It seems that Rockler have come up with a product that is all the rage at the AWFS (the big wood show that is on this weekend in Las Vegas)

With high-friction rubber surfaces and a durable core, Bench Cookies keep projects from slipping while routing, sanding, carving and more. They raise up panels for edge work and finishing.  Each cookies is 3” dia. x 1” thick. Rockler Bench Cookies

They may not be a “Trending Topic” on Twitter, but they certainly are generating a lot of discussion from the guys who are there!

One of the regulars sent me this photo of a 40″ bandsaw from a website dedicated to old woodworking machines, called www.owwm.com

Old 1890's Cast Iron Bandsaw

The gentleman in the photo found this bandsaw in the States on eBay – no idea what he paid for it.  The bandsaw itself is from the 1850s – 1890s, and it is 40″ (the wheel diameter), which gives it a massive throat, and it has a significant resaw capacity.  The thing looks like it weights a ton (and that may not be that far from the truth!), being solid cast iron.

I started scanning through the large collection of other bandsaw photos on the site, just out of interest, and noting the dates I started to see a trend emerge.  The newer the bandsaw, the more likely it was that it was folded steel construction than cast iron (and sure, other aspects such as guarding began making an appearance!)

So the question began to form – when did machine construction go ‘wrong’?  When did cast iron stop being the material of choice?

I’m not necessarily proposing that modern, folded metal construction cannot make a good machine, and the cost difference is phenomenal. Cast Iron also has a bit of a bad rap – when done poorly (in modern, cheap productions particularly, when cast iron is used incorrectly in thin casting as a cost-saving measure, using poor material engineering techniques then it is a curse – castings break easily (cast iron is by its nature brittle, unless correctly heat treated to produce versions such as spheroidal cast iron), but it is still a superb material of choice in many situations.

It’s weight can be a significant benefit, particularly for machine stability, it can be easily machined (but leave welding it to the experts – low carbon steel (mild steel) is easily welded, high carbon steel is not, and needs serious welding procedures written to cope with it.  Cast Iron can be thought of as high carbon steel, with so much carbon added that it becomes a bit of a carbon/cementite/iron mix.  Welding it is a bitch!)

Because of the (micro) voids of graphite in the cast, cast iron has real vibration damping capabilites – an excellent property for a machine to have – reduced vibrations means a smoother running machine and less noise.

Finally, strength – put a heavy cast iron body against one made from folded steel – one has inherent strength from the material, the other from careful design and internal ribs trying to dissipate the stresses / tensions and compressive forces so the structure does not fail.  To get that in cast iron, just make the casting thick enough!

So back to my original question – when did ‘it’ go ‘wrong’?  From the OWWM site, the dates of the real transitions appear to be after WW1, but before WW2.  There were massive technological changes happening around that time, a depression, and so a possible emphasis towards lower cost production.  I’m not an historian, so wiser heads would be able to give a much more considered view, but that is what I am seeing as potential influences on machine manufacture.

I’ll stick with my cast iron machines as much as I can – sometimes the traditional is more than a romantic concept.  Sometimes it also makes good engineering sense!

Somehow I have managed to avoid really discussing the bandsaw I have, at least until now.

Back in 2004, I had an opportunity to add a major tool to my workshop, and while thinking a bandsaw might be a useful tool, I really didn’t understand exactly why a bandsaw should be in my workshop. I originally purchased a 14″ Trupro bandsaw, folded steel (as is pretty much all the larger bandsaws), and quickly became disillusioned with its poor design (the door catch for example was positioned right in front of the blade, and even after only a couple of minutes of operation, the blade had cut a sizeable kerf through the door catch).

That went straight back, and for a couple hundred more, I came home with the solid, cast iron Jet 14″ deluxe bandsaw JWBS-14DX

Jet 14" Deluxe

Following a more traditional design, very solid, very heavy (and the cast iron is a natural vibration absorber).  I immediately bought and added the 6″ extension, which gives me 12″ of resaw height (which is superb).  It is a decision that really should be made at the start, because you need different length blades because of the extension (obviously 12″ longer than the original).

One really excellent feature of this bandsaw is that it has a quick tensioning unit for the blade, so you can quickly take the tension off the blade at the end of the day, and put it back on next time the bandsaw is needed.

Quick Tensioner

I found this image on the web here, and along with the quick tension lever, it also shows a solution to the one point of frustration I have with the design – the tensioning knob is too small, and too close to the housing.  I’ve never gotten around to doing something about it, but it does need a modification of one form or another.

The Jet is only a single speed (at least in Australia – overseas you have the option of a variable speed upgrade, which has 3 different pulley sizes), but I’ve never really missed having that flexibility.

I did get an after-market fence with it, but haven’t ever really used it, and so have recently removed it altogether as I am now using the MagFences instead.

Blades: Easiest thing is to refer back to an earlier article here.

Bottom line is, if I was in the market for another bandsaw today, I’d have no hesitation to buy exactly the same one.  Call that an endorsement if you will!

Very bad example of MMAW

An introduction to a bit of an experiment called “The Stu’s Shed YouTube Chronicles”

Raw, unedited, short clips, the video equivalent to the micro-blogs of Twitter and how they are supplementing the main content of this website/blog. Like Twitter, this is an experiment to see if it is a worthy supplement to Stu’s Shed.

I’ve been working with some images taken in Fiji by one of the Lecturers in the Arts Faculty – Dr Matt Tomlinson. During our discussions, my interest in all things woodworking came out, and he’s sent me some photos of some traditional woodworking related to an area he has been researching – traditions and the culture surrounding Kava  – both its consumption – use in different traditional roles, and its preparation.

Reading the Wikipedia about Kava, and I wonder if it can be bottled and sold – sounds like a very interesting substance.

However, it is the production of the Kava preparation bowl that is the real topic here.  These photos were taken in May 09 on the island of Kabara, which is in the Lau chain of eastern Fiji. It’s the traditional homeland of carvers of kava bowls made from Vesi wood (Intsia Bijuga), but the island has been badly deforested, and is rapidly running out of Vesi.

It seems to be increasingly common for new projects to be designed using some computer drawing package, such as the free Google Sketchup.

Some pretty amazing things can be created with it, to a very advanced level, if you have the time, and aptitude to extract the most from the product.  It is reasonably easy to get a start in it too, probably why there has been quite a take-up.

A creation using Sketchup

There are even self-help manuals appearing to try to assist those who feel a need to get straight into Computer Aided Design (CAD)

Sketchup for Dummies

I have only briefly tried a couple of things in Sketchup, mainly because I have a version of AutoCAD – a professional CAD package.  I have done a few projects, where I have jumped straight in, and designed the entire item from start to finish inside the CAD package, but the ones I find that I have been the most creative is when I have initially ignored the computer, and picked up (shock-horror) a pen/pencil and paper. and really started sketching and planning the project in earnest without the extra layer of constraint of having to manipulate a CAD package to achieve my ideas.

Now I have an added advantage that I have had extensive technical drawing training and experience (I even worked in London as a draughtsman for a while, designing shop shelving layouts and shop fronts).  Not everyone has had that same amount of experience in taking an idea and getting it down on paper. This is where Andy’s concept really steps up.

What Andy has done is produce a number of layout assists in a document form that can be printed out, and drawn directly on with faint lines to guide you in producing objects in 3 dimensions.

Magic Drawing Cubes

The Magic Drawing Cubes is a good place to start to see how the concept works.  It is a downloadable PDF, that incorporates 9 different sized cubes ready for printing out and costs a massive $US4.95.  This isn’t a one-use item – you can print out the design as many times as you want, whenever you have a project to start – the PDF you buy is a file you keep.  The concept is simple, and the cost is low so whenever you have an idea, even without any technical drawing experience, pick up a pencil and start sketching in 3D.

Andy has then progressed the concept on – this layout assisting idea, and importantly getting designing back to its pen and paper roots.

There is a plywood planner, which is so you can lay out all the different items you need to cut from a ply/mdf/veneered sheet to maximise the yield.

Plywood Planner

A jumbo floor planner to help plan the layout of a workshop etc. Sure, some of these can be replaced with simple graph paper, but this does give you the ability to print out as many sheets of graph paper as often as you like – digitally stored graph paper if you will (and the Magic Cubes are not available in shops!)

The EZwoodshop hasn’t stopped there, and Andy has been applying the basic concept to more specific projects.

For example, he has a Workbench Planner which covers a whole range of considerations in workbench design. It is an indexed PDF file still, which you can print out and has a number of chapters, including choosing bench size, height, workbench joinery etc.

Workbench Planner

In the package, Andy has included the various tools needed in designing the workbench, including 9 pages of instructions, calculators for working out the length of material in the legs, the stretchers, rail lengths etc.  The final page is a materials shopping list planner so you can itemise exactly what you need to buy.  And what is interesting, is this project planner is still…..$US4.95  I feel it would be good to have some discussion on bench vices etc included – as it is commonly said you start with the hardware, and plan the bench around it, but even so, this pack may be enough to get a home handyman off to a good start.

Workbench Design

There is a bookcase designer with the same level of detail, and includes a sheet of Magic Drawing Cube so you can design a book case specific to your requirements.  He has taken into account the reach height of adults and children, the amount of sag for different shelf materials, and ways of increasing shelf strength.  There is also info on different ways of fixing the shelf in place, including dados, and even a page about how to cut dados using a circular saw, a tablesaw and a router.

Bookcase Planner

There is also a generic project planner, including Drawing Cubes, Ply cutting planner, Graph Paper, Shopping List planning etc – each of the project planning sheets needed for designing a project.

All these planning packs, some free downloads, and downloadable sample PDFs can all be found on Andy’s website

www.ezwoodshop.com

What I like is the amount of thought and detail Andy has included in each project planner – they are simplistic but that isn’t a bad thing – perhaps more for the home handyman who needs a bit of help getting into a project than for a serious/experienced woodworker, and the cost is…..$US4.95 each!  Have a look – they won’t be for everyone, but if you are not interested in computer project design, and want to design your own projects but still need some help on the draughting side/project design side, then Andy’s planners may just be what you need.

I’ve been looking through the web at a lot of different types, styles, and prices! of bench vices, and it raises as many questions as get answered.

Wonder how many vices is too many on a bench?

So far I have been looking at tail vices, leg vices, wagon vices and end vices. Sure is a massive range of options out there.

A leg vice is just that – a vice on the leg of the workbench (or at least a vertical component of the bench). It seems that this is one that contains very little metal components, and can possibly be made easily, although achieving a quality product such as this isn’t within most people’s capabilities

BenchCrafted make some real quality-looking vices (and have a price tag to prove it).  The examples of their products really showcase some of the different vice types.

Leg Vice Closed

From this, and the following photo, you can see just how simple the leg vice is.  A pivot point at the bottom means there is a very large jaw area for vertically-held boards.  A simple threaded rod is the main component of the vice. On the BenchCrafted website, there are a couple of videos of this clamp in action – very impressive – smooth operation, and I can really see where the wheel comes into its own (rather than a standard bar/handle).  There is no question you can achieve sufficient clamping force with a wheel-actuated mechanism.  The lower pin is set and ensures the vice tightens at the top of the leg, rather than the bottom, and you choose the hole for the pin based on the thickness of the material to be clamped.

Wide opening w parallel jaw

What I find really interesting with the better designed leg clamps such as the BenchCrafted is the ability to move the lower pivot point out by an equal distance to the width of the material, resulting in a jaw that remains parallel to the work being clamped (In the BenchCrafted case, there is no lower pivot per say (other than the stop-bar)).  Poorer designed leg clamps don’t have this ability, so are quickly rendered ineffective when the item to be clamped becomes too thick.

BenchCrafted Leg Vice Mechanism (the "Glide")

A tail vice makes use of the bench corner, and is used to clamp items such a drawers within the jaws, or long items along the top of the bench, with bench dogs supporting the other end of the item.  There are some different designs, but this seems to be a good version of one.

Frank Klausz style Tail Vice

Some tail vices are designed so they are flush with the corner when fully closed. Now a similar design and mechanism is an interesting concept for joinery, and is called a wagon vice. The jaw runs in a track fully contained within the table, and unlike the end vice where it is said over time there can be some sag, or looseness creep in, and particularly with the tail vice, that portion of the bench is not usable for other (read hammering-like) activities.

Wagon Vice

Other than the obvious clamping ability – between the bench dogs for planing/scraping work on the benchtop, you can drop a board vertically through the slot in the table and use the wagon vice for other activities, such as handcutting dovetails.

BenchCrafted Wagon Vice Mechanism

The final vice of current interest is the end vice.  It can take up the entire end of the vice, or the same mechanism can be used on the side of the vice.

Irrespective, the typical standout vice for this is the Veritas twin-screw vice.  It is kept parallel with uniform clamping pressure by the use of a chain-connected twin screw. Originally the Veritas clamp had a plastic chain cover, but rightly so, purchasers of the vice jumped up and down, and the clamp is now supplied with an aluminium chain casing.  I must admit that I was put off by the plastic housing, so am pleased to hear it is now something more substantial. (In the next 2 photos, the first has an aluminium housing, the second a plastic one)

Veritas Twin Screw End Vice

Veritas Bench from WorkbenchWorld.com.au

This is an interesting bench, by Matthew Sanfilippo incorporating the Veritas vice (used here in the primary vice position, rather than on the end), and a tool tidy which does not extend the length of the bench which I thought was an elegant solution. Oh to have a workshop large enouh to contain such as this.

Workbench Example

This workbench has been designed with significant influence from Christopher Schwarz’ book “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use” which I am definitely planning on tracking down. In the meantime, you can read a couple of chapters from the book here: Chapter 1, Chapter 9. If you can track down the deluxe edition, it includes a CD with plans and extra example images of a workbench construction.

Chris Schwarz Workbench Book

Finally, a bench of particular interest is this one, again by BenchCrafted, which obviously incorporates their different vices.  Their blog has a really nice breakdown description and photo set of the bench being made.

BenchCrafted Display Workbench

I’m working on the idea of having a bit of a site index, but I haven’t formalised the concept as yet, and thought I might solicit some suggestions from you.

The concept of the index is not to be a complete comprehensive list of every single post on the site, but a kind of a “best of the best”, or perhaps a highlight of those posts that most reveal what Stu’s Shed represents.

I have a few posts I am really pleased with scattered throughout the site, but I’m sure there are others that perhaps have spoken more to you (some of my favourite posts never elicited a single comment, other posts sparked a lot of conversation and communication).

So what I am hoping is for those who care to, to nominate 1, 10, 100 (whatever) posts that you particularly like, or feel should be included to comment on this post with the relevant date/topic of the article(s) to be added to the index and we will see where this experiment goes!

I think as much as anything, that I’m looking for an index of really interesting topics that a new visitor to the site can use to quickly get an appreciation for the sort of information available here.

If you think the concept is flawed, you can say that too!

And particularly conducting them on a significant number of tools of any one genre that are on the market, is you get to see the best and the worst on the market.  The worst is no problem (so long as you don’t own them), but the best is another matter….

Conducting a review really exposes you not only to the tools, but provides an opportunity to really put them through their paces, and the more you use a really good version, the harder and harder it becomes to face returning them at the end.  And so it is with the Frontline Interlocking clamps that I was covering for the next edition of the Australian Wood Review.

So now I have not one (one on its own is not particularly useful for any clamp), not two, but three of these significantly serious clamps in the workshop.  What can I say – I love good tools!

Frontline

I guess I really have to justify having these clamps in the workshop, and I can’t think of a more justified (and necessary) project, particularly for my workshop, than building a decent laminated workbench.  I just need to source some decent timbers to make it out of!

