Starting Out With a Lathe

Late last year, I got turned on to the possibilities of making bowls on a lathe. I did some investigation and decided that the Nova 1624-44 would be the right one for me. It's not a variable speed lathe so it requires moving the belt to change speeds. But that cut about $500 off the cost. It has a reasonably long bed that can be extended another 24 inches with an optional bed extension. The headstock rotates so it is possible to turn bowls as large as 29 inches in diameter, much larger than I'm likely to be turning. Nova is a New Zealand company and is well-respected. All-in-all, then, my new lathe is a multi-purpose machine that should serve me well for many years.

As the above photo shows, there are already a lot of chips on the machine. I started out not with bowls with pens, which is, I think, a good way to begin learning how to use the lathe. I've now turned 30-40 pens of all types, giving them as Christmas presents to many family members and friends this year. The photo below shows the machine set up with wood blocks ready for turning into a Slimline pen.

The process is fairly simple. I select a chisel and with the lathe turning at about 1400 rpm I round off the blank, working in from the ends. Once it's round, I can cut more aggressively to narrow the blocks to closer to their final size. After that, I begin to shape the wood to the configuration I want. In the case of the Slimline pen, I want it to be voluptuously curved in shape, coming to its narrowest points at each end and in the middle, where a ring will be attached during the final assembly. Once fully shaped and sized, I sand in ascending grits from 150 to 600, then polish with EEE cream before applying friction polish for the final coat. It takes only a few minutes to shape a pen and I find it to be good therapy.

Kits for pens and pencils, as well as wood and acrylic blanks, come in a variety of sizes and are available from a number of sources, including Woodcraft. So far I've concentrated on the Slimline and Wall Street II models so there are many more for me to explore.

I'm planning on selling my pens at some point, perhaps on the Web, and at craft shows with a friend. But before I can do that, I'll have to build up a large enough stock to merit the effort. Sounds like I need to spend more time in the woodshop!

Norm

Another Jig Completed

I've been working on this one for a couple of weeks, off and on--a jig to cut box ends at a 45-degree angle. The basic jig wasn't all that hard to build--a base out of Baltic birch plywood, runners out of UHMW to fit in the miter track of my table saw, and front and rear fences out of soft maple. The real trick was to get the front fence squared up at exactly 90-degrees to the saw blade.

I tried several techniques before I got it right. First, I used my Wixey electronic digital protractor to try and measure to the angle to the blade. This proved to be highly inaccurate, given that the blade was leaning at the necessary 45-degree angle to the base. Then I tried cutting boards to measure the resulting angle by trial and error. At first I used a narrow board but found that too inaccurate also. Finally, I used a 5-inch wide board and after many tries was able to get the fence adjusted spot on to 90-degrees.

The plan now is to make tissue box covers using some highly figured quartersawn sycamore I was able to get hold of. That'll be the test of just how accurate the fence really is. The good news is that I can always make more adjustments if I need to.

Before I start on that, I want to hook up my dust collection system, now that my hoses and connectors have come in. But who knows, I may not be able to contain myself from building an actual project before I get that done!

Norm

Preparing to Make Boxes

Today I jointed a sycamore board that I plan to use to make tissue box covers. Because it was 8 1/2 inches wide, I had to take the safety guard off my 6 inch jointer and run it through one end after the other so both sides would be smoothed. Planing it was no problem; my 12 inch planer did a good and quick job on it. When I finished the rough side, I ran the jointed side through one time to remove the groove left by the edge of the blade from the final pass on the jointer.

It was then that I turned my attention to my band saw and discovered that although I need 7 inch stock to resaw for the boxes, my saw will only accommodate 6 inches. So I got on line with Grizzly, the maker of my band saw, and ordered a riser kit for my saw. That will give me 12 inches of resaw capability. Now I'll have to get a new 105 inch saw blade to replace the Wood Slicer resaw blade I've never even used. I hope Highland Woodworking will take an exchange on it.

Norm

A Bad Day in the Shop

Woodworking is fun and most days spent in the shop are rewarding and, usually, successful. This wasn't one of them. It began when I set about removing the dado set from my table saw. After neatly packing it away in its case, I got down several saw blades from their peg on the wall to select the one I wanted to install next. As I moved around the table saw, my loose shirt tail caught the teeth of one of the saw blades and dragged it off onto the floor with a resounding clang. Upon inspection, I saw that one of the teeth had been damaged and there was nothing to do but consign it to the waste can. It was a Forrest Woodworker II blade, my best and most expensive one.

