybe glue in a strip of ply, on edge, under the platform. Place it so it just kisses the rail when the aluminum angle is hooked over it, or maybe so a bit of force is needed to clip it over the rail. Should act like a gusset to stiffen it up a bit.

 

[Mark J]

I was going to suggest that your prototype looks like it could accommodate 2 (or even 3) clamps.  I think that would increase the holding power.  But I also like wtnhighlander's idea.  

The two ideas are not mutually exclusive.   You could have a plywood strip with gaps for the clamps.  Another thought is attach the plywood strip to the clamps rather than the underside of the table extension. 

Just some rambling ideas.

[Von]

I've had this Microjig stuff sitting around for a while, so decided to get some experience with it today and make a simple sled. Geedub has covered the details of cutting the dovetail grooves elsewhere, so I won't reproduce those. All the grooves were straight forward on my router table using the Matchfit relief and then dovetail bits.

It took me probably twice as long to make the two stops you see as it did the rest of the table. My first try ended in the disaster you see below when I made two mistakes: moving the piece the wrong way against the bit on the router table (left-to-right, such that I was fighting the bit to keep it against my fence) and taking too big of a cut. I figured out pretty quickly into the cut things were horribly wrong, but stupidly thought I could power through. After the bit broke (it just popped out of the slot without much drama) I spent some quality time reminding myself about how routers work, and things went better after that. Anyway, not a finer moment.

After that I did some reconfiguration of my shop vac cart. What I've figured out using it is that I want everything I regularly access on the front of the cart (the front being where the smart wheels are). Hopefully this will let me more quickly and easily change it between being a shop vac and a dust collector for my ROS (I switch the vac power between a remote control switch and a tool-controlled switch as well as changing the hose), and also mean that when I pull the cart into position, everything will be closer to what I'm working on. I also added some brackets on the right side to hold whatever hose I'm not using at the moment.

[Von]

I was reminded yesterday by my router whoops that I've been meaning to put up some brackets so I can put my box fan in my window so I can air out the shop and help keep odors out of the house. While walking the dog this morning, I realized I could use Geedub's cleat approach to put the brackets on cleats. So I put a cleat under my window, mounted the brackets to a pair of wrap-around cleats similar to his, and it worked well. Not sure I'll ever move the brackets around, but I will probably use the wall cleat for other stuff.

[Von]

Back to my infeed table, the push clamp I ordered from Armor arrived today along with a couple of their doghole horizontal clamps I've been meaning to try (and seem to work well on first, somewhat contrived, usage).

The good news is with this clamp, the infeed table is rock solid, easily holding up my sled.

It is however, about 4" longer than I would like, even at its shortest, something I didn't think about when I ordered it. So, I'm fairly sure now this is going to work, and am going to try a couple other toggle clamps to see if I can "Goldilocks" the right one.

 

 

[Mark J]

Congratulations on a successful prototype.  And I gotta say, that is no small sled.

[Von]

Finally got some shop time yesterday and make progress on the in feed table. A got a couple of clamps and also some adhesive silicon pad. Building on the advice from wtnhighlander and Mark J, I replaced the small pads on the clamps with larger ones, with the silicon attached. My conclusion is this was overkill, with this much surface area on the clamp heads combined with the silicon, it takes only a tiny amount of clamping force to hold the extension in place. I'm sure one would have sufficed. And while I tried to allow the bolts to spin so I could adjust the clamping pressure with the clamps in place, it didn't really work, so I had to unscrew the clamps to adjust them, which fortunately I only had to do a couple times to dial them in.

Another lesson learned - in between the clamps, the brackets, stuff on my fence, and the miter dado, there is a lot going on and space gets tight. I should have laid it out more carefully. I ended up having to shift one clamp because its screw protruded into the miter dado and had to cut a notch in the clamp head to make it work.

Final result with some of the finishing touches done. Going to try it for a while and then decide if it's a prototype or good enough.

[dwilliam]

You seem to be moving your shop setup forward quite a bit! It might be difficult to maximize space in a dual-purpose garage, but it appears like you have a good plan in place. I'm eager to watch everything come together! Please keep us informed on your progress.