Greg, one of the regulars on here came across this advert recently and thought of Stu’s Shed

After spending so much on a drill, wouldn’t you want it to become THE go-to tool in your workshop? In fact, if you get all the accessories I’m sure the marketing boys will have you convinced that your entire workshop revolves around the drill (sorry – couldn’t resist).

I like the direct attack by them on the other manufacturers too – (No clumsy direct drive with drill sideways)
It is so much better decreasing performance by directing power through a 90 degree gearbox. (Course it is probably a good thing in the case of the saw, but there is nothing like the marketing community to try to always find a point of difference and make it THE feature!)

I tried to get more info on the “Hycarbon” blade, but I guess it is something that didn’t survive into the Google era.  Of course it can just be taken on the face of it – a high-carbon blade (making it hard, and (potentially) sharp).

It came with a massive 5 day money back guarantee.  Nothing like the modern 2 year replacement warranties from Chinese manufactured modern saws. (Oh wait, that company went bust).

And I LOVE the “Cuts 1 1/8″, 2×4 BY TURNING OVER” Yes – you too can cut a 2×4 with just 2 passes with this little beauty!

Tried to get more info about Arrow Metal Products, but after looking at a number of sites, all I found was a computer virus, and a long court document about a 1950’s attempt by a few unscrupulous individuals cornering the egg market a few days before Christmas by futures trading to get 100% market share. (It is sometimes amazing what Google will provide!) As far as the virus goes – well I guess that is the beauty of being on a Mac.

10 days to go!

Till the start of the chairmaking course (which I can’t make it to), and the Advanced Festool Domino course (which I can )

Wonder if they’d notice if I turned up with a sleeping bag, and became a permanent squatter in their workshop! (And no, I’m not referring to the great Aussie boardgame of the same name) (when I first played this my Grandfather’s copy of this game, it came with tiny sheep markers – these days, it seems they only supply small plastic tiddlywinks instead – sign of the times I suppose).

Certainly looking forward to becomeing a lot more intimately familiar with the Festool Domino ahead of the Hall Table course I am doing start of August. If anyone wants to join me, (and see just how bad I really am at woodworking), head over to the Ideal Tools website.

Might seem a tad strange, but of all the (non-fiction) books I have either read, and/or owned, the one that I have wanted (and have found the most useful) is

from McGraw-Hill. It is absolutely full of over 5000 engineering calculations, and tonnes of worked examples over they whole gamut of engineering, and if you can’t find one specifically addressing the problem you have to hand, there is sure to be an example in there that can be adapted.

I first came across the book when working a summer job at the Geothermal Power Station at Wairakei, just north of Taupo in the midst of a very geothermically active region of New Zealand (this is while I was finishing my Bachelor of Engineering from Auckland Uni).  I had some problems I needed to solve – calculating the efficiencies of some heat-exchangers, and the engineer who was supervising me just dropped this book on my desk.  It was quite a relevation – and I have coverted it ever since. (At over $A200, it isn’t the cheapest tome on the market!)

May seem a tad heavy for a woodworking workshop too, but in writing this blog, occasionally I have found it invaluable when trying to work out particular problems.  I certainly am not suggesting it is essential reading for every woodworker out there!  Just thought you might be interested in where I generate some of my ideas from!

I was approached AGES ago about whether I would be interested in establishing a HowCast channel for Stu’s Shed, and recently I finally did just that.

You can find it at http://www.howcast.com/users/StusShed

There are about 19 videos on there at the moment, and I expect that once the problem I am experiencing with my original video feed is sorted, the other 38 or so will magically appear there as well (speaking of which, I have been working with Blip.TV, and we are close to solving the video problems).

Podcasting for How-to!

If you have trouble viewing videos on this site, and don’t use iTunes to get the podcast, another option is to go directly to my TV channel on Blip.tv – this is where all the original videos are hosted, and you can view them streamed directly from that site. http://stusshed.blip.tv/ All 57 or so videos are there, ready to be viewed.

I’ve still been working on the panel clamp review, and a big part of it can really be considered reverse engineering the product to see what really makes it tick, and when comparing different brands, it also provides a level playing field.

When getting to compare different brands, and having started the reverse engineering process, you also learn a great deal about design in general.  Choice of thread types, diameter, pitch, length, material, bar section, handle length, diameter, pin material, diameter, on and on.

It really is interesting to see the decisions made by the engineers when the clamps were originally designed, and in some cases whether an engineer seemed even involved in the process at all!

I always find I’m disappointed with some products – they promise so much, and fail to deliver, and I just see them as a complete waste of the materials used in their construction. The worst examples of that is often when a product has been reverse engineered, quickly and poorly as so many companies have been doing – rather than actually researching the product’s purpose, they take an existing product and make it as cheap as possible, avoiding the cost of actually using engineers to properly research and design a decent product. Others get the majority of the design right, then forget that there is a need for a human operator!

On the other hand, after looking at a wide range of product, you do formulate a definite wish-list of what you’d want to see in a set of clamps for the shed.

My dream- a wall set of good clamps of a range of sizes (and multiple copies of each size), such as you see on the walls of good workshops everywhere (and particularly on TV / WebTV)!

Needed to correct a misconception I had about the Frontline Clamp price – they are actually significantly cheaper than I thought – not sure where I got the idea from!

The 900mm clamp is $A363 inc GST

The 1220mm clamp is $A399 inc GST

Both these prices include free delivery in Australia (I think I got that right!) when ordered directly from Frontline Engineering, contact them on +61 (03) 9464 6004. And if you happen to mention that you saw them on Stu’s Shed, that’d be cool

The clamps are still expensive compared to the basic sash clamps etc you can buy in Bunnings, but this is one of those cases where you get what you pay for, and I have no problem whatsoever in saying that if you found yourself with these clamps, you will definitely appreciate the significant quality, design and power of these units.

I was told about the use of ammonia to speed up the oxidation by Sitco, but haven’t had a chance to trial it at all (yet), and so I really didn’t have any idea of how fast the process was etc.  The oxidation sends the Queen Ebony quickly to its fully black colouring.

However, one of the site’s regulars (Murray) has given it a go and reported some very positive results.  The process is placing the timber in a sealed container, suspended above the ammonia, and as Murray reports, it takes a couple of days but by then the ebony has gone a jet black.

So ammonia fuming of Queen Ebony definitely works as a process.  It isn’t as if you are artificially creating a colour that will not otherwise eventuate – it is just speeding up the natural process, and the timber will always go black over time as it oxidises, even under most finishes.

One problem has been discovered though, with the roving reporter’s attempt to make some Sierra Pens from the Queen Ebony.  After some days, the pen develops serious (fatal) cracks, and we are yet unsure of the mechanism of the failure.  It could be the timber is still too green, so once purchased really needs to sit around in the workshop for a year or two before being utilised.  Or perhaps the timber is very prone to checking, as the sample of end-grain I had and documented on here had significant/serious cracks developing.

Anyway, some negatives, some positives for the record.

I’m having some problems with the crosslinking of videos from the site that I have host them to this site, which is causing a bit of grief for me, and probably quite a bit for you as well, for which I am sorry if you have been experiencing it.

I am trying to get the problem rectified as soon as possible.  The videos still work, but the thumbnails are missing (other than Episodes 51 and 52 where I have manually re-created the thumbnails).

In the meantime, your best bet is to do the right-click and save the video to your computer before watching, or even better, subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, and let it manage the downloading of episodes for you (which is how I manage it).

Unlike some of the US based blogs, I don’t run the videos inline because Australia’s internet is just too slow for proper Web 2.0 applications.  I downloaded the current video in mp4 format in 30 minutes tonight on a 512k ADSL ‘broadband’

If you need help working out how to watch the videos, please let me know and I’ll help as I can.

Also, as suggested recently (and to that person- sorry I haven’t gotten back to you, life has been very chaotic recently, and a lot of things have slipped), some people may not want to download the movies for whatever reason.  I’m considering offering backissues of movies on DVD media (still needing to be played on the computer) for a small cost (to cover postage and the DVD itself).  If you would be interested in this service, check the appropriate response in the following survey, and I’ll decide how I will approach the issue based on the responses.

Episode 52 Frontline Interlocking Clamp
Clamp Pricing: 900mm $363 inc GST, 1220mm $399 inc GST, both with free delivery in Oz.  That is a lot cheaper than I realised!

I’m now booked onto a Furniture Making course at Ideal Tools over in Williamstown – the Hall Table course.

Hall Table, Example from Course

I’d have liked to have done the chair course, but I am committed on (most) Saturdays, and I could make good use of a good looking hall table. Given some of the masterpieces that come out of that course, I’m a bit nervous that my woodworking just isn’t at the same standard, but I think it is more a reflection on Terry who runs the course (and has some fine woodworking quals under his belt to boot) that such awesome tables get made on the course. Ideal Tools and Terry also source real quality materials based on the requirements of the course attendees, and you obviously have extra motivation to make something stunning, when working with quality, beautifully featured timbers.

Example of a chair from the course - Terry's Exploded Demo Chair!

The chair making course results in one chair being made, and all the jigs needed so that you then have the necessary knowledge and skills (and jigs) to build additional chairs needed at home. Imagine having guests around for dinner, all seated in your stunning, handmade chairs.  And that you know they have been made to your standard, with superior joints and materials in stark contrast to many commercial chairs out there that look ok, but are made from cleverly stained pine, and have dodgy (simple and cheap) joinery methods.

The other course I am booked onto is the Domino Techniques course – sounds like a lot of fun!

Festool Domino

The Krenov-inspired cabinet course is being developed, but will be late this year/early next year to make sure that it is fully ready, so that is something to look forward to. I’m hoping that a workbench course will get developed at some stage too – I’d queue up for that one!  It would be a pleasure to have a beautiful, yet completely functional workbench in the shed.  Irrespective, I am definitely keen to try the Krenov cabinet course.  Krenov’s furniture style may not suit everyone, (if I build one it will be finding a home, probably in the shed where it would become the home for my HNT Gordon Planes, Colen Clenton square, and Chris Vesper tools), but there is no question that it is fine-furniture, and that many techniques and lessons in furniture design can be gained from creating such a cabinet.  Personally, I think my collection of Australian handcrafted handtools would be ideally displayed (and used of course) in such a cabinet!

Krenov-Style Cabinet by Terry Forgarty

Perhaps most spectacularly, is the courses are run in Ideal Tools stunning Festool showroom/workshop, which I am REALLY looking forward to getting into (and I’m going to hide all their crowbars, as once in they will find it bloody hard to pry me out of there!)

No, I didn’t win either of the $50 million the other day, so Stu’s Shed is still here, and hasn’t suddenly been gold plated, or suddenly grown to the size of a city block or anything.

I’m most of the way through editing the next video – a look at the Frontline Interlocking Clamp. Will be available tomorrow at the latest.

Just finished making a couple of classic American salads for tomorrow’s July 4th BBQ at work (on July 3, ‘cos I ain’t goin’ to work on a Saturday!) One is a marshmallow salad, and the other is a beetroot, pineapple and lemon jelly salad.

While visiting Chris Vesper recently, and looking though his extensive collection of historical tools, a particular Japanese Plane Blade looked particularly interesting.  We didn’t know what the writing on the blade said, so I cornered one of the Japanese lecturers at Monash University who provided the following interpretation

Japanese Plane Blade

To give you a sense of size of the above-plane, it is 4.5″ long, 2.25″ wide and over 0.25″ thick, hollow ground. The Japanese blade-makers sure know their craft. Chris has offered a photo of the blade fitted to the plane (now included)

Japanese Plane with Blade Fitted

Comes to an end (at least in Australia).  Has been an ‘interesting’ financial year for many.  I’m still not sure what to make of all this GFC stuff, but sure seems to be affecting a lot of things, people.

However with the start of the new financial year, I’ve taken a bit of leap into the great unknown and started Stu’s Shed on the path of being a formal business venture.

First thing, and obviously the most important- what does this mean for the visitors/readers of this site (you!) Absolutely nothing – no sudden influx of adverts, no change in the content, no change in my approach to provide as accurate an opinion on products as I can.  If anything, this only means that this website has more reason to continue to exist.  I guess it also means I can be categorised as a professional blogger/podcaster, but I tell you – the pay rate is terrible! (Around $0 per annum as a starting salary!)

The one thing it does mean though, is my ability to register a new URL (web address).

www.stusshed.com

will absolutely remain – there is no change, and I’ve just re-registered that address for another 2 years fwiw

www.stusshed.com.au

is a brand new address, that I wasn’t able to get until I had an ABN (Australian Business Number) However, it points to exactly the same place as the .com address, and I have no intention of managing parallel websites.

Both these addresses point to the site’s actual web address, http://stusshed.wordpress.com as this site is powered by WordPress.com as I have found it a very good blogging software company.

Any questions, concerns, comments, as always are very welcome, you can either email me: stuart@stusshed.com (or .com.au), or simply make a comment on this post.

Just to reiterate, nothing has changed, other than the availability for you to use either the .com or .com.au address

BTW, if you haven’t noticed, there is a Twitter feed now happening at the bottom of the left hand column of this site – the Stu’s Shed Twitter. In here there are quick tidbits of news and comments – as an experiment I am happy with how it is adding to the site overall, so it will continue to be used pretty regularly (often multiple times a day).  You can either keep visiting the site often to see the changes, or “follow” StusShed on Twitter. In any case, there will be news that is common to both the Twitter and the main site, but given that Twitter is limited to 140 characters, it will always be “quick n nasty”, and the blog will remain full length articles.  In the end, it is an attempt add an extra layer of service to this website.

I was (attempting) reading the Leigh Dovetail Jig manual the other day, when I had a moment of clarity.  The Leigh template guide does not fit the Triton routers, and that is unfortunate because Leigh have built into their template guide an eccentricity which allows for a very fine tuning of the fit, and accuracy of the dovetail jig.

My clarifying moment was that the new sub-base I was about to review, along with a number of different sized brass template guides from Professional Woodworkers Supplies, will take the Leigh adjustable template guide

Leigh Template Guide

(Image snapped on an iPhone, so sorry about the clarity)  As you can see (and I’ll do an actual review in time), the Woodpeckers Sub Base has a number of holes so it can fit a very wide range of routers on the market, including the Triton, and as part of that, allows a very common form of template guide to also be used.

Posted in Manufactures and Suppliers, Uncategorized ]]> http://stusshed.wordpress.com/2009/06/30/a-moment-of-clarity/feed/ 6 Stuart http://stusshed.wordpress.com/2009/06/29/triton-spares/ http://stusshed.wordpress.com/2009/06/29/triton-spares/#comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:39:38 +0000 Stuart http://stusshed.wordpress.com/?p=4083 ]]>

It has been a long wait, but there has been some progress made on getting Triton spares available again.

An ex-GMC employee took it onto himself to buy the spares as the companies went into liquidation so that they would still be able to be made available.  He has moved to the west (WA), and it is taking some time to sort through them all out again, but as he does so, they are being listed on eBay through his eBay Store.

There isn’t a lot listed there at the moment, but it will begin to populate properly in a fortnight or so.

And for those looking for Triton Biscuits, (other than through the above-business/eBay store), the company that was making them for Triton is now able to sell them directly to the public.  They are called a “Size 7 Biscuit”, available from bix.com.au

You know you are onto a good thing when you have a guest in the shed, and you just have to rave about a tool you are reviewing, and this is absolutely the case with the Frontline Engineering clamps that arrived today.

I will do a comprehensive review of this clamping system in the near future (actually, I will probably do it as a combination of written and video) – there is a lot worth covering with this system.

In the meantime, I had an opportunity to have a good chat in my shed this morning with the inventor of the product (well I hope that is right!) – he certainly knew the product range and design backwards. It helped a lot getting that hands-on exposure to the product, and its various features, and it really opened my eyes to a product I have seen from a distance numerous times (as an in-store display), but not realised just how good it is to justify a much closer look.