I chalked that one up to experience. Then I moved on to cutting the fences for a miter jig I'm building. The next step called for cutting through the aluminum T-track I'd installed in the maple fences. My table saw, a SawStop, is equipped with a safety system designed to stop the blade if it touches anything conductive, like a finger--its intended purpose--or soft metal, like aluminum. There's a bypass procedure, however, that allows the saw to cut aluminum without triggering the safety system. So, armed with what I thought was the correct information about using the bypass system, I proceeded to cut through the first piece of fence. No sooner than it had touched the first bit of aluminum than I heard a pop and the blade disappeared below the tabletop. After opening the table, I saw the results of my misguided handiwork--the safety device was firmly attached to the now-ruined saw blade. Scratch another blade and chalk it up to . . . experience. The good news is, the safety system works.

Now wiser about the bypass procedure, I installed my remaining saw blade and a replacement safety cartridge I'd had the foresight to purchase. Then I cut the aluminum-studded fences with no trouble. I learned a lot today. But it was a costly set of lessons.

Norm

Visiting Jeff Fleisher

In October, I took a class in Woodworking Fundamentals at the Leesburg, Virginia, Woodcraft store. The teacher for the two-day class was Jeff Fleisher, a master woodworker who lives an hour away from me in New Market, Virginia. Jeff does business under the name of Jeff’s Wood Designs. Since the class, Jeff and I have corresponded periodically about woodworking issues. Recently, he invited me to visit his shop and yesterday I did so.

First, he gave me a tour of his home to see many of the wonderful pieces he has built, some of which are shown on his web site. In addition to doing fine woodworking, he has embellished much of his work with outstanding chip carving, which makes the pieces truly unique and beautiful.

Then we headed out to his woodshop in a detached garage, to see where he works and examine his current project, a desk he’s been commissioned to build. He’s posted photos of his progress on the web. We walked around the shop and talked about each of his tools and jigs. Following that he gave me advice about things I should think about adding to my own shop, including Practical Design Solutions and Strategies (Taunton), the Wixey Digital Protractor, a basic set of chisels and waterstones for sharpening them, and the GRR-Ripper System for holding down work on the table saw and router. Fortunately for my budget, the latter three are currently on sale.

We spent a couple hours of animated woodworking talk and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. He has a standing invitation to visit my woodshop when he’s in the area.

Getting Ready for Projects

Since I got my SawStop table saw in place, I've assembled it and set it up for use, finally making a few test cuts. So at last my woodshop is complete and I'm ready for projects.

In addition to getting the table saw installed, I also had to reset the knives on my jointer. I have a 6 inch Grizzly jointer that I was having a lot of trouble with. Every time I jointed something it came out skewed. So I checked the level on the infeed and outfeed tables; it turns out they were fine. Then I reset the blades. I had a lot of trouble with this, partly because the knives had a lot of grease on them from shipping and they did not move freely under spring pressure. I cleaned them, then set them the best I could with the tool I have. I also used a dial indicator to try to get them consistent, but I have to admit that it was my first time using that tool and I don't know that I got them right. Later today I'll run another board through the jointer and evaluate that to see if I have things set correctly. If not, it'll be back to basics on the jointer until I learn to do it right. Once I have that settled, I'll be ready to roll.

One of the first things I'll be doing is building some jigs to help me get accurate results with my woodworking. So yesterday morning I went to the local lumber company (which in my rural area I'm very lucky to have) and picked up a couple sheets of 1/2" Baltic plywood, a sheet of 1/4" hardboard and some 1/8" plywood for templates.

Here are my plans, pretty much in the following order, as of now:

1. Make a pair of pen rests for fountain pens from a block of Burmese rosewood I have
2. Make a jig to cut splines in boxes using a plan from Paul Anthony's new book, Complete Illustrated Guide to Table Saws (Taunton)
3. Make the wooden faces for my vise from some maple I have on hand, then face them with some leather I picked up free from my local upholsterer
4. Make a splined box using a plan that appeared in the December 2008 issue of Fine Woodworking
5. Make a sled for crosscutting on the table saw
6. Make a sled for making miter cuts on the table saw, which I'll use for picture frames
7. Make a table for my drill press
8. Make some picture frames to hang my photographs

I'll be writing about my experience with these projects as I go along.

Norm

Assembling the SawStop

My SawStop contractor saw was finally delivered on Tuesday, December 16. I immediately set about assembling it. The first job was to put together the base, which took a little over an hour. After that, it was time for a coffee break.

Then I added the optional wheels. These are operated by a foot switch, which will allow me to raise and lower the saw base from the floor with an easy motion. I'll need that to move the saw away from the wall when I cut long boards and sheets of plywood.

