Woodworking? Pushsticks first!

Woodworking?

In the past month I have gotten more and more interested in woodworking and general DIY stuff. Of course I also started building the boxes for my bees myself. But first things first. Naturally I am late again with my blog and this is once again a post summing up past events.

Inspiration

I already had it in my mind to at least build the boxes for my bees myself but I really got inspired to get into more woodworking by casual YouTube browsing.

Here are some of the people I like to follow.

General DIY and Woodworking

Woodworking with Handtools

The first channel I came across was Matthias Wandel's. He presents some really inspiring and sometimes mind-boggling stuff. For example he has a self-made bandsaw, a project I will probably try myself. With his plans of course :).

Safety Basics

The first thing I did when I dug out our old little tabletop saw which we mostly used for some firewood pieces was to make some push sticks for it. I imitated Matthias Wandel's ones (woodgears.ca).

They came out quite well.

Pushsticks

The Saw

You can see this old Lutz Hobby 0TST250 R1500 saw is no beauty.

Tabletop Saw

Before I started using it I got myself a nice new quality Guhdo blade for it. The thought here was that I at least already have a good blade if I need to replace the saw. I am starting to get an affliction for buying quality tools every time I find myself needing something new.

Tabletop Saw

Then I started tweaking it where I could and built some little helpers.

I started with a zero clearance insert which you can already see above. Then followed up with a fence

Tabletop Saw

and concluded with a table saw sled.

Tabletop Saw

The sled bottom is made from and old piece of Resopal which turned out to be perfect for such a purpose.

The surfaces of the sled and the fence can actually be adjusted with screws which was a bit overengineered I guess. But they work quite well and I have to say the fence works a hell of a lot better than the little aluminum thing that came with the saw originally.

Note: One of the very first things I bought when I started messing with the saw was an engineering square and a nice 1m long metal straight edge. It seems strange to spend quite a bit of money on something just square and something just straight but believe me it is well worth it. Especially if you want to check and tweak old and a bit flimsy equipment

Ups and Downs

Tilting

After fixing up the saw and building the additions for it it of course started breaking down on me. One thing was the tilting mechanism. The plastic handle had broken off and the wing nut used as a replacement was painful to handle and even worse it shifted out of square. A first fix was to make a little extra plate so you could at least securely lock it in the 90° and 45° positions. But that turned out to be too tedious. The latest fix was to make the whole tilting mechanism adjustable by a metal plate which has a threaded hole and is attached to a threaded rod. You see the two nuts on the lower right of the first picture? I now use a drill with a matching socket on it each time I want to adjust the angle of the saw blade. It is quite accurate and I am happy with it.

Ball Bearings

After a longer ripping session one of the ball bearings of the saw gave up. The saw made an awful noise and you could smell burnt rubber (from a socket inlay holding one of the ball bearings it seems). I took everything apart built a half wooden bearing puller replaced the ball bearing with a new one and it worked again. For a while at least.

Ball Bearing Quality

I had not even thought about different ball bearing qualities when I replaced the defective on. Turns out that just searching for the number on it and buying the cheapest one is not the best idea. The saw trashed the replaced bearing after just a few cuts. Luckily I bought two of the cheap ball bearings. So I took everything apart again and replaced the bearing. Now the saw works again but I am not fully trusting the bearing so I have a quality SKF one as a spare already in my shop.

Saw Quality

Although the saw has given me some trouble and I think I am seeing a slight wobble in the running blade I am not giving up on it now. I should just get myself a high quality table saw but I guess I am just to stubborn for that.

Shop

Talking about my shop. Well it is a complete and utter mess and quite small. I have some plans in my head to give it a complete overhaul and make it more space efficient. The plans and little sketches grow more and more complicated day by day. But eventually I will get there with Roubo woodworking bench, self-made bandsaw and everything. I have already made a little video so I can make a before and after comparison. Let's see if I can make that happen.

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