[Von]

I expect some will find this a silly distraction and I won't argue with you.

I've been battling a cold for the last week plus and while mindlessly binging content, came across this video on motorizing the raising/lowering of a drill press table. I've been meaning to add a front crank to my drill press table for a while and I thought, well, I could work on the electronics for this until I feel like getting back into the shop.

Amazon-click-click and here are the electronics.The main change from what you see in the video is my choice of motor. I chose one with the shaft offset to the right instead of the left since I believe that fits the geometry of my situation better. It's also slower (at 50rpm) than the one in the video (160rpm), but I figured for a bench top drill press, that would be fine - I don't need my table setting any speed records. No limiters on travel yet, I'll add those once I get it together and determine if I need them.

Today I got a couple hours of shop time to try and hook up the motor. First step was to drill out the 14mm side of the coupling to 9/16" to fit the shaft on the drill press table (to save you the math: 9/16" - 14mm = ~.3mm, so it's a very light drilling out).

Then I drilled and tapped a couple holes for 1/4-20 set screws in the coupling since the shafts on the motor and drill press table have flat spots. I'll mention for safety: I need a better way of holding down the coupling in my set up you see, as when the drill bit gets through the material the coupling has a tendency to quickly(!) walk up the bit, bruising ones fingers if they are in the area. The little quick clamp helped a little holding it down, but not much.

Tap, tap, tap...

First attempt to attach and test the motor (with table out of the way) and everything worked!

Mounted the motor to the bottom of the table and did some more testing.

Good news: Raising the table works great! Bad news: lowering the table doesn't - things get squirrelly and the coupling comes apart. I think what is going on is the bar with the teeth on the column that table uses to raise/lower is loose. When I raise the table, it quickly gets pressed into the bottom of the column and stays in place, but when I lower the table, it gets raised up and then wiggles back and forth.

So tomorrow I'll try affixing the bar somehow (hose clamp perhaps). It also won't shock me if the motor is shifting around and I need another bracket holding it to the table and perhaps something to make sure it isn't shifting forward/backward in the brackets.

[JohnG]

Does your drill press not have a clamp ring above the toothed bar? The bar can’t be clamped in place unless you don’t want to be able to rotate your table. 

If it does have a top clamp, you might need to adjust it to remove the play. 
 

[Von]

Back at the drill press table motor from my last point.

@JohnG Yes, the column has a ring at the top of the bar and it definitely needed tightening but that was the least of my problems...

I started by clamping the top of my bar to keep it in place. Thought went through my head at this point: Wow, those teeth go high up the bar, much higher than the table could go. That seems odd.

And then I looked at the bottom of the bar: Wow, those teeth don't go down very far on the bar. I'm losing a couple inches of travel. That seems odds.

Hmmm, I don't suppose some idiot installed the bar upside down 20 years ago when they bought it? Let's look at the manual. Yep, that's exactly what happened! The top of the bar should have the big flat area without teeth. In my defense, they didn't exactly hit me over the head with this point in the instructions, but still, yeah, I'm an idiot. I'm surprised it works upside down as well as it does.

Take drill press apart and correct orientation of the bar. Clean and lubricate column and gears while I'm at it.

Ok, drill press back together and the motor works great now, both up and down! 

Clean up the wiring (box in front gets a cover).

And tada!

A fun little project. Some details/caveats...

• Speed: with my 50 rpm motor, I'm seeing 1/4" of movement per second. It takes about 30 seconds to cover the entirety of my table's movement range. I suspect for a floor-standing model or the very impatient, that would be intolerably slow at times. Ideally, two speeds or a faster variable speed motor would be nice.
• The movement down still has minor hiccups and isn't as smooth as up. I suspect my worm gear has some wear and may try replacing it.
• Obviously the table has to be unlocked for the motor to work. This allows a little back-and-forth play in the table, so I probably will end up locking it for some operations, but I think being unlocked will be fine for most stuff. I have seen some folks tie a locking mechanism into the raising/lowering function (e.g.).
• I don't know what would give right now if I run the table into the limits of its travel or try to run it with the the tabled locked. My guess is the coupling would come apart.

Random picture of coupling coming apart during my testing. It presses back together with hand force.