The saw arrived in a number of boxes that contained the saw and table, the fence system (two boxes), the optional cast iron table extensions (two boxes), and the wheel assembly. A very nice thing about the SawStop assembly is that the saw comes with a very easy-to-use assembly poster that is color coded for each step in the process. This color coding matches a blister pack that contains the small parts (e.g., nuts, bolts, washers) needed for each step. This makes the assembly somewhat foolproof and guards against parts getting lost during assembly or the confusion that normally ensues concerning which part goes where. Despite all SawStop's precautions, however, I nonetheless ended up with several bolts that I have no idea what to do with.

After getting the base and wheels together on Tuesday, I had a day of down time waiting for a friend to come on Wednesday afternoon to help me lift the 140-pound saw onto the base and attach the heavy extension wings. That accomplished, I was able to finish the assembly on Thursday by adding the front and rear rails, the fence and the extension table that appears on the right.

The saw is now complete, though it is not ready yet to run. Next I have to adjust all the settings, namely to ensure that the blade and the miter slots are parallel, that the fence is parallel to the miter slots and that there is adequate clearance between the saw blade and the splitter and the cartridge that stops the blade in an emergency, among other things. I hope to accomplish all of that on Friday and actually make a few test cuts.

SawStop makes a larger version of this saw. I got the 36" table. They also make a 52" table, but I judged that I would not have enough room for it in my shop and also limited need for it. After getting the saw into its assigned place, I can see that I made the right choice. That space will work fine for normal cutting. However, when I have a long piece to cut, I will need to bring the saw forward into the walking space so there is enough room on the outfeed side. If needed, I can also turn the saw 90 degrees to allow more room on both the infeed and outfeed sides. Thus the importance of the wheels.

Already I am thinking about projects I want to build using this saw and my other tools. For starters, these include (not necessarily in this order):

• A pen rest to be used with my fountain pens (this actually doesn't require the table saw but it does require a better drill press table; see below)
• An improved drill press table
• A miter jig for the table saw
• A crosscut jig for the table saw
• Some boxes with splined, mitered corners
• Some tissue boxes
• Picture frames

I hope to get onto these projects soon, though probably not until after the holidays. By then, I also hope to have my Delta dust collection unit ready to install so I can run my machines with a reasonable amount of dust control.

My goal down the road is to make some furniture. To that end, I'm scheduled to take a class in furniture-building one weekend in February. I'll write about all of these things as I tackle them.

Norm

Clearing the Air

Everything I have read about shop safety emphasizes the importance of breathing air clean of the fine dust created by woodworking. So I set a long-term goal of installing an air filtration device to help keep the dust down. I did some research and settled on a Steel City model that, as luck would have it, is on sale until the end of the year. I'd planned to order it online and get it via free shipping, but when I was at Hartville Hardware when I was in Ohio a couple of weeks ago, I saw a floor model and decided to buy it on the spot.

Installation was fairly easy. I merely had to install the supplied eye bolts to the top of the machine, drill holes for hooks in the overhead joists and then with the help of a friend I hung the unit from the hooks. You can see the installation in the picture.

My only complaint is that the remote control only works when pointed at the back of the unit. This means that instead of sucking air away from the work area, the reverse is happening, and the exhaust air is blown back toward where I will be working. This may turn out to be a welcome thing in the summer, though.

I have plans to also install a dust collection system using a 1-1/2 hp unit from my brother-in-law, but that will happen next year.

Norm

My Newest Toy

Yesterday I went by Sears in nearby Warrenton and picked up my latest toy, er, tool, a spindle sander. This is something I had not planned on buying right now, though because we used it beneficially in a class I took recently I had decided it was on my "to get" list for sometime in the future. But Sears had a sale on it for $80 off and I decided that now was the time and ordered it for delivery to the store. Though there was only one rating on line (five stars), I had seen favorable comment elsewhere and decided that this was the model I wanted. So I got it for $210 including sales tax. I think I made a good deal.

It seems to be solidly built, with a cast iron table. It offered the most sizes of spindles of any of the models I found on line. The one drawback is that the table doesn't tilt as some other models do. I haven't had time to try it out yet. I don't even have a project going yet that could use it. Projects are a thing of the future until I get the table saw installed and set up. That process will start on Tuesday when the saw gets delivered to my basement shop. Then the assembly and setup starts. I have someone coming on Wednesday afternoon to help me lift the saw onto the base, so the actual setup process will probably have to wait until Thursday. I do have a few projects in mind to start with. I'll talk about these in another post.

Norm

My Saw's Here, Finally!