Probably a good thing, otherwise my wallet may have already had to pay the price, and these are not cheap, but with these clamps you really get what you pay for. I’m seriously impressed by them.

Panel Clamping

The picture here is from the Frontline website (and the in-store displays), but as much as it does explain the product well, it also does it an injustice.  Sure, you do get the idea that the clamp is great at making panels, but unless that is specifically what you need, you may completely overlook the other aspects of this system, as I have until now.  You also miss out on the scale involved.  Given that the boards in the photo are around 2×4s, you start to realise the actual size of these units.

This may look to be a clamp limited to only one task (and by the look of the graphic, one that it does do very well), but it certainly isn’t a one task wonder.  The biggest thing I had not realised, is this is a sash clamp, pure and simple.  Just because it has the upper channel in all the images, this system does not require both the upper and lower channels, and by removing the upper section, you have a sash clamp with up to 4 tonne of clamping force. 4 tonnes is astronomical for a sash clamp – almost unheard of.  If fully utilised, there would be glue everywhere but between the boards.  The fact that the components have been designed and manufactured to cope with this sort of loading goes to show the quality of the tool’s manufacture.  I mean how many other sash clamps you know incorporate thrust bearings in their design?!

Where it does come to panel clamping, it appears quite unique in that it fully loads up vertically, getting all the panel components properly aligned before the horizontal loading even starts to be applied.  Glue between the boards doesn’t get wiped off as would happen if the boards were bought into alignment after the clamping had begun.  Another thing that impressed me was there was finally some real suggested clamping pressure, so the opportunity to starve a joint of glue is reduced. The guidance is once the boards are clamped in line vertically, then bought together horizontally (just), one half-turn of the clamp handle (equating to 2mm of travel) is all that is required to achieve proper clamping pressure.

So as mentioned, I will do a more intensive review of this clamp in the near future, but in the meantime, don’t do what I have in the past, and just miss the Frontline display – the amount of engineering involved in these are an ideal combination of simplicity, and elegance, and worth a much closer look.

I’m currently working on the panel clamp review article, and it is proving hard-going on some levels.

Some clamps are easy, in fact it becomes difficult limiting how much I write about them!

Doing reviews over a range of tools in a particular genre is really interesting – you get to really see the ins, and outs o different designs, and it doesn’t take long to really become attached to some of the models.  It certainly helps decide what tools should be in one’s own workshop.

One thing I haven’t got in the shop at the moment, is a decent range of large clamps (I’m always very envious of people with a picture-perfect display of clamps on the shop wall), and doing this review is certainly inspiring me to pick a brand, and have a collection of their clamps in a range of sizes.

There are some beautifully engineered examples out there.

Got an email from Incremental Tools today, and one of the items on sale is the very book I was mentioning by Perry McDaniel

Now available in an electronic form, it includes the cutting board, and the wesbite also provides the Trivet plan for free.

Incra Projects and Techniques

And of course, this is the chopping board I have always intended to make

Chopping Board

You don’t need an Incra system to make it, but it sure does help!

Prototype Gauge

It is not yet available for sale, but it looks an interesting (and innovative) tool.

An article on the gauge can be found here (Image sourced from their website)

The gauge takes into account the width of stock in the left-hand slot (as seen in the above-photo), and the kerf of the blade (be that tablesaw, bandsaw, router bit etc up to 1/2″)  A very simple, and clever concept.

Some excerpts from one of Neil Scobie’s instruction DVDs, showing some of the steps involved in creating an Erosion Bowl.  On the full 85 minute DVD, Neil provides detailed explanations and demonstrations of each step involved.

www.neilandlizscobie.com

This is the commercial for the Rockwell JawHorse that will be featuring on FoxSports in July (in Australia).

The Rockwell JawHorse itself will also be available in July.  The Worx JawHorse (which is the Rockwell JawHorse in the USA) which has been featured on this website will be available later this year.

Ever since seeing Perry McDaniel’s breadboard, I have wanted to try one myself – doesn’t look particularly complex, but it has been one of those projects I’ve just never gotten a round tuit.

So with the clamp review, and finally obtaining some purpleheart which I always planned to use as one of the timbers, I begun cutting.

First job was to get the dust extraction up to spec again – after finding the thicknesser blocked the DC inlet too quickly.  It looks a bit confusing in a photo – it is slightly less confusing in real life

Dust Collector with Preseparator

The tablesaw, and router feed directly into the DC.  The thicknesser and planer feed into the precollector.  There are 3 different sanders that happen to be feeding into there, but they don’t need as much air draw so they won’t suffer from any performance hit caused by the preseparator.  The bandsaw also feeds into that line, so will assess how it performs, but as a general rule it is also a pretty fine dust that will be fine with any lower air flowrate.

Once the machines were again online, I was able to take a piece of mahogany, and one of purpleheart and run through the inital stock preparation, with all the generated dust and shavings whisked away to the extrator.  To any really observent amongst you, yes, I have turned the DC around.  This gives me better access to the start/stop switch (and was necessary with the location of the precollector, as it pretty much blocked access to the back corner).  It also means that the demented spider of tubing is more intrusive into the shop, but again, necessity is the biggest force of nature!

Resaw with MagFence

I resawed both the mahogany and purpleheart, but I did my usual trick of trying to get too much yield out of the timber I have.  Sometimes a bit of wastage is necessary to get the stock you need, but it is a lesson I still need to learn.  I ended up, after dressing the timbers, with stock that was thinner that I wanted.  This does reflect that I am still struggling to find where to get good timbers from at a reasonable price.

Once all planed and thicknessed, it was time to move to the tablesaw.  For this project, I finally used the Incra LS Positioner on the tablesaw for the first time actually using it as a tablesaw fence.  I used the MagJigs to hold it down, which worked ok, but I found it did need some more holding force, so I will add an extra two MagJigs, which will be overkill, but there is no such thing as too much where it comes to locking down a fence securely.

Incra LS as Tablesaw Fence

On the tablesaw, I ripped increasing widths of timber, from 2mm to about 15mm wide.  This worked well with the Incra, although it would have been better if I had remembered that it is an imperial measuring system, not metric!  Even so, the absolute precision of the Incra worked well – it clicks into precise location without having to microadjust the fence position with a fist-tap (as is normal practice).  A really interesting look at the Incra system.

After taking the mahogany and purpleheart through the ripping process, they were then interleaved, and clamped in the Jet Bar Clamps, which are really nice I must say.  They stay balanced where they are put, whether horizontal or vertical, they don’t slip, clamp tight and really look the part.

Mounting in the Jet Bar Clamps

I haven’t glued these up as yet – consider this a dry-fit.

Storing vertical

I didn’t realise how stable these clamps were when vertical, but the job was in the way at one point, and I went to put it on the floor, and did a double-take when it stayed quite comfortably where I placed it.  A definite bonus of this sort of clamp design IMHO.

Ready for glue-up

This is as far as I have gotten with the project – next I will be gluing it up, topping and tailing it then rotating the ends through 180 degrees, finishing with a router dressing of the edges.  Mahogany wasn’t my first choice of materials – I wanted even more contrast between the lighter timber and the purpleheart, but even so, unfinished as it is, it still looks the goods.

Not too many surprises coming out of the polls, which is as valuable as any left-field results.  If you have yet to vote, please do so as I am interested in getting as balanced a result as I can.

From the article poll, there is an increasing trend towards a desire for more how-to articles, which is a ‘criticism’ I was expecting, and it goes towards validating my concepts for what the website is about.  I will still be doing plenty of reviews, but will make more of an effort to maintain the core reason for the site.  I do find I learn a lot from reviewing products, but using them in actual projects will showcase them better, and still address the how-to aspects of this place.

For the videos, the results were a little more unexpected, although pleasing.  The vast majority are in support of the videos as they are currently presented, both length and quality/size.  There are a a few wanting short (<10 minute) videos only, but they are equally balanced by those wanting even longer videos (>60 minute), so I’ll have to take the middle path on this one, although I will try to cater to both by having some videos shorter and others longer.  There is already a Stu’s Shed YouTube channel, but it is rather unpopulated, as most of my videos are too long for YouTube’s restrictions.

So I’ll keep watching the poll results, and try to keep the site catering for everyone’s requirements.

Thought I might check in, and make sure that I am still supplying the sort of content that you want to see on this website.

This first survey is about the overall balance of article types that appear.  Multiple answers are allowed.

Should have mentioned – your votes are completely anonymous, and if you think there should have been other options in the poll, feel free to add comments giving alternate suggestions, or clarifying your choices.  I’m taking these polls seriously to best cater for what you want from this website.

The second survey is about the videos, and if they are the right length etc.

Headed over to the Mechanical Engineering workshops, and found someone who will be quite happy to do the minor milling job I need for my router table (that annoyingly slight curvature on the front face).    Once I can get that done, I will be on the road once again to completing the router table.

Also sounds like I will be able to get a jig together to test the compressive load capabilities of each of the clamps I’m reviewing using a load cell which can cope with up to 500kg of pressure.

Cool Progress.

Think I have found a good location in the shed for the drum sander.  It may not be the perfect solution for the machine in every workshop, but how I use the machine, this solution works for me, and saves the machine footprint as well.

Drum Sander & Thicknesser

This solution works on a number of levels.  Because my thicknesser has a fixed head, there is no load on the height mechanism having the sander on top, and the thicknesser is certainly strong enough to cope with this load.  It doesn’t interfere with any of the thicknesser mechanisms, and it means I use the same infeed and outfeed areas for two machines with similar requirements.

I’ve also been playing with the drill press, trying out different tabletop combinations.  This current look isn’t working too well – it weights way too much to be functional, so I imagine I will be restoring the Pro Drill Press table shortly.  Just wanted to give this a try anyway.

Trying a CI Drill Press Tabletop

My ideal would be a CI top with the features and sizing of the Pro Drill Press Table.

It took me a long time to get around to it, but I’ve finally found a home for the Incra Mitre Express, and the coving jig.

Jig Storage

I did drill a couple of holes in the mitre express to allow it to be hung.  So much better than having it kick around the shed floor.

I had a chance to have a quick look at the panel clamps I’m reviewing for the Australian Wood Review Article.  Clamping them overhead wasn’t really the plan, but once I started, I just kept going!

Some Panel Clamps

CompressX Panel Clamp

Not every clamp was able to clamp overhead of course!

Still hoping to have Frontline Engineering’s version included.  I’ve managed to get a bit of an extension on the article deadline, so that should help. Aussie products always especially welcome!

And thus Stu’s Shed becomes 2 years old!

To compare to the 1st birthday,

*still to be calculated

#not including tool promo videos

So that now means that over the existence of the site, there has been an average of more than 1 post per day, and a video every 2 weeks.  Since 1 January this year, there has been a post every single day, sometimes more!

This year has seen so much change, both to the website, and to woodworking in general, it is hard to comprehend just how much can change in such a short time.  I did (quietly) predict the demise of GMC by Xmas last year, and it came pretty close to that.  I didn’t think that it would be the end of Triton, but that seems to have come to pass as well.

Most recently, the site has incorporated Twitter for quick news feeds / brief updates, and it has so far proved to be an interesting experiment, and that will be continued.  If you haven’t seen it, check out the posts in the bottom left column, and consider subscribing to StusShed Twitter to be kept in the loop.  For a site that has such regular posts it may seem strange to have an additional news column, but there is often so much information to channel that Twitter offers a way of filtering that info through.

My thanks to those companies that demonstrate an interest in the website – it means I can keep offering plenty of interesting content to the site’s many readers.  Most importantly, a really big thanks to the readers themselves (all of you!) – if you didn’t continue to visit, there would be no reason for this website to continue to exist, so it is because of your persistence that this site continues to prosper and grow – I would not be inspired to continue it if not for you!!

I don’t have stats for how many countries have visited so far, but since maintaining some form of record, visitors have come from over 110 countries.  Amazing.

After an incredible first year, I wasn’t sure what the second year would bring, and it exceeded many of my expectations. The rate the site was growing wrt visitors has slowed down a lot since December, so I am wondering whether that is the site hitting its straps, or just the impact of the financial crisis having an effect on people’s lives.  In saying that though, the busiest day so far was just this last week, with over 2000 visitors in a single day.

So my appreciation once again to all of you who support the website in your respective ways – I have a blast doing it, so am grateful that you continue to provide me the justification to continue!

Update – latest map, which has updated graphics and a much finer distribution really shows the coverage, especially in the US and Europe (and the eastern seaboard of Australia).

Had every intention today of picking up enough timber for either a small, or a normal sized workbench.  After all, it is been too long for me not to have a workbench in the shop, and my projects have been crying out for one.

Now I could always go the basic sort of design, MDF top capped with either thin MDF, or masonite.  Chances are, that is what I will end up with, at least for my first workbench, but I really have my heart set on having a solid jarrah workbench one day.

One of the site’s readers sent me a link to the Taunton Fine Woodworking site to see this workbench:

Taunton Workbench

It is an Australian Woodworker, but his username on the Taunton site, afghh doesn’t provide me with any contact details to ask permission for his photo to be used here, so if he comes across this, a. sorry, b. can I have permission. c. if not, happy to remove the image! d. nice bench – how much did it cost, how long did it take? e. Is that you Fred? (There are not too many TS10L owners!)

What really struck me, is the tablesaw in the image is the same as mine – the TS10L, so it is obviously ideal for my shop as well.  It is a modification of the Lee Valley design.

Lee Valley Rolling Cabinet

When I priced up the Jarrah today at Mathews, it came to over $500, which floored me.  That much for enough Jarrah for a 1000×1000x65mm top?  I didn’t have time to recheck my calcs etc, so I ended up leaving without getting the timber I wanted.  I did pick up a length of PurpleHeart (5.4m x 150 x 50mm), which is a timber that I have wanted to have some of for ages for a few projects as a feature timber. That cost so much less (well under 1/2), so I keep looking at it and wondering if I should use it for the top, but then, is that really a good use for such a timber?  I suppose I was prepared to use Jarrah in that way, but that seems different somehow.

Perhaps I should just make it from gold – probably cheaper.

The Wood Whisperer recently touched on this topic, and has a very comprehensive reply from Ron Hock which is worth the read. (Hock was mentioned on here recently for his new range of carving knives)

O1 Tools Steel is a low alloy steel that can produce a very fine, sharp edge with an oil quench (thus the “O”)
A2 Tool Steel has more alloys in it, can be “A”ir quenched, and can benefit from cryogenic treatment (see my article on Steel for more info).

So if you are choosing what material you want to have for your plane or chisel blades, definitely an article worth considering.

While there, Chris was working on making some more of his sliding bevels, precisely machining the blades to the required width.  He certainly takes a significant amount of care with the manufacture of the tools, and it was very interesting watching part of the overall process.

Exotic Timber Storage

I also got a bit of a peek around some of the functional areas, including his exotic timber storage room, with carefully controlled temperature and humidity.  Sure is some nice pieces in there!

Preparing the Grind

The grinder reminded me very much of the wetstone waterwheels we use for sharpening.  I’m sure quite a typical sort of metalworking workshop tool (in the bigger shops of course), but I hadn’t seen one in operation.  The stock is held down on the magnetic base, ready for the grind to commence.

Grinding

It is a wet grinding process, despite the copious amounts of sparks!  There is a lot of cutting fluid being added (from the right – the fluorescent green liquid), but because of the overall speed of the grinding wheel (significantly faster than the slow speed wet grinders I’m used to for sharpening), the surface speed of the grinding wheel still results in the stream of sparks.  The liquid cools both the wheel and the job, and also helps in catching the metal particles that are removed.  In the photo below, you can see the collection of metal shavings that have been caught by the magnetic base.  The amount of material that is removed is very carefully controlled, and takes a number of passes to get the thicknesses within tolerances.

