How was your weekend?

One step for a man, giant step for WoodworkingWeb :)

I’ve been working on a bathroom vanity for my ..erm…bathroom….but my tablesaw blade height adjuster has failed and I’m on hold till the new part arrives. I’m told it’s in the post (and under warranty) and can’t say nice enough things about Charnwood’s customer support.

I picked up my first real tablesaw Thursday. A Ridgid R4512. Put it together, spent a majority of the weekend doing stupid adjustments to get it squared up. I think its ‘somewhat’ close, but I don’t know. :(

I tried making a crosscut sled. It looks good, performs bad. Over a 12" section it veers to the right about 1/16". My goal is to make small jewelry boxes and I can’t even dream of it if I can’t cut perfectly square. I’m not entirely sure what to do. Getting so frustrated with woodworking and I haven’t even really made anything yet :(

I spent my holiday weekend (last weekend) coughing …
still coughing.

the stats is awesome — I was trying to remember how long it took for that other site to reach 300. .

Lets not mention that ‘other site’. It’s full of pretentious ‘woodworkers’ whom I seem to not be good enough for. I’d like to try to fit in here.

Walnut – You fit in here just fine. Don’t worry about that other place. Woodworking can be VERY frustrating,, but very rewarding. You’ll get there. Just give it some time.

I’m still setting up my tablesaw…I don’t think I’ll ever get it perfect. That won’t stop me from trying.

I’m being mind-boggled by having to figure out multiple leg mortises for a 44" base cabinet. Had it all drawn out and realized I needed to make changes to the bottom shelf, so the rail mortises will change. Bang head on work bench….

I’m trying to make a shave horse that was in the American Woodworker magazine in 2008. It has angled back legs that go out 15 degrees and back 15 degrees. Some cuts can be made on the compound miter saw, and some have to be made with a hand saw. Then some parts are discarded. Some parts are glued to the opposite side of where the cut was made.

OK, I made the cuts. The parts that I thought were right, turned out to be wrong. The parts that I thought were wrong, turned out to be right. Now I’m trying to continue by mocking up and clamping before making cuts.

The weekend was long and confusing!

It can be exceptionally frustrating. I used the last of my money on a crappy tablesaw, which to me is still pretty nice but the ‘other’ site scoffs at. I have scraps of black walnut, which I don’t want to chop up. I would love to use for a project. Other than that, I have a small sheet of MDF and some 1/8" plywood. I’m going to attempt to make this damn sled again tonight, but I don’t think I have enough material. At least this time I know I shouldn’t be making it with glue!

“other site”: You should have bought a used wondersaw…new saws will never match the brilliance of the wondersaw"…NAH! A new Fastool 900 is the only way to go!…dumb bastards, cut it by hand, only wimps use electricity!"

The thing is we all buy what we can find in our budget and then we make do. Walnut, you’ll make it work. Never chop up good wood. I rescued a really nice bit of walnut veneer from a broken sewing machine case from the thirties and made a great little stool out of it. It ain’t art, maybe, but it ain’t half bad and it ain’t firewood.

:) I like that W&R.
I used hand planes last weekend to flatten a table top I am still sore all over.

Well between world cup games and the shop I did not feel 3 days go by. Yes we had our independence day on the 4th so I got 3 days weekend.
It’s a shame that such an important day we don’t get a week off.

This said I did have time to go through my favorites and prioritize the order of the todo projects. Once I had it all in order I decided to change it (:

Well it was a great weekend.

Don’t worry about the numbers. 300, 500 it goes fast.
I hardly open the other site project. There is a lot lacking.

I had a bad spot in the floor by the back door that needed fixed. Unfortunately, the door frame (jamb) was in bad shape so I made new ones out of 2×6′s. Pieces for a new jamb was over $60, or $11 and an hour in the shop…easy decision. I hate working on mobile homes.
Then I went and looked over a house my daughter wants to buy. It’s a two story 6 bedroom duplex. It’s been empty for awhile and some idiot broke in and stole all the copper wire and plumbing pipe out of it. The main structure appears to be solid, but it will need new soffit and fascia, and a lot of plaster repair. The main problem I saw was a cantilevered room on the back that looked like it used to be kitchens for the apartments. The roof has completely failed and I wouldn’t feel safe even walking in there. My suggestion to her was to tear the rooms off, and rebuild the floor as a back deck. She could move the kitchens to the dining rooms. The basement is wide open and gives excellent access for running electric, water and gas.
Of course, daddy will be doing most of the work if she buys it.

Hey Walnut, how are you building and squaring your cross-cut sled?

We spent the 4th with family, shooting off fireworks. We had a bottle rocket go haywire and land in the neighbors gutter. It was smoking quite a bit, and we had thought it might start a fire. My wife says where’s the hose? My sister replies with “I gotta beer!”. Luckily, there was a ladder nearby, and we were able to get the bottle rocket out without burning the neighbors house down. Too hot for a fire anyway! Started on four shot glass display cases on Saturday which required also building a new bevel/miter sled. Each display case will hold 60 shot glasses. The heat kept me from doing too much though. I can only bear to stand about an hour in the shop at a time right now. I’ve got to get AC in there somehow.

I have had better times as my heart seems to be giving me trouble so nothing done in the shop. Do enjoy visiting the site and seeing what others are doing. Really like seeing posts without criticism. I think we need to be reminded that the cost of the tool does not guarantee the quality of the work. I have seen beautiful work done with cheap tools and crappy work done with expensive tools. The better tools may make it easier.

Monty, the sled I made was 1/2" ply base, with doubled up 1/2" ply fences and walnut runners. However, I didn’t know I should just screw everything together. I glued it. So I can’t adjust my fence. I used a square when I put it together to get it as accurate as possible. Apparently I didn’t do good enough. Oh well. I went in the garage last night with the intention of building a new one, but I don’t have enough material. It’ll probably be a week or two before I can buy anything either. Oh well!

Kepy, I agree entirely. My uncle swears by Festool, yet at least twice a year he sends tools in for repairs. Tools like DeWalt/Ridgid may not have all of the features a festool gadget may have but the identical features they do have, seem to perform the same. My 100$ Router is JUST as good as his 550$ router. Go figure. When this fails in 4-5 years, I will buy another 100$ one. Meanwhile he will send his in for repairs and get the same old router back with outdated technology(if things advance, which they usually do in 5 years).

I had a friend who could carve the most beautiful works of art with a moderately sharp pocketknife. If you gave me a full set of top notch carving gear I’d be lucky to get a stick figure straight.

The Fourth was called on account of Rain here in New Hampshire, all of the Fireworks were on the Fifth…
Mostly did some much-needed Apartment Cleaning, not much for Woodworking…
I did manage to fix our front door… This Old Building must have shifted or something, because the door was next to impossible to close and lock. Opening it took Super-human strength as well!
I just took a rasp to any areas that showed signs of rubbing, and continued to try to open and close it until… well, until I could open and close it!
Also managed to saw up some Oak I’ve been toting around forever on the new Band Saw Sled…

The Sled is a simple thing, but it works pretty well! Here it is after cutting some Pear…

I’m currently working on a bigger one, now that the idea has been proven… :)