television show reviews
After watching my usual Saturday woodworking television shows, I decided to sit down and write reviews for them. You can find the reviews on the miscellaneous reviews page. I wish that there were more woodworking shows than I have available to me, but I guess it would come down to the same situation I find with woodworking magazines; you can only read so many magazines (or watch so many woodworking shows) for so long before you start to read the same thing time and time and time again. Maybe fewer shows are better.
Feel free to disagree with my reviews. We all have different ideas of what makes a good show.
pipe clamps
Some time ago I bought four pipe clamps that use 3/4″ threaded pipe. When you buy pipe clamps, all you are buying are the clamp head and lower clamp jaw; the threaded pipe is not included. This is good for a couple of reasons. First, they are cheaper to buy that way. If you keep your eye out for sales, as I did, you can really pick up some good deals. Second, you can make a clamp to whatever length you desire. Want a four-foot clamp? Buy a four-foot pipe.
I decided to try to be a little clever. It is always helpful to have a variety of clamp lengths. At the moment I have a four 24″ and four 48″ Jorgensen parallel jaw style cabinet clamps. While it is handy to have a clamp not much longer than exactly what you need, a longer clamp will work for a shorter clamping distance, but not the other way around, so I feel that 48″ is a good all-round length to have. Since only four 48″ clamps seems a bit too few to me, I decided to make up my pipe clamps as 48″ also. However, thinking ahead to the possibility of needing a longer clamp, I went to Home Depot and bought a ten-foot long threaded pipe. I then had them cut it into 48″ and 72″ sections and thread the cut ends. They will do this for the cost of the pipe – no extra charge.
So now I have four 48″ pipe clamps, with the ability to change them to 72″ by merely changing the pipe. Think I’ll ever need to clamp something longer than six feet? I kind of doubt it, but guess what . . . with a pipe coupler I can rejoin the 48″ pipe to the 72″ pipe and clamp something almost ten feet long. I don’t think I have room to even build something longer than ten feet, so that should about cover all eventualities. (I could, of course, gang up my 48″ Bessey clamps with the pipe clamps if I ever did need more than ten feet, but good luck managing that in a one-person shop.) By the way, don’t forget that if you want to use a pipe clamp to clamp something that is actually 48″ long, you will need a pipe longer than 48″ as the clamp head screws onto the end of the pipe, thereby shortening the effective clamping length by a few inches.
I have had those pipe clamps still in their package and the pipes stuck in a corner because I have not needed them. Since I’m working on building a clamp rack, I decided to take an inventory of my clamps. Having dug the pipe clamps out, I decided to put the 48″ clamps together. I learned a lesson today. Whenever you have pipe threaded, go grab a pipe fitting in the right size and try it on the threads before you buy the pipe. Not every floor person at the store is an expert on threading pipe, as I found out when the clamp head would not go on the end of a couple of the pipes that had been threaded at the store. A bit of judicious file work on the threads got them to kind of work, but if I had tested them at the store and they didn’t work I would not have bought that pipe. Oh well, live and learn. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?
a slow grind
When I bought my bandsaw last year, Grizzly also had a discontinued, six-inch diameter, Shop Fox bench grinder on sale for $50. It came standard with a 3/4″ wide, 60 grit, gray grinding wheel and a 1-1/2” wide, 100 grit, white wheel. The reason I bought it was its 1,750 rpm speed – half the speed of a “normal” bench grinder. It is only 1/4 horsepower, but for my purposes, I think that will be enough.
I did something that I do not recommend doing; when I received the grinder I did not take it out of the box and turn it on to make sure it worked. One should always test a tool, particularly a power tool, as soon as possible after receiving it. Wait too long and the warranty period might be over and then you are out of luck if it doesn’t work. All I did was open the box to make sure all the parts were there and then set it on the side until I was ready to use it.
Last month when I went to tune up the lawn mower for the first mowing of the season, I decided to freshen the edge of the blade. What more perfect opportunity to try out the new grinder? I was fortunate that everything was in good shape and the grinder ran just fine. Phew.
That was my first experience with a 1,750 rpm grinder and I have to say that I was surprised. My regular grinder, currently unavailable for my use, is an 8”, 3,450 rpm model with a 3/4 horse motor. I can turn a lawn mower blade blue on that bad boy in no time flat. On the new grinder I had to work really hard to get the blade hot enough to make it barely uncomfortable to touch. That 1,750 rpm really cooled down the process, but I’ll have to admit that it took one heck of a lot longer to sharpen that mower blade than on the high speed grinder.
That is a good thing, because the reason I bought this grinder is for sharpening hand tools, and the last thing I need to do is burn an expensive blade or accidentally grind more metal off than I want to. Slower, and cooler, is better. I think this will be particularly good for sharpening lathe tools, if I ever get that set up so I can start turning. It may not be a top-of-the-line grinder, but it looks like will work for me.
allow me to vent
I didn’t do any “workshop” stuff today, but I did get a job done that I’ve been meaning to do since I moved in here. A couple of months ago my clothes dryer kept shutting off because it was getting too hot. It wasn’t the first time it had done that, so I knew that I needed to disconnect the dryer vent and vacuum all the lint out. However, that would take time, and as it was winter and the dryer is an electric dryer, I just disconnected the vent and let it vent into the basement. The dry air could use a little humidification and I don’t have a lot of laundry.
Today was hot and humid and I needed to get some laundry done. I couldn’t justify venting into the basement since the dehumidifier is already running, so I bit the bullet and fixed the problem. However, rather than just cleaning everything out and putting it back together again, knowing that it would probably need to be done again soon, I decided to replace all the venting.