Another Bunch of Sliding Bevel Blades

While this process was going on, I had a look at the new batch of tools Chris has been developing.  His Try Squares with a self-supporting tab.  You can read more about it, and its development on his blog here. In that article, he refers to a stack of try square handles ready to go, and that is what I was looking at:

Try Square Handles

I also got to play with some of the prototypes (before the documented minor redesign!) (Thus why we have prototypes!)

Try Squares

Finish Bottle

I had an opportunity to visit Chris Vesper’s workshop recently, and to see some of his collections of historic tools, his current production tools, and some of the handtools in the production process.

The first couple of photos sets the context – not far from Melbourne, a traditional outback is still very much evident. It may normally be this brown a lot further north, nearer the centre of this dry land, but the decade-long drought is really taking its toll.  Vesper’s shed is in the middle of this, surrounded by some of his collection of large, old cast iron machines.  Outside, there are a couple of shipping containers, one full of timbers, the other full of old machines, printing presses and other parts of his extensive collection.

The Mesh Filtering Stack is quite interesting given recent discussions on grits. Each layer is of an increasingly fine mesh. By putting an abrasive (or whatever needs sorting) into the top layer and vibrating it, the substances will slowly sort themselves by size.

Chris’ collection is substantial – drawers of plane blades, cupboards of planes, walls of axe heads, containers of printing presses.  If you are interested in more of what he has, his recently upgraded website now has a museum tag that takes you to a better look at some of his collection.

Ever tried to draw up a hexagon?  No, it shouldn’t be hard (any 4th grader probably does it on a daily basis), but if you haven’t done it for a while, you start to forget the technique for getting all the sides even, and the angles correct.  How about a pentagon, or a dodecagon?

What about getting the pentagon to align up accurately with a particular feature in a veneer, or finding the centre of an uneven turning blank?

For many woodworkers, these are probably not questions we’ve contemplated often (other than finding the centre of a blank), however, it is the bread and butter of embroiders, patchworkers, and quilters (other than finding the centre of a blank). So it would come as no surprise that a great solution for woodworkers can be found being made by a company called The Sewing Revolution!

They produce a number of different polycarbonate templates, but the primary two are the company’s namesake.

The Sewing Revolution

There is the one pictured here (which is a 6/8), and another which is the 5/7.

The numbers equate to the number of sides the template is designed to create, including multiples, and derivatives. Ie, the 6/8 can also create 3 and 4 sided figures, as well as 12 and 16.

The 5/7 is also for 10 and 14 sided.

At each junction, the template has a hole for a pencil, or an awl to mark each corner. Of course you are not limited to basic polygons either.  Creating an 8 pointed star for example is also very simple with these templates.

Pencil/Awl Holes

The holes are specifically designed for a felt pen, so to get the accuracy you need for marquetry, you’d want to ensure your awl or pencil was a suitable taper to neatly fit the hole when it was deep enough to create the required mark.

I’ve not tried marquetry before, and after the following little exercise, I have a lot of respect for the amount of skill, and patience they have!  The laying out was a breeze using the Sewing Revolution.

Ready for some Marquetry

So I have selected a veneer of Blackwood, the 6/8 Sewing Revolution, the Woodpecker Rule, and the a Chris Vesper marking knife.

And so I begin.  I’ve decided to create an 8 sided star as a bit of a test.  Marking each outside corner was simplicity – just mark the same distance from the centre on each of the 22.5 degree lines.  I then needed to inside corner 1/2 way between those lines.  Again, there is a simple way of rotating the template through 12.25 degrees so the 22.5 degree lines are again in a useful orientation.  Mark those corners, remove the template, and draw connecting lines.  It took longer to write this paragraph, than it took to mark out the star itself!

Resulting Star

The picture here is not quite life-size, but it is close.

Beginning the Cutting

As I started this step in the process, I started to become really aware what is involved in marquetry (or patchwork!)  Don’t bother trying a full pattern if you are not a patient person!

Resulting Blackwood Star with Huon Pine Background

So I’m pretty pleased with the final result – having all the right tools makes these sorts of tasks a breeze, and a pleasure.  And of course, getting the process started on the right track with an accurate layout tool makes all the difference.  Where it would really have started to show its benefit would be making contrasting corners to fit the star, all the right size, easily.

I can certainly see where it got it’s “Sewing Revolution” name – and that there is a real crossover between the different pasttimes – perhaps some quilters etc should try some marquetry (and vice versa).  Or perhaps not – do woodworkers need the extra challenge of absolute experts at patchwork turning their skill set to working with wood veneers?!!!

This is some of the work the Sewing Revolution owners have produced.  A tidy, simple pattern, which when you imagine it in different timbers, would look stunning.

There are plenty of patterns, examples and tutorials on the Sewing Revolution website that can easily be translated across to a woodworking situation.  But it is more than just patterns.  I am sure that there are plenty of other layout, setting out etc problems that will be found in the workshop that these templates will be discovered to be the ideal solution.

And as to getting one (both) – what other excuse do you need, than buying a tool that can be used for both partners’ hobbies! (Being a bit stereotypical for a sec, wonder if any wives will become suspicious why their husbands actually want to go to the Stitches and Craft show for the first time ever )

The product is designed, and manufacturered in Australia.  Cost for each template (the 5/7 and 6/8) is $50.

We salute you!

(Poor ACDC reference!)

For those that do use Twitter, Stu’s Shed has recently joined in, as much to find out what the hype is all about.

Listed as stusshed, I assume there is a search function!

Direct link: http://twitter.com/stusshed (thanks Jonathan)

Get some insider gossip, previews of upcoming tool reviews, and news to hand that hasn’t gotten to the blog yet

It will be interesting to see how the blog and the twitter coexist. You are limited to 140 characters or so, but some may agree that limiting how much I can write could be a bloody good thing!

Update – found a Twitter Widget for the blog – you can see my latest Twitters now down the bottom of the left-hand column.  Sometimes there will be some very new news in there, stuff that will work its way into the body of the blog, but with Twitter you will be getting some news particularly fast, keeping you more in the loop of what’s happening at Stu’s Shed.

Stu’s Shed making an appearance on the Norwegian website  Verktøy AS (which from what I can gather is a woodworking importer for Scandinavia)

Translates roughly to say good video but a bit long (seems a common complaint, of the complaints I receive that is!! Oh well, I try to be comprehensive, and it is said that I give a good forklaring )

Se video fra Australia – en kar som viser hvordan Lidwig tvinger virker. Litt lang video men gir god forklaring!

OBS: Video kan med fordel lastes ned (se neste vindu)

Straight from the quarry to your workshop, you too can own the tooling that made Bedrock the stone capital of the world.

Steel City Lathe

That’s right – a granite lathe from Steel City.  Very similar in specs to the Jet, this features a granite bed, so no rusting, and I’d imagine a smooth gliding motion to the tailstock and toolrest positioning.

Furthermore, the weight would be very stabilising, and the material vibration absorbing.  It has quite a long bed for a mini-lathe too, so probably no real need for the extension bed (although I hope that is still an option).  Available in a belt drive or electronic variable speed option.  The standard pricing is around $US320, which is pretty nice, undercutting the Jet by a good $60.  Available from Wood Werks for one (by web search), and at this stage not in Australia.

We can drool as much as we like though – with a granite bed, this lathe ain’t going to rust!

Catching up with a few of the blogs out there, and found some photos on Marc’s website (The Wood Whisperer) which made me sit up and look rather quickly.

Custom Built

Kind of like something from “Pimp my Ride” at first glance – flame paint job on a tablesaw (hey, why not!) but what really dropped the jaw was the plaque underneath the Powermatic sign “Custom Built for The Wood Whisperer”

How awesome would that be?!!  (And yeah, I’d take a self-portrait like that too if I had one of those in my shop!!) (Image comes from his “Failed Promotional Shot” series) Lucky bugger.

Update: If you can’t own one, you can make a paper one – Wood Werks has a PMC section on their website where you can create your dream machine, and print it out

Actually, not such a silly idea – it parallels something I was suggesting to Carbatec a year or so back, to have paper printable versions of each of their main machines so you can build a model of your workshop, plan (scheme) future acquisitions and how they’d fit into the current space (or how they would justify another workshop expansion!)  Not just a bit of fun, but subtle marketing at the same time.

Do you have a stack of offcuts of sandpaper that still looks in good condition, but you cannot tell what they actually are (without guessing, or at least wasting quite a bit of time)?

I know I have thrown away a lot of useful pieces for just that reason.  Many resulting from frenetic work around the lathe, slicing off strips of sandpaper of various grits during the process.  Unless I am particularly neat (I’m not), or remember to write the grit number on the back (I rarely, if ever do), I find that often the various bits get mixed up, and that means they become just more waste, an ever-increasing pile of useful, but useless bits of sandpaper on the shop floor.

A Random Stack of Various Grits

Why do sandpaper manufacturers print so little detail on the backs of their papers?

One Australian company has decided to apply some common sense to the problem, and instead of printing numbers randomly on the back of the paper, they have decided that the easiest solution is to colour code the backs of each grit a different colour.

The term they have chosen to use is Colour Coded Grit.  Common sense prevails!

Taking that random stack of paper from the photo at the top of this article, and we now have:

Colour Sorted Grits

So now those scraps of paper are no longer waste.  Picking up a piece of sandpaper and knowing without hesitation what grade it is, is simple.

There are 6 grades of sandpaper available: 80, 120, 180, 240, 320, 400.  They are only available in emery paper, a cloth backed, flexible paper which is popular with wood turners.  The abrasive is a naturally occurring mineral which is largely corundum, which is in a refined state, Aluminium Oxide (another common abrasive particle).  The other benefit of cloth backed paper is it can easily be torn along the grain, so getting consistent width pieces is very easy.

The company has no plans to increase the range of grit sizes (I asked) – their research over many years of supplying the woodturning community in particular indicated that the sizes currently on offer cover about 90% of their requests.  They also have no plans currently to provide hook & loop backed disks for sanders (random orbital, or the rotary sanders preferred by wood turners), so my problem on that front persists (unfortunately – I commonly have a stack of disks that I can’t distinguish easily what grit they are).

So if you have the ongoing problem as I do of distinguishing between all the bits, pieces, sheets, rolls and scraps of sandpaper in various states of use, at least the problem of telling the common grades apart has been taken care of, and using an abrasive which is very effective for woodworking to boot.  It can be purchased in lengths of 2m, 5m and 10m, and the most popular product is the 300mm wide 6 pack (one of each grit).  Once you run out of any particular grit, you can buy replacement rolls individually if required.

Reference Card

Had a wander around a bit of a bric-a-brac / (unrefined) antiques shop recently, and found some interesting old boxes.  These boxes are not jewelry boxes by any stretch of the imagination, but not every box needs to be a work of art to fulfill a need.

I do see these boxes (from 40 to 80 years ago), and feel we have really lost a lot with the development of modern packaging and materials.  Sure they have convenience, low cost, low weight, easy recycling, but a cardboard box of whiskey has no class compared with a wooden case.  Note the particularly fine box (or finger) joint on this case of Johnnie Walker.  The fingers are about 3-5mm wide.

Johnnie Walker Case

This second box is older, and serves quite a different purpose to the above case.  It is a WWII ammunition box, and is designed for robustness and strength.  The fingers in this case are angled as you can see in the photo, so it appears to provide a bit of a wedging action when lifted (ammunition is notoriously heavy).  There is nothing pretty about the box – it is completely functional in application.

WWII Ammunition Box

Posted in Techniques ]]> http://stusshed.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/old-joints/feed/ 2 Stuart Johnny Walker Case WWII Ammunition Box http://stusshed.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/podcast/ http://stusshed.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/podcast/#comments Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:00:23 +0000 Stuart http://stusshed.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/podcast/ ]]>

I was asked (by email) last night if I am still doing the videos/podcasts, seeing as it has been a month or so since the last.

The simple answer is yes- I have a few in development (which is code for “in my head”), they just need to be shot.

My only defence is that it has been a bit of a hell month, and family takes priority over shed time. It is a bit of a bomb site out there as I am finetuning some tool locations (still) and the dust system (still) but slow progress is being made on all fronts.

I hope to return to a fortnightly or so frequency for the podcasts, but as every shed-dweller knows, actually planning shed time and activities is fraught with peril!

In the background, there are some new tools that are getting reviewed, including articles for the next 2 Australian Wood Reviews, I’m still delving into the whole abrasives topic, I haven’t been invited to Sydney (which is a bit of a shame- that would have been a blast, especially on top of the successes at the Brisbane Show).

The list is too long to list realistically- to maintain my current rate of a new post every day (and has been since the beginning of this year) does take significant amounts of background work. I definitely feel like a duck- calm on the surface, legs going frantically underneath, and if I look cute enough, a tasty morsel gets thrown my way!

Quack quack

This is something I had never come across before, but it seemed I was in a minority of one in recent discussions.  Perhaps it had never made it across the ditch (to NZ), or perhaps I’m just showing my age.

Drill Powered Saw

I guess before the massive insurgence of cheap, mass produced power tools, getting the maximum use out of the few tools you owned was definitely the done thing.

The blade is definitely not carbide tipped, guess it wasn’t common back then!

The blade is well guarded for the operator, and the tool has good control, which I was a little apprehensive about.

Rear of saw

There is variable cutting depth, and it originally came with a guide.

Rip and Crosscut

I gave it a quick try in some pine, both rip and crosscut, and it worked very effectively.  It didn’t have a huge depth of cut for obvious reasons, but still, pretty cool.

I haven’t even sharpened the blade, and it has probably been 20 years or more since it was last used.  Didn’t seem to make any different though.

For some really strange reason, the Federal Government did not have any idea that when they offered Solar Power subsidies of $8000 for people to fit 1kW solar power units to their homes (which can fully pay for a 1kW unit, fully installed) that people would actually take them up on the offer.  The government have suddenly realised that they didn’t actually budget enough for it, and have prematurely ended the subsidy.  They budgeted for a bit over $150 million, and had to pull the pin when it got to $700 million.  Strangely how little warning was given for pulling the pin – hours, not even days.  With the original budget being exceeded by so much, didn’t they notice when 150 mill had become 300 mill, when 300 mill had become 600 mill etc?  Bet that didn’t happen overnight.

I got my application in on the 18th May, but I haven’t been able to contact the company as yet to find out if they actually submitted the application to the government in time to get the grant.  If not, then Stu’s Shed is going to have to continue to rely on the amazingly ecologically friendly brown coal power generation.  With the premature and surprise ceasation of the current rebate, there is no way that we will be able afford (or justify) the additional $4000 – $9000 odd that is expected to cost the household under the new proposed rebate scheme. (I have continued to try to get more info, and it is possible that we are lucky to have the application submitted in time.  Lucky for us, unlucky for all those who thought they had until the end of June.)

Pretty disappointing decision I must say.  Glad I don’t have investments in the solar power industry – bet they are hurting now, given all the panels they would have ordered expecting sales under the old scheme, that will not sell now that the price has been put out of reach of the average income earners, or at least will have to cover the cost of warehousing and loss of interest until those panels do sell under whatever new scheme is rolled out.

Oh well, back to sawdust, and away from politics.

As a follow-up to the timber-of-the-month featuring Queen Ebony, as sourced from the Brisbane Wood Show, SITCO Australia have sent some photos through to me of the timber being harvested.

Some AMAZING heavy, thick planks of Queen Ebony.  I’m imagining a heavy-topped Queen Ebony workbench – it would look incredible.