About 5:00 this afternoon (Friday) I got a call from Woodcraft saying that my SawStop contractor's saw had finally come into their shop. I immediately called several of the movers in my vicinity to get quotes and without much delay set up delivery for Tuesday. That, at least, is a day when I will be here all day and once the crate is unloaded into the basement, I'll be able to devote several hours to unpacking, assembling and setting it up.

I had a 20 amp. power line run to the location where the saw will live so that much has been taken care of. I have a few small pieces of furniture and hardboard to move out of the way, an old portable armoire to disassemble, a bookcase to move, and then I'll be able to roll my jointer out of the middle of the floor where it resides at the moment. I'm trying to reset the knives in the jointer at the moment and am finding that to be a learning experience, but that's a story for another day. I should have all that (except the jointer knives) done by Sunday afternoon.

Some time ago, the editors of Popular Woodworking assembled a SawStop contractor's saw in their Cincinnati office to test it out. On their website, editor Glen Huey described his experience in assembling and setting up the saw. You can read about it here. I've read and studied it and I downloaded the 106 page manual that comes with the saw and have also started reading that. I want to be ready to assemble things as soon as I can.

So for now it's preparing and waiting until Tuesday. Then the fun begins. I'm sure I'll have more to say about the installation of this most important piece of equipment later on.

Norm

Getting Started in Woodworking

I've always wanted a woodshop and tools and the ability to build things, never mind that I didn't know what that might be. But aside from a few simple hand tools and a small contractor's table saw I once owned, I never had room for anything. That was especially true after my first marriage ended and I landed in a second-story condo with only an outside balcony for workspace. Even so, I set up to make picture frames there with a Craftsman miter saw and a Wolfcraft router table and Ryobi router. I even managed to make a few before the idea of spreading that howling noise throughout the neighborhood put me off. After that, the equipment sat exposed to the elements for several years, unused.

Fortunately, I found and married the woman of my dreams. I've jokingly described her as "the widder lady with the big basement." She's much, much more than that to me, as you might expect, but it's nonetheless true. I took over payments on the house where she was living and, yes, it did have a large, relatively unused basement. What might have been off-putting to others was pure opportunity for me.

Since we married a year ago, I have been on a journey to make something different of that space. That has meant cleaning it out of old, unused and unwanted furniture (Goodwill knows me when they see me coming!), a non-functioning Honda motorcycle of uncertain vintage, and what for lack of better description can simply be labeled as "stuff." That's not complete yet, but enough room has been created for me to work with.

The second task was to buy a couple 4X8 sheets of pegboard, frame, paint and hang them. I painted them a bright yellow, two coats, and managed to bolt them to the concrete block basement wall with masonery screws singlehandedly (if you want to know how that is done, just ask). That was sufficient to get many of my accumulated tools off the floor and out of the toolbox where I can actually see and find them.

Third, I built a workbench. Not the tiny, slapdash, unstable kind of thing I had been used to, but a large, solid device featuring doubled, glued and bolted 2X4 members and two sheets of 3/4" plywood glued together for the top. I bought the plans for this from somewhere on the Web, I no longer recall where. It is nothing if not sturdy, though now that I have read more about them, I find that it lacks holes for bench dogs (something I never imagined I would ever want). Perhaps I can retrofit it for them. I am in the process of adding a Lee Valley vise which will feature maple facings.

Then I hung lighting to convert the formerly dingy space into a brightly lit, inviting and safe workspace. And, I installed a heavy-duty wall rack system to accommodate all the hardwood lumber I expect to be acquiring in future months.

Those tasks accomplished, I set out to acquire the tools I would need for a genuine woodshop. I started with a Craftsman radial arm saw, something I had always aspired to own as an alternative to a table saw. In retrospect, I think it is a tool I could have done without, a table saw proving to be essential. I added a Grizzly 14" band saw, a Craftsman 12" drill press, a Grizzly 6" jointer, replaced my old router table (which was frozen up with rust) with a Freud router table and router. I added a Craftsman planer. I ordered a SawStop contractor's saw, which is on a truck somewhere in the middle of America as I write this. I bought a Delta belt and disk sander after using one in a class I took recently. And I added a Steel City mortising machine. I also purchased a Steel City air filtration unit, which is still in my car, and I am negotiating with my brother-in-law for a deal on a 1-1/2 hp. Delta dust collection system. When all this is in place, I will have, I believe, a very complete woodworking shop and I will be ready to create huge piles of chips and sawdust and maybe, even, something worth looking at.

In addition to preparing the space, I have invested in a number of basic books on woodworking and have been devouring them over the last several months. I've become the accomplished armchair woodworker and subscribe to numerous magazines and more blogs than I can really keep up with.

In future postings, I'll have a lot more to say about the details of this journey and about my soon-to-be-started first projects.

Norm