[Coop]

Some, a lot, most of you guys amaze me with your ingenuity! Well done Von! 

[Von]

A minor upgrade to my router table: I replaced the clamps on the fence, which used to clamp onto the edges of the table itself and were always coming off when the fence slide back or forth, with t-track, bolts and knobs. For ease of use, I will replace the short knobs from my stash with some of the Rockler fence knobs next time I get to their store or put in an order.

Q: Can anyone think of a reason I benefit from having a fence 6+ inches longer than the table is wide? Only thing I can think of is milling trim, but I rarely do that and could use a temporary fence if I do. The fence needed the extra length with the edge clamps, but now I could imagine getting/making a shorter one that doesn't stick out into space and get in the way (I don't think I can cut it down cleanly without cutting into the holddown slots which would be uglyish).

[wtnhighlander]

I can't think of any good reason to keep the fence that wide. The majority of routing operations can be done with a bearing or a guide pin, and don't require a fence at all.

[Coop]

On 3/5/2024 at 6:23 PM, wtnhighlander said:

I can't think of any good reason to keep the fence that wide. The majority of routing operations can be done with a bearing or a guide pin, and don't require a fence at all.

+1

[pkinneb]

While I use a fence almost always at the router table I cannot think of a reason to have it longer then the table either unless you want to hang something off it, like a jacket 

[gee-dub]

Here's one.

However, as a coat rack they can be very handy

[Von]

Finished a couple minor projects today. A pair of magnetic braces to hold my router dado jig up on my garage door...

And I've bought a cheap drill press vise off of ebay and mounted it on a piece of scrap 2x8 so I can easily mount it on my drill press table for those times I drill metal. My hope is this will be strong enough to hold down any metal I'm drilling that wants to climb the bit, for which I've found a standard t-bolt hold down is not.

[Von]

Hopefully upping my odds from 50/50 of grabbing the right screwdriver. Indicators are maple and walnut scraps glued up and then plug cut. Fun little project.

 

[Von]

Needed to flush cut a couple pieces of plywood I face-glued together to make a thicker piece and decided to try making a flush-cut fence/L-fence/pattern fence for my table saw (see e.g). I think I remember seeing g-dub has a sophisticated version, mine is basic.

It worked well and I was impressed with how easy and comfortable it is to use. The blade is shielded under the fence and running the workpieces against the fence seems fairly idiot proof. Nice to find something from YT that works as advertised. I am not sold the little window to clear offcuts is worth it, but it was much easier to add before assembly than after so I decided to try it.

The result from running the piece you see above on the left through once on each side:

[Mark J]

If I understand the operation correctly, the left edge of the L-fence has to be lined up exactly with the left edge of the saw teeth.  Curious how you set up for the cut?

[JohnG]

On 3/25/2024 at 11:41 AM, Mark J said:

If I understand the operation correctly, the left edge of the L-fence has to be lined up exactly with the left edge of the saw teeth.  Curious how you set up for the cut?

That’s correct. You can get pretty close by placing a block or rule on the left side of the blade and then sliding the L fence and fence against it . But it is wise to run a piece of scrap along it to make sure the fence isn’t offset to the right (and therefore cutting too far into the work piece). If the fence is too far to the left, you can always adjust and cut again.

[wtnhighlander]

When I adjust my L fence, I use a square with the vertical edge touching a tooth of the saw blade that is set to the left, not the plate of the blade. 

[Coop]

I’ve never built a L fence as I’m not sure I understand the usefulness of it. As often as I’ve heard of them, I’m sure I’m missing something? 

[JohnG]

On 3/25/2024 at 10:45 PM, Coop said:

I’ve never built a L fence as I’m not sure I understand the usefulness of it. As often as I’ve heard of them, I’m sure I’m missing something? 

They are great. You can use them to flush cut patterns on the TS (straight cuts), cut tapers, cut odd angles quickly and safely, and they are also great for trimming splines on mitered corners.

You can make a long push block with some high friction rubber on the bottom, then set the block at any angle on a panel. With the L fence set just higher than the panel, you can tun the block along the fence, cutting the panel flush to the edge of your block.