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.
The Saw
You can see this old Lutz Hobby 0TST250 R1500 saw is no beauty.
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.
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
and concluded with a table saw sled.
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.