The old exterior vent was one of the cheap aluminum types and it had seem better days. It was all bent up, the flapper was permanently stuck open and lint clogged everything. The vent hose itself was one of those corrugated plastic hoses, something I do not recommend for dryer venting, particularly if you have a gas dryer. Lint was caught in all the corrugations and it’s hard to vacuum out. It made much more sense to replace it.
The toughest part of the whole job was removing the old exterior vent. The house was re-sided with cheap aluminum siding after the vent was installed, so it was tricky getting it out without destroying the siding. A pair of Visegrips, an old chisel (to cut loose the great quantity of caulking) and a pry bar were the tools of choice. It took a while but by tearing it out little piece by little piece, it was done. After that, the rest was simple.
So, now I have a new exterior vent with a critter screen over it, and nice, clean, new aluminum vent pipe and elbows. While this dryer seems to pass more lint through than it should, this new setup should help keep it from becoming a problem soon. When and if it does, it will be much easier cleaning everything out than it was before.
At least this weekend I can say I got something done.
new book review – turning pens and pencils
I’ve added a review of a book I recently read on turning pens and pencils. There really are some beautiful woods available for making your own pen and if you are a woodworker you can easily make a pen, or two, or a hundred, for yourself and your family and friends. All you need is the turning equipment. Yeah, I know, that’s all . . . if you have the cash hanging around. Then again, what’s a complete woodshop without a lathe?
a new review
I’ve hit a lull in my woodworking, but I managed to post a new book review tonight. I’m not sure when I’ll get back into the shop. Life has a tendency to get in the way.
pegboard up
I finally decided where to place my first piece of pegboard. I was only able to use 79″ out of the 96″ length of the panel in this location, but that is still a good amount of real estate for hanging tools and I’m sure that I can find a use for the leftover piece of pegboard. It took me a few hours to mount the one piece, but it’s up and ready to use. I’ll be posting pictures later in the “our shop” section of the web site and a brief how I did it in the “methods of work” section.
When I bought the pegboard I also bought a couple of boxes of assorted peg hooks to start me off. I’m sure that won’t provide me with everything I need, but it sure is a cheaper way to start than buying individual style hooks. As I start to lay the tools out on the pegboard I’ll get a better idea what other hooks I’ll need and buy those separately. It will be good to get my hand tools out of boxes and up where I can find them easily. If I need more space, I have another whole sheet of pegboard I can use.
Rainy weekend coming up – perfect time to sort out the tools. Strange what some people consider to be fun, eh?
woodworking spelling
I was trying to figure out if “band saw” should be two words or one, as in “bandsaw.” The spell check in Word doesn’t like it as one word but a web search for “band saw” turns up as many people spelling it one way as the other. Personally, I like “bandsaw” better, but you will see that I have used both spellings on the web site so far. I think that I will standardize on “bandsaw,” but what about “table saw?”
Apparently, that’s a different story. Almost everyone uses two words, although I do find “tablesaw” being used by some. Nothing like being consistent. The dictionary says that “handsaw,” “hacksaw,” and “backsaw” are supposed to be one word, so why do they say “band saw” and “table saw” should be two words? Sheesh. I guess maybe I’ll strive for inconsistency on “tablesaw,” too, and spell it both ways as it suits my mood at the moment, just to frustrate the spell check.
holey board
Thank goodness pegboard is flexible. I’ve managed to get two 4’ X 8’ sheets home on the top of my car. I cinched it down tight using three ratcheting straps to make it conform to the shape of my car and it stayed in place. Wouldn’t you know that the wind would start to pick up as I headed for home? I could feel the pegboard trying to lift under the front strap, but as the strap ran through the car right over my head, all I had to do to keep the pegboard in place was pull down on the strap. If I had further to go I would have gotten out and tightened the strap more.
I now have the pegboard in the basement waiting to be installed. I had already decided on the location to mount it, but after discussing it with my “significant other” I decided it probably wasn’t the best location. The problem is that determining the best place for the pegboard means that I need to figure out the placement of the stationary tools. All of the tools have wheels so none of them are actually stationary, but I want the table saw to stay in one place and not have to move around all the time. I think I have the table saw figured out now but I still need to place the pegboard.
Ideally it should be over my workbench, but I don’t have one and I’m not sure what I will be building for that, or where it will be placed. I suppose I shouldn’t stress over this too much. Put it up on the wall where the tools will be accessible but where I won’t be ripping my shoulder off running into pegboard hooks. If it isn’t in the right place, I can move it. Better to just get it up and start using it.
rust!
I picked up my adjustable square today and, hmmm, what’s that stuff on the edge of the rule? Shit! Rust! A dirty word in the world of metal tools, and here it was invading my woodworking domain.
I’ve mentioned before that a woodworking shop in a basement must have a dehumidifier running at all times, although it certainly runs a lot less often (if at all) in the winter. I have one, but a dehumidifier is not a cure-all. You have to keep protection on your tools, too.
When I got my new band saw, I wanted to make sure I had the cast iron table protected. The old tried and true method of waxing your metal surfaces works pretty well, but I wanted something “better.” I decided to give Boeshield T-9 a try. I followed all the directions and thought the band saw was now safe. When I found the rust on my square yesterday, I sprayed it down well with the T-9 and laid it on a paper towel on the band saw’s table. Wait a minute! Is that rust on the band saw table? Sure as hell.
I’m not sure, but the pattern of the rust suggests that I laid my sweaty arm down on the table at some point and the T-9 was no match for my sweat. I’m going to have to strip the T-9 off, clean up the rust and wax the table, and best to do it sooner than later. So much for using something “better,” though I suppose there are those who would argue that nothing will stand up to sweat.
Finding that rust on my square has really increased my tool inspection. I was pretty shocked to find it and I don’t want my other tools falling prey to rust, either. Eternal vigilance is the price of rust free tools.