2 cutters operating surrounded by S.I Blackwood trees

Fresh cut Ebony

Queen Ebony Chainsaw cut

Some amazing planks coming off the chainsaw there.  When we shop for timber around the traps here, we often seem to scavenge for scraps that look good.  It is amazing to see whole trees of quality timber (and remember this is eco-timber – working towards accreditation for best practice, which is an excellent direction for Pacific Island nations to work towards – long-term sustainable businesses.

Free Hand chainsaw

Looking for a quick gauge of interest if this course was offered by Holmesglen (Chadstone Campus) as a 2 day / weekend course.

The current course being offered is the Introductory Triton Woodworking course, but for the past year it has failed to gain enough attendees for it to run.  I am therefore looking at what might be a better approach, to still fill the need for an introductory course to woodworking machinery.

It would still cover Triton because that is the hardware that Holmesglen has, but the focus will be on generic procedures and practices, rather than focusing solely on the Triton range (and potentially the Bosch range if the rumours turn out to be true).

Equipment covered would include the tablesaw, router table and bandsaw, plus miscellaneous hand power tools etc that have been seen on this website (and some still to come, including the Leigh Dovetail, the Mortise Pal etc)

The current course costs $340, and runs 8:30 to 4:30 on the Saturday, and 8:30 to 1pm on the Sunday, so I would imagine Holmesglen would stick with that length and pricing.

So the question is, and based on a very short brief provided here, would this course be worth getting off the ground?

Sometimes visiting the letterbox can be a pretty amazing experience!

A certain benefactor of Stu’s Shed decided (as quite an amazing gesture) to give me a Festool RAS115.  He wishes to remain anonymous, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t be stoked even so!

The RAS115 is dubbed “The Termite” by Festool.  It is not a sander (although it does use hook & loop abrasive (aluminium oxide)), but a material removal tool.  It is more like the Arbortech than a sander for its stock removal.  It is an orbital sander, not a random orbital sander.  It is designed to use 36 grit sandpaper, not 600!  It even came in a systainer, so I finally have a second one to join up with my Cooltainer

Festool Systainer

RAS115

Classic Festool packaging, keeping everything needed for the tool all in one place.  Must admit though – the manual leaves a lot to be desired.  Perhaps the translation from Deutsch missed out a bit…..

The Termite

No fancy casing, colour schemes, addons, or lasers.  This is a tool designed for one thing.  Doing the job you bought it for.

Speaking of which…..

Quick bit of shaping

I haven’t had any real time to give it a good workout, but it sure cut through the timber without any trouble.  If you’ve ever used a belt sander and seen how quickly it can mistakenly mill into the surface, imagine a tool that gives you that stock removal capabilty with a significant sense of control.

Of course, there will never be RAS115 races….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AikjWl5Ud4Y

This is a common event at the US Wood Shows, particularly the AWFS in Las Vegas.  Guess they don’t have the same strict regs (and doomsayers) as downunder.  Sadly, I was actually offered a Press Pass to the AWFS this year, but can’t afford to fund my own trip. Oh well, one day perhaps.

Back to the Festool:

Innovations

I’m not up on all the innovative features built into this tool – there are certainly a few!  One that was interesting is this geared handle that rotates the chip collection system to optimise where the collection occurs from.

A second handle can be added (handle supplied) to provide even more control.

So an interesting tool, an amazing price, and a much appreciated addition to the shed.

Had a play with one of those mulchers recently – you know the ones, sold to mulch up your garden waste and turn it into, well, mulch for your garden beds and trees.

Garden Mulcher

All I can say about it (given the model I tried wasn’t new, and probably needed its blades resharpened), who in their right mind took a kitchen blender…..

Kitchen Blender

……and scaled it up so it can handle garden waste???

FWIW, the kitchen blender shown here is an image I sourced off the web, and is the brand used in the “Will it Blend” gags shown on such shows as Letterman, where they do such things as throw an iPhone into the blender, and see what it can manage.  As a marketing tool, pure genius.  If Blendtec were sold in Australia, I’d be pretty sure I’d have one in my kitchen (not because I specifically need a blender, but because it is pretty cool seeing what this one can do!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI

Anyway, back to my point – just because the design is great for kitchen use (and some of those “don’t try it at home” videos), doesn’t make it a great design for chopping up small trees etc.  Perhaps it is, but boy is it a noisy and violent ride!

Garden Mulcher Knives

(Personally, that is NOT the solution I would have come up with if asked to design a garden mulcher blade design!)

There was a bit of a rumour floating around the Brisbane show about Triton….and Bosch.

As the rumour went, Bosch have bought up the existing stock of Triton Workcentre components with a view to paint them blue and release them under their brand.

There is absolutely no substantiating evidence to confirm or deny the rumour however, so don’t get your hopes up.  A blue Triton Router would be nice though.  And as my Triton drill batteries quickly die, some new LiIon ones would be great.

The only thing I can add to that, is given that Diver Consolidated Industries in north Melbourne had begun tooling up to take over the production of Triton Workcentres and Router Tables, (while GMC was still (I was going to say solvent, but perhaps fairer just to say “in existence”)) it would make sense for them to encourage someone to take on the product so they can get some benefit out of whatever they had already invested in those production lines.  A guesstimate would put their investment at $1 million to tool up for production.

At the recent Brisbane Wood Show, I picked up some interesting ebony, hand milled in the Solomons, and sold by SITCO Australia. It is also known locally (in the Solomons) as Tubi, and is marketed as a premium hardwood and as part of the Solomon Islands eco-timber products. For those who understand Latin: Xanthostemom melanoxylon- Myrtacea

The timber looks really interesting, and initially starts out a whole range of shades.  It darkens significantly when exposed to air (although I’m not sure as yet over what period).  Some of the carvings that were displayed were as stunning as they were a deep, rich black. Many of the traditional wood-carvings done in the Solomons use this timber.

Solomon Island Queen Ebony

This piece has really picked up with the application of some burnishing oil, revealing some really interesting character.  As is readily apparent, is there is significant checking from all edges.

I have some other pieces that I bought at the show (as mentioned here), so will be really interesting to see how they come up in different applications, such as turned pens.  Ebony is typically a very expensive timber, even in very small quantities, so the size and pricing of this source of a very dark version (once it has sufficiently oxidised) is particularly interesting.  The colouring of the piece above is very light compared to the older samples I saw, so if it doesn’t really look like ebony yet, time will tell!

It is not currently recognised as a true ebony, (as in timbers from the Diospyros spp. family), but when you end up with a timber that becomes a stunning jet-black, close grained, heavy hardwood, what is in a name?

I’ve found in the past that Whiteside make a very tidy router bit, and this template bit is no exception.

They don’t seem to go in for the coatings of some companies, and appear to concentrate on the manufacturing of router bits which look very precise, from the clean look of the bit, and its carbide grinding, to how tidy the carbide is attached (brazed) to the body of the router bit.

Whiteside Template Bit

This particular router bit is a 1/4″ shaft template bit, with a bearing guide.  The benefit of the bearing for template work is you don’t have to be concerned whether your guide bushing is accurately centred on the router or not affecting the result.  It also means the template can be made to the same size as the desired recess – you don’t have to take into account the thickness of the template, or the distance between the template and the cutter. (That is not to say that guide bushings don’t have a very valid place for many routing activities).

Carbide Detail

You can see from this second image what I mean about the precision used in brazing the carbide to the router bit – that is about the cleanest job I have seen by any manufacturer.

In that photo, from top to bottom are the carbide cutters, the bearing, and the bearing retainer ring (secured by grub screw)

The cutting length is either 1/4″ or 1/8″ depending on which model you choose – both available from Professional Woodworkers Supplies for around $40-$42.

Both are suitable for small inlay work and setting small hinges.  Their benefit over a traditional pattern copying bit is the short cutting length, so you don’t need either a tall template, or to cut through the workpiece (obviously rather undesirable when doing inlay work!)

Pushsticks are an integral part of the safety equipment in a workshop, and are important for many of the tools in the shop.  They are not everyone’s cup of tea (although I find that very strange), and they are not needed for every operation (which does make sense).  A pushstick is primarily used to feed work into and through a tool when it is too dangerous to have the operator’s fingers/hand in the vicinity.

Work such as narrow rips on the tablesaw are a good example.  And a tablesaw highlights a second aspect of a good pushstick.  Not only do you want to feed work into and through a tool, but you want to control that workpiece as best you can during the operation, and you really want to avoid such events as a kickback, and if the pushstick can help decrease that risk in addition, then that is a better design.

So to look at the Kreg Pushstick:

Kreg Pushstick

Some of the features you can see here:- a small tailpiece, which hooks over the edge to push work through the tool.  You don’t necessarily want it very long because if you are feeding through an 8mm board for example, you’d expect the tailpiece to be clear of the table.  However, is that really important?  I guess it wouldn’t be ideal for that tail to be rubbing on the table, particularly lifting the rear of the pushstick.  What bothered me though was how often, and easy the current tailpiece slipped off the workpiece (moving to the left in the orientation in the above photo, leaving the workpiece behind).

I’m not sure which variable wasn’t working well – too short a tailpiece, or is it at the wrong angle?  Instead of being vertical, perhaps it should be a little undercut and slope back towards the workpiece, even to the point of having a sharper….point at the base.  It might benefit by having a small sharp pin added to really engage in the edge of the workpiece, or some non-slip material or something.

Pushing the Workpiece

I also found the handle very high, and the pushstick felt a bit top-heavy in use.  However, I discovered why this was beneficial when ripping narrow boards, as it means the hand is high enough to clear over the top of the blade guarding.  Now the positioning of the handle is interesting, as is its angle, which allows loading to be horizontal (utilising the rear tailpiece to push the work), and vertical on the front edge, holding it down on the table which significantly decreases the likelihood of a kickback.

The handle has a hole in it so a pencil can be stored in it, but for me a pushstick is a pushstick.  It doesn’t need to be all things to all people, and should be optimised to do one job properly, and ignore any additional functionality.

It has an onboard ruler which can be unlocked and used as a depth gauge etc, but this falls into that same category.  I’d buy a pushstick for only one reason, irrespective of any other bells and whistles.

Magnetic Storage

It has an onboard magnet for storage, which may appeal to some.

In summary, this isn’t my favourite pushstick for the majority of operations.  However, it definitely comes into its own for very narrow rips, when you have very little clearance between the fence and the blade, whether you are using a guard or not.  The handle being high enough to pass over the top of the blade is good, and the rather narrow profile is useful in that case.

Since early May, when I added the new widget that maps visitors to the site, there have been visitors from over 100 countries.  Cool huh – how amazing that a small shed in the back of beyond of south-east Melbourne suburbs, down-under gets seen all over the world (or is that the global village?)  Does that make me the village woodworker, or just the village idiot?

Over 100 countries, > 1/2 the world

Neil Scobie is a woodworker very well known in the Australian Woodworking community.  It may be that you recognise the name from the many articles and features he has written for various woodworking magazines (including the current edition of Australian Wood Review). Even if you don’t know the name, it would be hard to miss some of his classic designs, particularly this stunning creation that I have admired before (and again, I’m sure it has been featured in at least one magazine):

Suspended Form (in Red Cedar and Jarrah)

I was able to meet and talk with Neil at the recent Brisbane Wood Show, and from that I have had the opportunity to view the DVDs that he sells, that take you step by step through making three of his designs.  I must say that I started watching the first one today (the Wave Rim Bowl), and I was only intending to watch a minute or so initially (I had planned to do other things), but once started, I found I had to watch the entire thing – it was fascinating to see how such a free form bowl could be created.  The fact that Neil was an Industrial Design Teacher for over 20 years really came through – he has a presentation style which I found really got the information across in way that was easy-to-follow and understand.

When you see the final product, it is quite a revelation to realise Neil has made available step by step instructions on how to create it yourself – I’ve said in the past I have little turning experience, but found watching the DVD that I really felt that with some more turning experience that it would really be possible for even me to be able to make one.  Even the techniques required to turn a basic bowl came across loud and clear, giving me the clear message that bowl turning is not out of reach of my undeveloped skills (with practice!)

Neil also runs weekend, and week-long courses, which would be awesome to experience.

Wave Rim Bowl

Just looking at that bowl, and I wouldn’t even think it possible for me to make one….until watching the DVD of course.

The DVDs that Neil has are:

Making a Wave Rim Bowl, Making a Tree Platter and Making an Erosion Bowl.  Each costs just under $40, and can be purchased directly from Neil Scobie by contacting him through his website http://www.neilandlizscobie.com and email info@neilandlizscobie.com

They can also be purchased through the Skills Publishing website if you want to purchase online. Click on the images of the DVDs above to be taken directly to the relevant web pages.

There are also a number of ideas I’m going to steal directly from Neil, including how he stores his turning chisels, ready for use – looks good, and practical, and the jig he uses (and sells to the occasional person who wants one for about $65) for sharpening the chisels.  Regular turners will often manage quite successfully to free-hand sharpen their chisels, but I don’t get to turn very often, so don’t get to develop those skills.  Having an easy, quick jig saves a lot of quality steel being turned to sparks and dust.  Wetstone wheels are all well and good, and are great for getting a chisel back to a perfect form, but are too slow to use while in the middle of a turning session.

Gidgee Erosion Bowl

Holly Nautilus

Liz Scobie also makes some stunning creations in textiles, this one in particular really caught my attention:

Boat Forms

But the work that I found the most inspirational, was where they have combined their respective talents.

Waves of Fantasy

Where the Rivers Run

Quite often I see stunning work such as these, and I wonder why in the world I persist with woodworking (not feeling I’m ever going to produce works anything like these) but this time is surprisingly different, and that is because Neil’s DVDs lift that veil of mystery on how such beautiful forms are created, like a magician actually revealing the secrets behind the illusions.

Please note, all images used in this article are copyright to Neil and Liz Scobie, and are used here by permission.

I was recently contacted by Stan in response to some articles here that have been referring to DMT Diamond Whetstones, and he kindly offered to field any questions I might have.  Unfortunately I certainly did have some that I was very pleased to be able to put to a real expert in the field, and Stan has agreed to allow me to republish them here. (I have taken the liberty of adjusting the questions and responses a tiny amount (like using the Ex Ex Fine stone!) to fit this format, and open forum).  I found the answers quite fascinating, and they will take a bit to really assimilate them properly into my expanding understanding of sharpening processes.

So to the Q&A with Stan A Watson, Technical Director, Diamond Machining Technology. www.dmtsharp.com

Stu’s Shed:

Sharpening is obviously one of those topics that deserves a decent amount of coverage, which is how diamond stone sharpening became a topic.

In the first instance, I was wondering if I was indeed on the right track when comparing different sharpening media by converting all the different grading systems used to that of the actual abrasive particle size in microns, and if my hypothesis is then correct that you can step from one form to another and back again, so long as you are progressively moving from a larger abrasive to a smaller one?  In saying that, I understand that some abrasives work by breaking down and continuing to abrade as they get smaller so they cover a range of sizes, but the majority are treated as consistent in size from new to exhausted.

Stan A. Watson:

Abrasive particle sizing is at best a huge mix of systems. The single best way of comparing abrasive to abrasive is the micron system which is an actual measure of grain size in absolute terms. The other systems in use today; CAMI / UAMA (Coated Abrasives Manufacturers Institute / Unified Abrasives Manufacturers Institute) FEPA (Federation of European Producers of Abrasives) USS (United States Standard Sieve) JIS (Japanese International Standards) and “grit size” are all arbitrary size designations with no relevance to any true physical dimensional scale. As far as abrasives breaking down during use, you have touched on the vast difference between the action of loose and bonded abrasives and that abrasive which remains solid or which tends to be more friable during use. A loose rolling abrasive sharpening system (lapping, SiC paper and waterstones) tend to produce much different results that a true fixed bonded system such as DMT Diamond Whetstones.

Stu’s Shed:

With that in mind, does the measure of particle size of diamond abrasives fixed to a medium (where only a portion of the particle is actually exposed above the surface) compare with those where the particles are free to move (such as in diamond paste)?  I note from your website that only 1/3 of the diamond is exposed, so is the particle size the site provides the size of the actual diamond, or the size of the exposed portion of the diamond?  (In other words, when I have stated the Ex Fine DMT stone particle size is 9 microns, does it actually perform as one with a particle size of 3 microns)?

Stan A. Watson:

We designate the actual size of the diamond itself so for instance when we state that the Fine / 600 mesh / red / 25 micron grade of diamond, we are actually using a 25 micron size diamond where only about 8 to 9 microns is exposed above the metal bond. That being said, let me state that there is a size range about the mean particle size or a Gaussian distribution of particle sizes which would be from about 23 to 28 micron. But, rest assured that DMT takes advantage of a highly sophisticated system of fluidized bed micronized particle separation to ensure there are no oversized / undersized rogue diamond crystals in each diamond grade.

(Editor’s note: This feature cannot necessarily be said about all diamond stone manufacturers products, this technique ensures a dependable crystal size for DMT stones, but your mileage may vary with other manufacturers, and this can be assessed in part by observing the performance and surface finish obtained when using other manufacturer’s diamond stone products. The problem with a rogue stone in the matrix is it will cause gouge marks in the material being ground that will cause significant amount of additional work with the next stone grade to remove, if that is even possible.)

Stu’s Shed:

By looking at the particle sizes of the 4 sides of the DiaSharp stones I have, there seems to be a large step from the fine to the extra fine stone, and if I was dealing with silicon carbide sandpaper for example, I would use a few more grades in between before jumping to the extra fine particle size.  Is this actually valid, or have I headed off on a bit of a tangent there?  I would expect that DMT wouldn’t put out ‘fine’ and ‘extra fine’ grades without intermediate stones if you couldn’t go from one to the other, but it does seem quite a step.

Stan A. Watson:

The actual step from “Fine” to “Extra Fine” is from a 25 micron to a 9 micron (8-9 micron  to 3 micron exposure) and progresses nicely in the range of micron sizes we offer. You can control the surface finish quite nicely by controlling the applied force during sharpening so as to finish up each step in the progression of sharpening with lighter and lighter strokes. The comparison with diamond to SiC paper is not really an apples to apples comparison as the SiC paper while being a bonded abrasive is friable, looses the particle bond quite easily and could be of either “open coat” or “closed coat” type.

(Editor’s Note: There are two common patterns used when bonding the abrasive to the backing material, called “Open Coat” or “Closed Coat”.

An Open Coat pattern is when there is a lower density of abrasive particles, so the entire particle can dig deeply into the work, facilitating faster material removal, and less likelihood of waste particles clogging the abrasive material.  The particle size in this case – the working size of the particle as it were, is closer to the actual measured size of the particle.

A Closed Coat pattern is when the particles are tightly packed together on the backing material – a denser pattern. With the gap between particles being very small, the abrasive cannot bite in as deeply, resulting in a finer finish (or being realistic about what we are talking about here – a finer scratch pattern), and the effective size of the abrasive particles is much smaller than the actual particles themselves.  These materials tend to need some form of lubrication because of the increased heat buildup.)

Stu’s Shed:

In the article on the Alisam sled, one assumption I have made is the consistency of thickness of the DiaSharp stone (and in particular that the two sides are parallel).  Do you have a listed tolerance for the thickness, or should the stones be mounted in an adjustable holder to ensure the top surface is parallel with the base?  The Alisam sled obviously assumes the sharpening material is parallel with the surface their sled runs on.  I was reluctant to use the diamond stone on my precision granite block, because being double sided, I would expect the diamonds on the underside to cause some damage to the comparatively softer block.

Stan A. Watson:

The DiaSharp product is produced to a parallel,  thickness and flatness tolerance and you should be confident in your ability to step from stone to stone with out having to adjust the iron in the Alisam jig.  Yes the diamond on the bottom of the double sided stones would adversely affect your granite surface plate.

Stu’s Shed:

I am planning on doing a video feature on diamond sharpening (as I have with slow speed grinders, and will for Japanese waterstones and “Scary Sharp”). Do you have any particular advice about the use of these stones that are at the extreme ends of the diamond whetstone scale – the XX Fine and XX Coarse DMT Stones?

Stan A. Watson:

Remember that especially with the performance of the XX Fine there is a break in period and the stone will produce better and better results the more it is used. Also if you are using the XX Coarse to flatten waterstones, do so under running water to flush out the abrasive slurry as quickly as possible.

Stu’s Shed:

Sorry about the long list of questions – writing these articles often raises as many questions as they answer!

Stan A. Watson:

No problem, I am more that happy to correspond with you about anything that I may be able to contribute to.
Best Regard! Stan.

So a big thank you to Stan Watson for not only obliging me with very comprehensive answers to my questions, but also for allowing those responses to be published here.  There will be a video in the near future demonstrating the use of the DMT Diamond Whetstones in action, so keep an eye out for that in Stu’s Shed TV / iTunes.

Ron Hock has long been renowned for producing superior blades for planes, and his approach is based on a strong understanding of the metallurgy involved in producing high quality steel that is specifically suited to the purpose of plane blades.

But what is interesting to know, is producing high-carbon steel blades is not where he started.  It was making knives, and it came to be that his knowledge of steel lead him into focusing on plane blades.

It sounds like it was a long time coming then, but Ron has (finally) returned to where he started, and has released a set of carving knives that incorporate his high-carbon Rc62 blades in a Bubinga handle. These knives just make you want to take up carving (if you don’t already!) They are visually aesthetically pleasing, and you know beyond any doubt that they have the best possible steel blades incorporated into them.

Hock Carving Knives

This set has been sourced from Professional Woodworkers Supplies, and they can be purchased individually, or as a set of 5.

The knife range

From left to right, they are:

1.25″ Stab Carving Knife (32mm Angled) High Carbon Steel
1.25″ Carving Knife (32mm Straight) High Carbon Steel
1.25″ Detail Knife (32mm Fine Point) High Carbon Steel
1″ Chip Carving Knife (25mm Offset) High Carbon Steel
1″ Carving Knife (25mm Straight) High Carbon Steel

Did I mention they are sharp?!

Blade Cover

Speaking of which, each comes fitted with a piece of plastic tubing, which makes a good blade cover, to protect the blade if it happens to fall on the floor (and yourself if you do something silly (unless you happen to be using that particular blade at the time, but I guess that goes without saying….))

So if you are already a carver (or are interested in giving it a try), these knives are certainly worth having a good look at. (And they won’t break the bank).

Hock Carving Knives

And as an aside, if you have not heard of Hock Blades before, here are a couple of his YouTube videos, which are definitely worth watching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJFrA-GzfqY

To kick off a new “***** of-the-Month” topic, I have been meaning to have a “Publication of-the-Month” segment, and there is a significant amount of products out there worth highlighting (many already in my library!)  this section is called “publication” and not just “book” because I intend to cover magazines, books, DVDs, woodworking plans etc, so didn’t want to have to limit what can be included.

This month, I received a copy of Handmade Furniture Projects by Rafael Nathan at the recent Brisbane Woodworking Show, so that will be our first cab-off-the-ranks!

It is published by AWR, and is part of their series of “The Best of Australian Wood Review”. Written by furniture designer/maker Rafael Nathan, this book contains 23 furniture and woodworking projects, complete with both metric & imperial cutting lists, colour photos and instructions.

Projects in the book include:

Each project is comprehensively covered with photos of the final product, an exploded isometric, dimensioned drawing, written decriptions of the steps, and plenty of colour photographs to illustrate the techniques and details as required.

Wonder if I would ever be able to make that bow?  Looks interesting (although I hear that it took a couple of goes to get one that could take the tension )

For the wood show, I finally used the motivation to copy a superb looking jig featured on the MagSwitch site.  And of course, I had to give it a try!

Coving Jig

The jig consists of two independant sides, that are secured to the table with twin MagJigs.  They can be set to any reasonable width to cope with a wide range of stock sizes.  The significant benefit of the MagJigs allows the jig to be secured wherever you want – doesn’t matter where, or how many mitre slots you have.

Coving

So as seen, there is a board on either side.  40mm holes drilled at either end to fit the MagJigs. Two slots cut into the boards to fit the channel.  The slots were cut using a dado blade, and I’m not sure if it is the first time I’ve used a dado blade for a serious job, and it wasn’t a particularly fun experience.  The amount of stuffing around fine-tuning the dado blade size, including shims etc, was quite discouraging compared to how easy it would have been to cut the slot on the router table.  I can see a benefit to dado blades, and sure, if I wanted to cut 20, 50 or more slots then no question, a little setup time is worthwhile.  For one or two, I’d be finished on the router table before really getting the dado blades done up.

The channels are Kreg channels from Carbatec.  In these channels are the MagSwitch Vertical Attachments, mounted above the blade.  I’ve also used the Kreg Pushstick while holds the work down on the table, as well as pushing it through the blade, and it is thin enough to easily pass through the gap between the featherboards.  Additionally, it has quite a high handle, which again has definite advantage when used here.  Almost like it was built for the task……

Resulting Cove

If you’ve never tried coving before, it is an interesting exercise. To start, raise the blade to the final required height forthe depth of the cove, (without the saw turned on!), and set the angle the work meets the blade to get the required width of cove.  Lock down the jig, and drop the blade right down.  Given you are using the blade almost side on, you really need to take it slow.  Both in feed rate, and by taking many light passes.  Have a look at the coving in the above-photo.  All that missing material had to be turned into sawdust by the blade.  Compare that to how much sawdust (and therefore how much wood is removed) by the sawblade used in its typical role.  That’s why we have to take it easy.  If you push too hard, the blade will flex, and I really don’t want that happening at the speeds the blade runs at!  I want it cutting, and that is it.

If you get really serious about coving, there are blades such as this one from CMT.  They are not cheap though!

CMT Coving Blade

A Shallow Cove

Professional Woodworkers Supplies has emailed out their latest newsletter with some interesting discounts listed inside.

The first is the ability for buyers to get a discount voucher for a massive $1.  The size of the voucher depends on how much you spend:

$250   up to $499 +$1 and receive a $ 30 Gift Certificate.
$500   up to $749 + $1 and receive a $ 50 Gift Certificate.
$750   up to $999 + $1 and receive a $ 70 Gift Certificate.
$1000 and over    + $1 and receive a $100 Gift Certificate.

In addition, PWS are not attending the Sydney Wood Show this year, so are offering free freight for any orders over $250.00 to any NSW & ACT Post Code (2000 > 2999) address during the month of June 2009.

Both these offers end 30 June 09, and both can be used concurrently.

If you currently don’t receive the PWS newsletter (which only comes out every couple of months or so, so you are not suddenly going to find a full inbox if you do sign up) then it is a good one to get.  There is often lots of interesting tips etc included, as well as new tools mentioned. You will find the link to subscribe on their website here.  Scroll down, and the subscribing link is at the bottom of the left hand column.

Being inspired by the recent look at diamond stone sharpening, (which is a topic I have returned to on a few occasions already, covering the different aspects of sharpening), I have again raised a few questions I have wanted to answer, and the more answers, the more questions I find to ask!

One thing that seems to be a regular stumbling block is the issue of the grade of the abrasive material.  So many seem to use a similar system of depicting the abrasive properties of the material in question, but then things seem to not quite line up.

Is a 1000 grade waterstone the same as P1000 (ISO system) sandpaper?  And is that the same as 1000 mesh diamond stone?  Or 1000 grit sandpaper using the CAMI grading system? Sort of, no, no, and that is just the start of the confusion.

Without getting into actual definitions, an abrasive is typically small particles that are harder than the substance you want to abrade.  How they are presented to the item is more a matter of choice than if one system is better than another.  They could be a powder which has some oil added and use on top of a flat surface.  Or in a wax and added to a felt wheel.  They could be secured firmly in a permanent base (although only diamond really justifies this).  They could be in a soft matrix and formed into a flat slab, or turned into a slow spinning wheel, and so on.

I’m still not unconvinced (yeah, double negatives) that I’m on the right track by breaking down all the different systems to their micron equivalent.  So perhaps all abrasive systems should be sold using that designation.  Pick up some 100 micron lapping paste to get a flat side, switch over to 75 then 50 micron sandpaper, then use the 35 then 25, then 20 micron diamond whetstones, really develop a mirror with 15 and 10  waterstones, and finally a 5, 2 and 1 micron diamond paste for a deadly edge.  Wonder if I can market that concept?

Oh, and if you wondered what a 3 micron diamond abrasive can do (which is roughly equivalent to a 1 micron friable product) , have a look at the mirror surface of this chisel, sharpened on the DMT “Steel Waterstone”, which is their finest diamond whetstone (also known as the Ex Ex Fine). That’s an awesome finish!  I’m building a list of items that cannot be purchased in Australia that I’d be rather keen to get to try.  This stone is one of them (as is the Forrest Woodworker2 sawblade).

DMT Steel Waterstone

You just don’t realise how big this topic is until you start really delving into it.  Like every topic in woodworking really.

If you are looking for a bible on the subject, start with Lie-Nielsen’s take on the subject from Taunton Press.

The guy who comes up with handplanes like this definitely knows his way around the idea of sharpening an edge!

In the light of this article, I decided to do a quick audit of what sharpening gear I have, and therefore what is still missing from a good system. And because of my push above, I’ll list them in micron order!

*I have amended this list in light of recent discussions with the Technical Director for DMT, and the micron size now listed is based on the size of the exposed diamond, which is what is doing the cutting and not the size of the diamond in total (2/3 of which is buried in the Nickle plating).

Not listing sandpaper of course, although it would be valid to include them.  The finest sandpaper I have is P2500, which is around 8 microns.

I also have a Granite Plate, the Alisam and Veritas Mk2 Honing Jig, a bench grinder and the Triton Wetstone Sharpener.

I wouldn’t mind having a diamond whetstone around 15 micron to fill that gap, and around a 2000 waterstone to narrow the jump from 1000 to 6000.

There are two main aspects of sharpening edge tools.  One is the abrasive, and the other is presenting the tool at a consistent angle to that abrasive.  The more accurately this angle is maintained, the better the result, and the easier the entire sharpening process.  Jigs that assists you in maintaining that angle are known as sleds, or honing guides.

I’ve spoken in the past about the Veritas Mark 2 sled, which runs on top of the sharpening medium.  This sled from Alisam takes a different approach, and runs on a smooth reference surface which the stone is also on.

This concept does not work for waterstones, which although flat can have any amount of tapering, rendering the sled ineffective.  However, it is ideal for diamond stones, where the thickness is very uniform, the Scary Sharp method (using sandpaper), or using powdered abrasives / lapping powders. The guide is therefore not required to travel on or through the abrasive.  I haven’t tried it, but you could imagine the potential damage to the brass wheel of the Veritas if used on the Ex Ex Coarse DMT Diamond stone (which is around the equivalent to ISO120 sandpaper), or having to push over and through lapping powder.

Diamond Stones and the Alisam Sled

I have chosen the SS3 Alisam Sled from Professional Woodworkers Supplies here, as it is the lowest of the three, and ideal for the diamond stones I am using. There is the sled (obviously the blue thing!), the 2 DMT Diamond Stones, and an HNT Gordon Plane blade (this is a reject one because it did not meet Terry’s standards, and so I can use and abuse it without feeling I am wasting good steel (the ultimate crime!)) You could just as easily substitute a normal plane blade, or a chisel etc into this guide. I am using a base of MDF, which is remarkably flat because of its manufacturing process.

Setting up for sharpening a plane blade

The guide is set up with the blade roughly in place, before fully clamping down on it.  The black ring (to the right of the blade) is used to set the blade perpendicular to the guide.  Under the stone, you can see two dark tracks, which is where I was already working the blade before taking the photos – this is some of the metal removed from the blade, where it has been forced into the board by the jig.  It doesn’t affect the accuracy, and just shows how fine the particles are that get removed.  There will be little to no abrasive there because of the quality of the diamond stones.  Unlike a waterstone, the diamond stones are not designed to shed the abrasive as part of the sharpening process.

Setting the sharpening angle

To set the grinding angle, one handle on the sled is loosened, and the drawn mark lined up with the required engraved angle.  This is not an eyechrometer thing though – underneath the side (as you may be able to make out), there are accurately machined indents which positively engage on raised areas of the jig body, so the angle is perfect, and perfectly repeatable.

Angle Set

Here I have set the angle to 30 degrees, the blade is clamped down (and I’ve moved the alignment ring out of the way, although this was not necessary).

Working through the grades

You then run back and forward over the stone to grind the blade – one interesting point is in theory if you kept going you would find it cutting lighter and lighter until the blade could no longer reach the stone. This has been addressed very cleverly by having the front two wheels spring loaded – they have a tiny amount of vertical movement allowing more or less cutting pressure to be applied to the blade.  I was quite impressed when I discovered that.  The other beauty of this jig is you can use the entire stone, and not just a half or so, as the jig is not running on the surface at the same time.  I found it a very easy honing tool to use, and it cut quickly because of both the pressure I could choose to bring to bear, and that each stroke used the entire stone length.

Coplanar Guide Wheels and Blade

From underneath, you can see the 4 rollers (the right-hand two, which are the forward rollers are the ones that are spring loaded).  The blade in this case is close to being complete.

Flattened Blade

This is about as far as I could get on the diamond stones I had.  My next step from here would be to move onto even higher grades of abrasive to really get a mirror finish (and obviously to flatten the back of the blade to the same condition – there is no point having one mirror surface if the back of the blade is pitted, rusty, chipped etc.)

Just a point too on the apparent loss of the hollow ground in the centre of this blade – remember this was a reject blade, and the slight warping made it scrap.  Even so, that is becoming a very well dressed edge, and it wouldn’t take much from here to bring it up to being fully live.

There are many different abrasive systems used to produce sharp edges on tools, be that sandpaper, abrasive grits, waterstones, oil stones, or diamond stones (among others).  They all have one thing in common, and that is very hard precisely sized particles suspended or retained in a soft matrix.

The quality of the hard particles goes a long way towards the quality of the abrasive.  Strange as it may seem at first glance, this even applies to diamond – there is diamond, and then there is diamond.  For example, the diamonds need to be bound securely into a parent material, if not they come loose, and not only are lost, but can really gouge the tool as well.  Also too, you can have a few diamonds, or a lot, evenly sized diamonds or not, and diamonds that are strong and durable, or ones that easily shatter and shear.

I have sourced some diamond stones from Professional Woodworkers Supplies which have a good name for quality and durability.  They are DMT Diasharp stones, and the ones I have chosen are double sided, so are the equivalent of 4 diamond stones.

For some reason, DMT only categorise their stones as fine, coarse, extra-coarse etc, which is rather frustrating when trying to compare apples with tomatoes. However, I have been able to determine what the equivalent is across all abrasive types, by finding out what the size of the abrasive particles are, which means it is easy to switch and swap between all the different abrasives and still be working “through the grits”. This earlier article of mine on comparing abrasive systems spells it out in a table form.

From the DMT website, I was able to determine the actual particle sizes:

*I have amended this list in light of recent discussions with the Technical Director for DMT, and the effective micron size now listed is based on the size of the exposed diamond, which is what is doing the cutting and not the size of the diamond in total (2/3 of which is buried in the Nickle plating).

Just out of interest, the concept of “Mesh” originates from a sorting method for determining the particular particle size, by passing it through a number of sieves (meshes), with increasing holes per inch (and therefore decreasing hole sizes) until the particle can go no further, so it’s size is known.

Oh, and fwiw, 1 micron = 0.001mm = 0.00004″

When flattening something (whether that be sharpening, or sanding), you start off with a particle size (or grit) which is coarse enough to remove the existing structures and scratches caused by the tooling.  Depending on how rough the surface is to start will determine what is the correct grit to start with, and you keep working till the original machining marks are replaced completely with the scratches from that original grit. You then move onto the next higher grit, and work to remove the scratches from that previous grit.  Rinse and repeat through all the grit sizes until the final finish quality is achieved.  As you work up the grits, less and less material needs to be removed.  One thing I find annoying, is the manufacturers rate their abrasives based on the average grit size.  The problem with that is although the average is all very well, if you have a few much larger particles, they will cause some individual serious scratches which will remain in the project unless you return to a heavier grit and start again.  The better quality the abrasive, the less of a problem there is.

Oh, and one other myth – rubbing two abrasives together to produce a finer grit is just that – a complete myth. Imagine the individual particles of abrasive as tiny chisels.  Do you get a better, sharper, finer chisel by ramming it into another?  No- all you get is a blunt, chipped or broken edge which renders the tool useless.  Same with abrasives.

So onto the sharpening with diamond.  Diamond chips are just another collection of micro chisels.  These are securely bound in a base of metal for the simple reason that because diamond is so durable, you want to keep the diamond particles around as long as possible.  If they are not worn out, why get rid of them?!

The two diamond stones I chose are double sided.  One has an extra coarse side and a coarse side, and the other stone has a fine and extra fine side.  The equivalent in ISO sandpaper is 240, 320, 600 and 2000.  Unfortunately, I feel this already demonstrates a problem, that too many intermediate grits are being skipped.  400, 800, 1200, 1500.  This may explain why when I was using these stones, I found the final result less than the perfection I was hoping for.  Not a fault of the stones themselves, but more may be needed to really perfect the finish.  The lower two were fine, and the jump from 320 to 600 not too extreme, but going from that to 2000 was too much.  However, once you understand micron sizes, it is easy to switch from one material to another.  In this case, I’d probably stop at the fine diamond stone, and switch over to the Japanese waterstones to finish the process. (1000, 2000 and 6000, or in grit sizes: 14, 7.5 and 2). (Update, I now have a better understanding of the grading of diamond stones from the Q&A with the Technical Director for DMT, which covered this point, and demonstrated that there is much less of a jump in the effective micron sizes than I realised)

Part 2 will document the stones in use.

For the wood show, I wanted to demonstrate what having a good resaw fence can do for your bandsaw.

Single Roller MagFence

Using the single roller MagFence, set less than 1mm from the blade (a lot closer than you see in the photo, and I also used a different blade to the one shown), I tried cutting a veneer from Tasmanian Blackwood.

Cutting a veneer

Think I got a pretty good result.  The match is included just for a sense of scale.  I used to do it by eye only, and getting a 3-4mm thick veneer I felt was a pretty impressive result.  Being able to easily resaw a veneer as thin as the one seen here is pretty startling!  And it was simple to maintain the cut width because of the fence.  It is not just veneers that can be cut either – splitting boards in half to have bookmatched panels is as easy.

The single roller is particularly useful because of the bandsaw’s tendency to track, so the operator needs to guide and steer the workpiece to compensate.  Having a fence controlling the width of cut makes this significantly easier.  The other secret is to ensure your blade has good tension.  Running the blades too loose is a very common fault, and results in a poor cut, wandering, and bowing of the blade causing a curved cut.

I was sad to hear that Sam Maloof passed away late last week – of course being one of the most influential woodworkers of our age, it never made the news (perhaps some celebrity slept with some other celebrity somewhere which took precidence). Obituaries

Sam Maloof is possibly best known for his chairs, although this is far from the only thing that he made, a Maloof rocker was something highly desired, even by past US Presidents

Photo by George Baramki Azar

Although at 93, you might expect that he stuck with only traditional tools, I always found it fascinating in the Taunton Woodworking DVD on Maloof that he was not against using any tool that would get him to his desired destination, whether that be the bandsaw or spokeshave, or whatever.

Photo by Anacleto Rapping / TPN

Photo by Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times

There’s a lot of work being done today that doesn’t have any soul in it. The technique may be the utmost perfection, yet it is lifeless. It doesn’t have a soul. I hope my furniture has a soul to it.

- Sam Maloof

Not sure if I’ve shown this photo before- it is the Festool Workshop and Training Room at Ideal Tools in Williamstown (West Melbourne).  I’d love a workshop that looked like this. I’d love a workplace that looked like this!

I did pick up a few things at the show, being conscious of how much I could get on the plane – I knew I had about 12kg spare!

A friend recently showed me a very stylish case he had sourced for the pens he has started making. I still may get around to getting one as well (purchased from the USA) as his one is real leather.  However while at the show I found one that had a similar look and feel, just not leather.

Pen Case

Better get making more pens!

Stores 24 pens in a zippable case, with an internal soft flap to protect the pens on one side from the other.  Cost was around $25 from Carrolls Woodcraft Supplies. Think it is so new that it isn’t even on their website yet.

I did buy a $6 chainsaw bag – didn’t seem a bad price, and it may mean I will look after the chainsaw a little better!

I wasn’t planning on buying much timber – perhaps a few pen blanks, but the Solomon Ebony looked really interesting, and was a surprisingly good price.  I’ve bought ebony before, and gotten very small pieces that still cost quite a bit, and only ever intended to use them for details in other creations.  Instead these pieces are affordable enough to really use them, rather than conserve them.

Solomon Ebony

From left to right, there are some lengths around 18mm square – a bit thicker than normal, but I got them specifically for pens.  They actually came as 2 lengths, but at around 1.5m long, they were going to be tricky to get onto the plane.  I left my run too late to find a saw as the show was packing up, but I found someone with a running chainsaw who was happy to help pop these in half for me.

The next piece is just a nice lump of timber.  The endgrain of the ebony is stunning, and when I do a writeup of the timber itself, I’ll get you some better photos and details images. Same with the stack of 3.

The ebony darkens up to a near black significantly over time as it oxidises, so these pieces will look remarkably different in a year or two!  (I don’t know how fast they oxidise though).  When I turn a pen, if I do a CA finish it will obviously keep the air away from the timber.  Apparently (when I asked about it), the timber will still oxidise over time, it would just take a lot longer through the CA finish.  The gentleman selling the timber had a pen made from it, and it was a beautiful deep black.

The final piece of timber I know nothing about, other than coming from the Solomons, and its name – Kwila.

I didn’t grab many photos from the show – was a bit preoccupied funnily enough.

The MagSwitch Display

Saw a lot of that corner of the Carbatec stand!

Some of the timber on offer

Slabbing with a chainsaw on the Stihl stand

The very large bladed Lucas Mill

The final photo is a really interesting upgrade for a planer or thicknesser (if you can afford the price tag)

Spiral Cutter

It is one impressive upgrade however.  One day for my machine perhaps.  The traditional blade layout means they chip away at the surface.  Lots and lots of chips, and if the timber has any tendency to tearout, it will.

Instead, if the blades were in a spiral pattern, it means the angle of attack is a slicing action which will produce a very clean, smooth finish. In addition, and as you can see this cutter head is not made up of 2, 3 or 4 knives, but instead consists of over 60 mini knives of tungsten carbide.  It should, as an aside, make for a much easier dust extraction as there will be a much smaller, finer shaving for the DC to remove.

The beauty of the individual knives is that if you do encounter a nail or similar, or you do so much work that the blades begin to dull, you simply rotate the affected ones through 90 degrees and keep on going.  With 4 cutting edges available on each blade, the original set will really last!

FWIW, Stu’s Shed is still in the top 4 woodworking podcasts worldwide on iTunes

And according to my new map plotter, it now lists 90 countries that have viewed the site – quite incredible that being on the worldwide web (www) actually means being world wide!

It was really a flying visit – fly up, taxi to show, eat, sleep, back to show, taxi to airport and home!  I’m certainly not going to complain getting the opportunity to get so another wood show however – one a year isn’t enough (for me!). Sunday, like Saturday flew past.  It seemed a bit quieter, but still had plenty of visitors, conversations etc even so.

The place I stayed out turned out to be a complete dive.  That’s the problem with booking accommodation online – if you don’t know the destination, you have to rely on what you see on the web, and there was a marked contrast between what you could see in the photos, and reality.  Of course you cannot tell from photos whether power points actually work, whether there is an electrical short in the desk lamp, if there is a fridge right beside the bed that doesn’t stop running all night (and cannot be switched off), or even if the kitchenette sink tap has water in it.  Needless to say, I didn’t hang around the following morning, and arrived at the show at 7:30am!  Oh well, it was an experience.

Back to the show, and I had plenty of time before the doors opened to catch up with lots of the different stands.  Just walking past the building, and you could smell the aroma of wood coming out the louvers. Going back to my little shed is going to seem a bit strange after having so much ’shed’ full of woodworking to wander around.  I’ve no idea where Stu’s Shed is going to lead in the long run, but it is a fascinating journey whatever the destination, both traversing over traditional paths to take one still very new and underpopulated (blogging & podcasting), while still observing the very large footprints in the paths of the great woodworking evangelists.

Picked up a reasonable amount of the Solomon Ebony (although I had to be conscious of my weight limit for the plane home).  In fact, the ebony caused a bit of an issue at the airport – when I checked my bag in, the counter staff were aware that I had some of the ebony in my carry on bag.  When I got to the security section however, they were very dubious why I would have pieces of timber in my bag (2″ square, 1′ long, waxed ends), and kept asking what it was for.  How many times can you say it is for woodworking projects before it sinks into security that it is for woodworking?  It probably should have been in the checked in bag, but when you don’t have an ulterior motive, you don’t always see the implied threat from something you see as an innocuous object.  It was all approved in the end thankfully.

Another fun show under the belt, and getting to attend one out of the state was a definite bonus!  Not sure if I will have an opportunity to attend Sydney, but if the offer arises I’ll be jumping at it!

Quite a whirlwind day all told. 4am start with a drive to the airport, then a 2 hour(ish) flight. Landed and got a slow cab to the show, arriving with 10 minutes to spare. Never known a cab to drive so slowly – didn’t seem to get over 50kph the entire trip (and no, there wasn’t any traffic to speak of!)

There was quite an impressive queue outside, with a number of people I recognised from the forums- hi guys!

Inside got very busy very quickly- lots of interest in the products and met a whole swag of readers of Stu’s Shed. It’s hilarious coming to a show 1/2 the country away, and finding someone who knows of me every 5 minutes or so! In contrast, I’m sitting here in the Zouk Bar forecourt in the Brunswick Mall having dinner and am a complete stranger.

The show had a smaller feeling than Melbourne, but there were still plenty of the big players there as well, and lots of timber.

Very little burl or Huon Pine to be seen (although I did see a bit on one stand), but then there was also lots of other stuff that wasn’t as familiar, and prices seemed a lot more reasonable than Melbourne.

Got to catch up with lots of people- Richard Vaughan, Colen Clenton, Raf (AWR), Stan (I declined the offer of a sausage roll), Jim Carroll & Doorstop, the Carbatec boys to name a few.

It was interesting seeing familiar stands from the Melbourne show, surreally manned by strangers (to me).

The show felt bigger than a provincial town one, but had some of those qualities too. The non-woodworking stands were still there sadly- the painters, massagers, boot polishers, garden shears etc.

I don’t understand the patrons who complain about shows though- if you try to get into the woodworking community, attending shows, participating in the forums etc, these shows are great for all the contacts you can make.

Haven’t seen much at all of Brisbane- a bit like Sydney from the cab, a bit like Darwin in the Brunswick Mall. Perhaps another time.

Tomorrow should be another huge day. I’ve got a bit of a short list of things to buy- there’s some impressive Solomon Ebony which will make some nice stuff, some pen acrylics and case, and well, we will see what the day brings.

Received my latest e-newsletter from HNT Gordon planes recently, which was a good prompt to have a look at Terry’s website again. www.hntgordon.com.au

Noticed on there that Terry won’t be attending any of the woodshows this year, and instead is offering discounts on his planes (which correspond to the State that the show is in – check his site for more details).  In a nutshell though, when the discount is in your area, it is for 20% off, which is quite a savings!  If you are in Queensland, this special is currently available until 31 May 09.

The other thing that I noticed is he has bought out some new planes – specifically hollow and round profiles of different widths. I’ve pinched these photos from his website:

HNT Gordon Hollow Plane

Using the 1" Round

Finally, an image from his site that has (and is still) gracing the wall of my office.  A stunning set of Ebony planes and associated tools from Terry and Colen (Clenton)

HNT Gordon

Just been putting together the bits n pieces I will need in Brisbane over the weekend for the Timber and Working with Wood Show.

Spent about 1/2 the day in the shed making some jigs to take, and got most of what I wanted done.  Got to try out the single roller MagFence on the bandsaw for resawing, and I was very impressed.  Not only with the MagFence itself which worked perfectly, but also how much easier having a single point of contact fence made resawing.  I was slicing veneers that were under 1mm without any problem at all.

Also got to give coving a try for the first time (actually, it is probably the second time, but when I tried it on the Triton many years ago, I got so much flex out of the blade that I widened the aluminium track significantly!)  Always interesting to try out new techniques, and it went without a hitch (with my new jig of course!)

In building that jig, I also used a dado blade to create the um – what is that slot called – oh yeah, a dado! that takes the track.  This time it was the economy Carbatec set, and despite its weight (being solid disks), the 15A power supply for the saw did what was required and it ran without a problem (last time I tried before I got some decent power to the shed, I was left in the dark with the circuit breakers all popping!)

So a successful day, and plenty of new things tried as well.

One slight hiccup – I contacted the airline because their documentation said something about magnets, and despite these not being strong (relative to a magnetron, or what they quote as “a strong magnet”), I can’t take any MagSwitches with me, even if they are switched off.  You can post them (airmail), but not fly with them yourself, even in checked baggage.

Anyway, I best stop mucking around on the computer and get some rest – have to be up at 4am to get to the airport!

On Sunday 31 May, from 9am to 1pm ONLY, Carbatec Melbourne are having a carpark sale.

Carbatec have grabbed the liquidated stock from GMC/Triton of the GMC 8″ Whetstone Sharpener and the 8″ and 12″ Triton bandsaws.

The pallets of stock they have will not be available early, so there is no point trying to get it before the sale, and once the 4 hours are up, that’s it.

So onto the items themselves.

GMC Whetstone Sharpener

$169 $99

I’m half tempted by one myself – they are cheap enough, and work about as well as the Triton (have pretty much the same wheel), and even come with a knife jig that the Triton doesn’t have (and isn’t any less functional than the Tormek afaik, and that jig costs more than the entire sharpener!) Speaking of Tormek, those jigs will fit this unit too.

12" Bandsaw

$735 $399

8" Bandsaw

$249 $129

Remember these bandsaws are identical to the Scheppach Basato models (the 12″ is the Basato 3), and these were actually manufactured by Scheppach for Triton.  Why I mention this? The Scheppach Basato models are still readily available, as are their spares.

Given the current economic climate, the Basato 3 Vario has jumped significantly in price, and is now around $935!! So an identical model, brand new for under $400 is an impressive saving (saving over $500!!)

I’m not sure if a dust system ever gets finalised.  At least it never seems to in my shop – I seem to be constantly changing my ideas, tool positions, and dust system layout concepts.  Oh well – it’s like a real-life jigsaw puzzle that can be assembled many different ways, and how well it works tells you which picture you’ve created.

As I’ve mentioned recently, I have capitulated and have moved the dust collector back into the main shed.  There are a number of reasons for doing so, and a number of reasons why I didn’t want to have to.

Reasons why I wanted the DC located in a different shed (or at least outside the primary workshop)

* Noise. DCs are noisy (not brushed motor noisy), but still, sounds of lots of air moving would be better elsewhere if possible.

* Dust. If air is passing through a filter, then there is a probability that dust will also be carried through, even if the filter is a 1 micron filter.  If the unit is in another location, some minor dust leaks are inconsequential.

* Space. The footprint of a dust collector is going to consume about 1 metre square of valuable shed floor space.

Benefits of having the DC in the main shed

* Starting and stopping. There isn’t the issue of requiring expensive remote starting systems.

* Blockages. Easier access to clear blockages, empty dust bags, clean filters.

* Airflow. Simply the less distance the air needs to move, the better the system works.

Relocated Dusty

I’ve relocated the dusty into the same corner where the original 4″ tube to the other shed went, but now instead of joining the two halves of the system into one pipe, I’ve coupled each arm up to its own intake. In addition, I’ve also run the 15″ thicknesser directly in to maximise its collection.  More on that in a sec.

My primary influence on relocating the DC was performance.  After my recent air velocity tests, I decided that I was compromising the performance too much to have the luxury of it being in the other shed.  There are some other minor benefits as well, but they were not enough to sway the decision either way.

I haven’t decided if I will do anything to counteract the additional noise, other than running it when I need it rather than constantly.  I might investigate building a fake wall around it with noise dampening, but that is a project that will probably never actually eventuate.

To counteract any issue with fine dust leakage (and dust during bag changing), I have located it right near the overhead air filtration unit (which is also a 1 micron filter), so between the two, any dust I collect shouldn’t end up back in my environment.

Underneath the DC, I have used both 4″ inlets, as much to allow a smoother entry of air as anything.

DC Inlet

I’m not happy with the result however.  The tubes you can see are – from the right hand side is a solid connection from one of the 2 main shed trunk lines.  It doesn’t have any flex section at all, and this is what I want to modify.  As much as flex sections have a greater internal roughness, a short section is going to have a tiny effect on the overall flow.  It would however, make removing the nozzle to clear out blockages much easier so that is the first change.

Into this same trunk line through a Y section is the output from the thicknesser.  However, after testing it out, it failed. Inside the DC nozzle are some grates/blocks to catch heavy particles before they hit the fan.  The amount of chips produced by the thicknesser formed a mass that caught there, and immediately blocked the pipe.  Without any airflow, the thicknesser then rapidly clogged its discharge nozzle.

I have 2 ways forward.  Removing the grates (which I am still dubious about their value), but I’m not sure if that will then result in the blades becoming blocked up, and accessing them is even harder.  The other solution is a pre-separator to catch the majority of the output from the highest producing machines.  I’ll start with this, and see if it is enough.  Damn- it looked to be an elegant solution.  But this is Bauhaus – form must follow function.

In the background is a flex end to the second trunk line, and that works well.

To improve functionality, I have replaced the flex hose to the tablesaw with another length of PVC pipe.

Tablesaw Extraction

I’ve used a Y section which I’ve capped to allow cleaning of the system, and also as a way to add a bit of flexible hose when cleaning up around the place.

Jointer/Planer Extraction

I’ve kept the extra flex from the jointer so I have the ability to move and angle it depending on the length of stock I’m trying to plane.  Each item has a blast gate (my modified version).

And although I was hoping to hit the big 1/2 million by then (based on last year’s growth rate), we are still going to get over the line with (I feel is a very respectable) over 400,000 visitors by then.  (Will hit around 410,000)

With the Brisbane show rapidly approaching (it starts on Friday, and I fly Saturday morning (around 6am!)) I’ve been having a final look at some of the jigs that I will be taking up to demonstrate the versatility of the MagJig

MagJigs

It is quite surprising just how many ways you can think of to legitimately incorporate these devices into your homemade (or purchased for that matter) jigs!

One I am keen on making in particular from the MagSwitch website looks quite functional, and will prove very useful when I want to do some coving on the tablesaw.  I’ve been interested in a coving blade as well, but they are not cheap and you’d have to have quite a bit of work on to justify the purchase.  In the meantime, a normal blade can be used (although I will be looking for blade stabilising disks while in Brisbane, not only for coving, but for normal blade operation).

Coving Jig

CMT Coving Blade

Blade Stabiliser

I’m also looking at a way to improve the functionality of the 4″ floor sweeper, by combining it with my MagBroom to create a new hybrid – The MagBroom, now with more suck! (I’ll post a photo of the result, if it works!)

I’m looking at combining the 4″ floor sweep

4" Floor Sweep

With my MagBroom jig

Stu's Shed MagBroom

And a swivel handle scavenged from a floor mop

Swivel Head

And all in time for Brisbane.  It would be a lot easier just to photoshop the result!

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the forest……

(An oldie, but a goodie!)

(btw – I have no control over the other suggested videos – powered by YouTube after all!)

Or is that whiter when the carbon loading gets decreased?

I’m not weighing into the climate change discussion / arguments etc, but an opportunity presented itself, and that may be the end result, if not the justification used.  Australia’s primary power generation fuel is brown coal after all.

Through a government rebate initiative, and $8000 grant for installation of solar power systems, we are installing a 1kW system that is costing $8000.  No, it isn’t a huge amount of power generation, but the systems are typically very expensive, so being able to do it without dipping into our own pocket seems a no-brainer. If it wasn’t for the zero-net-cash aspect of it, we would not have made use of the government grant, nor had any solar system installed so a little is better than nothing.

The average over the year is said to be about 6kW / day.  It will be mounted on the house, and feeding into the house supply, but I like to think that while I’m in the shed, the first 1000W I use are solar (whether that be 1000W of my 2400W tablesaw, or half the dust collector’s power requirements or whatever.  The rest of the time the power being generated won’t get wasted – it will be utilised in the house keeping important things in the fridge cold

Had a couple of successful sessions progressing the shed itself (some jobs that were outstanding from the original shed reconstruction from a year ago!). Big job this afternoon – finally finishing off the front wall!  For the last year there has been a gap of about 100mm which I had covered with a wide plastic damp-course.  As a temporary solution, it worked, but I was always very aware of it, and that it was very temporary.

This I have finally covered with a double-skin of treated pine, with the damp-course moved to be between the board sandwich.  A third layer was added to the inside of the shed to cover the tops of the steel wall cladding.  Finally.  And it doesn’t look too bad either – certainly a lot better than a flapping bit of black plastic!

The other thing I was working on was the dust extraction system, but that will be the subject of another post!

Back to safety for a second. Despite dealing with dust, nailguns, the tablesaw, bandsaw, jigsaw during the weekend, what bit me was…….the mess.  Not a big deal (but the fall could have been if I had landed a bit differently). I literally tripped over the mess – not even sure what initially caught my foot, but that threw me off balance and I ended up crashing into a couple of tool stands, knocking all sorts of things flying – mallets, framing gun etc.  Caught the hip quite heavily on a corner, so have a really impressive graze to show for it, and grazed quite a lot of skin off one arm (bruised, but didn’t break the skin).  Sure am stiffening up now though.

When you have a tight space (and lots of large tools), it really pays to keep the environment tidy.  Sadly, tidying up was what I was trying to achieve, and the reason there were a number of tools out of position was to try to establish a sense of order over the space.

Ah well, a small price to pay to have made some good progress out there.

After whetting our appetites at the Melbourne Woodworking Show with the new products in their range, they have arrived and are now available for sale (which is great with the Brisbane Woodworking Show on next weekend!)

Some we have seen already, and have just undergone a colour change to “safety yellow”, a change that I am actually very pleased with – makes quickly spotting the required jig in the workshop a lot easier!

Now onto the new stuff.

A really cool one, and one that is awesome to see added to the range: the Universal Featherboard.  It goes both ways

Universal Featherboard on the Tablesaw

It doesn’t restrict you in its operation, being able to be used on both sides of the tablesaw (fence on the left or right of the blade), and also on the fence (if its cast iron!), and router table.  If I had to choose only one MagSwitch featherboard, it would be this one. It is so versatile.

Universal on the Fence

Now one thing I was rather surprised about when I opened the package.  The Universal is based around a 20mm MagSwitch, and not a 30mm. However, after querying this with the company I found out what the thought process was behind it.  Obviously cost is a definite factor, and there is a price difference between having 2 x 20mm MagSwitches in a product and 2 x 30mm. The featherboard primarily has to resist a shear load, and so what they have done is applied a Titanium Nitride coating to the magnets, which boosts the shear load capacity of the 20mm jig up to the same of the normal 30mm MagSwitch.

You can see the colouring caused by the Titanium Nitride in the next photo.  It is also worth noting that a finish like this is not a surface, added to the metal.  The coating actually penetrates the surface, and turns the outside layer of the parent metal into an alloy, with its own properties (in this case increased magnetic shear strength).

Titanium Nitride Coating

This also gives a very good view of the double-sided aspect of this featherboard.

Next, is what a lot of people have been waiting for – the MagFence Combo Kit.

The vertical fences have either one, or two bearing rollers, depending on the application.  The kit itself comes with both, and one universal base (and two 30mm MagJigs).  The base is interchangeable between the two fences, so you can use whichever is suitable to the task at hand.

It is also a good value kit – if you take the $200 price tag, and then realise that the two MagJigs that it comes with are worth $100 on their own ($50 each). And these MagJigs can be used anywhere – switch them from task to task (and jig to jig) as needed.

The single roller one I have been particularly waiting for.  It is designed (and is perfect for) resawing on the bandsaw.  The idea is that because a bandsaw blade has a real tendency to track, the operator guides the work as needed to cut a uniform thickness piece (such as a veneer).  Setting a single point of contact the right distance away from the blade really aids this, and being only a single roller means it still allows the operator full control over guiding and compensating for blade tracking.

Resaw Fence

Here the fence is set quite away back from the blade (for the photo).  If I was setting up for a veneer cut, the fence would be within a couple of mm of the blade.

Back of Resaw Fence

This image of the back of the fence reveals a number of details.  The base is interchangeable as mentioned, and it only requires 4 hex bolts to be undone to switch between them. The diagonal members are the same as is used for the vertical attachment featherboard.  The difference is the addition of the ’sled’ below the support member which has the butterfly bolt sticking out.  This is so the angle of the fence can be controlled to ensure the roller is vertical to the table.

There are the two 30mm MagJigs as mentioned. I have fixed them down with the supplied bolts, but that isn’t actually necessary – the jigs work equally as well without the MagJigs fixed down.

Used as a Holddown

The fence itself (either one or two rollers can also be used on other tools, as here as a holddown on the planer.

Combo Fence Kit

Here you can see both the single and double roller unit.  The roller bearings are supplied equally spaced as you can see, but you can rearrange them if a different layout is needed.

The last part of the kit is simple, and clever – good engineering. The holes in the Universal base are designed for the 30mm MagJig, but you may prefer to use 20mm MagJigs (or fit 20mm MagJigs into another jig with a hole for the 30mm).

20mm Adapter

In the foreground you can see a standard 30mm MagJig (base).  Behind it, a 20mm in an adapter (also shown to the left).  Simple, smart.

The final item, and again really simple, and very clever, are adapters that allow the vertical featherboard to be converted to horizontal, resulting in a multiple (high) featherboard.

Vertical Riser Adapters

This is what is provided in a single kit.  There is a longer set of bolts required for the triple featherboard orientation that you have to provide.

These are the layouts you can achieve with the various combinations and orientations.

Dual Featherboard

High Dual Featherboard

Triple Featherboard

In the final image as mentioned, I needed to provide my own bolts, and the middle featherboard is one of the old ones.  There is no difference, except in colour.  That’s a bloody large featherboard when it is tripled up!

So that’s a look at much of the new range. Watch out for me at the Brisbane Wood Show (on the MagSwitch display), and even better, get some for your own workshop – they are great!