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@Ed, Spokeshaves are a bit of a mystery to me as well. I’ve had some success, and try to tune them in common wisdom. I have a couple vintage 151s and a modern 951. They’re all temperamental. Some of it, I think for me, is practice, and learning to hold them flat to the work. I feel fairly confident they’re set up ok, but that’s up for debate as well.
They work good for cheap clamps. Though I’m not especially rough on mine, they are getting a little loose. Not really affecting function yet, but I’m thinking the rivets are going to fail eventually. Upside, lifetime replacement!
Definitely look at Paul Sellers’ retrofit video though, as it improves them greatly. They will flex a lot until you insert the wood, and potentially mar your work.
I bought a set of Dubuques when I could afford them, and like them a lot more. The HF ones are great for beginner/budget, but this is a case of “you get what you pay for.”
I will say, however, the Dubuque butterfly handles can get in the way in a cramped situation, whereas the HF sliding bar makes tightening much easier.
I have thought on this same issue myself. An adjustable height table that could grow with kids.
Trying to describe it …
Create a tabletop with legs, say 2″x2″. These would not be decorative, as they would really be pistons.
Create 4 leg surrounds (decorative?) that would tightly slide over the tabletop pistons. They could be attached to each other by stretchers to improve their sturdiness.
The surrounds would have pegged holes at appropriate heights to allow the tabletop pistons to sit on. As the child grows, the pegs could be moved up to raise the table height.A table with 24″ surrounds could probably be raised to 42″ before becoming wobbly due to lack of support. I think typical adult table height is about 30″. You’d need to factor in the extra height for the tabletop thickness.
Issues:
The surrounds could only be as tall as the table’s lowest setting.
The table could only be raised less than 2x the height of the surrounds.I may be a bit off in my measurements, as I haven’t thought the concept fully through.
I personally don’t worry much about a little grime, and just wipe it with a good cloth or toothbrush to get the loose stuff out. Over time and use, a tool is naturally going to collect a little oil and dust. As long as it functions ok, I’m good.
But if I feel it must be cleaned thoroughly, I might run it under hot water and scrub. Then I would use a heat gun (preferred) or put it in the oven at high heat to force the water away. Then thoroughly oil, including a drop in all screw holes. Good chance of flash rust though.
[postquote quote=643648]Think of wood as a bundle of straws that run parallel to each other along the height of the standing tree. In your picture, the length is (presumably) taken along the height of the tree, so those straws are running along the length of the wood. Any cut that tries to go between the straws rather than across them is a rip cut. So, the cut you show with the red line is a rip cut and is what would often be called re-sawing.
The reason why cross-cut saws are filed as they are is to give them a knife-like quality that will sever the fibers (cut the straws) ahead of raking out the dust. If you look carefully at a cross cut saw, you’ll see that the fleam angle brings the tooth to a point at the front. A rip saw tooth, though, doesn’t come to a point, it comes to an edge like a chisel. A chisel edge works well for cutting along the straws.[/postquote]
Beautifully put.
As far as the grain and your saw are concerned, the edge you want to cut in the image is the same as the face.
Welcome to a new hobby! I think most of us get the “collector” bug when we get started. I did. And it cost me some money. Now I find that I only use a few of the tools, and the rest sit in the tool chest. I still pick up a few tools here and there, just to scratch my itch to have something to refurbish, but I don’t go crazy.
I don’t know what the market is like in AU, but why not see if there are some local groups that might help you get set up? There are often people upgrading, or getting out of the hobby that might be able to hook you up for nominal cost.
I have the DMT 8×3 stones, and I use every bit of the 8×3 face of them. My assessment is that you are paying more, but you are paying for quality, customer service (if required), and permanency. I’ve heard the EZE-Lap stones are good, too, and not quite as expensive.
I cringe to think about sharpening on 6×2. Just not enough “runway”. If you go this route, you can sharpen blades wider than 2″ by turning them sideways, but I think that introduces potential for uneven wear.
Sandpaper isn’t a bad route to go getting started, and in my opinion, a continued requirement. You just need to procure a good flat surface to affix the paper to.
I keep 80, 150 and 220 grit sandpaper for conditioning and shaping of newly procured tools. I rarely use my course (200 grit?) stone, but jump to my fine (350 grit) and extra fine (800 grit) stones for final maintenance and honing.
I’ve used box store beech veneered ply. The veneer is very thin, and I had to be very careful about sanding (like Ed said). I couldn’t find any actual good quality rolled veneer in my local stores.
Glue – All the glue in ply is somewhat harder on your tools that solid wood.
Sawing – Always produces bad tearout, unless I ensure to knifewall both sides of the ply, on both sides of the blade. For clarification, that’s 4 walls per cut. Not terrible, but certainly a big oops when you realize what you didn’t do.
Dovetails – I enjoy doing them. The multi-layered nature of ply makes it a cinch to pare and chop.
Dados – I hate doing dados in ply with a router plane. Unless I go very slow, knifewalling each layer, it’s inevitable I’ll get tearout of the layers, even with a newly sharpened blade.
Overall, plywood is doable, can be a cheap alternative, and can produce nice looking results. But the layering creates a weak condition that we have to be careful in how we approach.
@YrHenSaer,
I’m talking about angling the mortises. The tenons would be square. As you said, angling the tenons could decrease strength. If anyone has a good reason to angle the tenons, I’m interested.
In your second part, it looks like you’re describing building and using an angle block (my method #2). This is the method I will most likely be going with.
A friend of mine has a quick-release vice that began slipping in the same way. Investigation showed slight wear in the brass jaws that allowed them to slip off the screw. Unfortunately no replacement parts are available, as the company went out of business.
My solution was to install a formed wood plank into the jaw housing that holds the jaw down to the screw. This rendered the vice direct-drive (no more quick release), but the fix is reversible if a better solution is found.
You’ve got 4 kids. So you know the song “Let it go” from Frozen?
I’m a perfectionist, also. None my my pieces are perfect. I had to learn to accept my mistakes and move forward.
I just finished a baby dresser build for my sister who is having her first child. On one of the drawer fronts I’d already dovetailed and grooved, I accidentally mis-measured and drilled a hole for one of the drawer pulls a full inch off! The dread, and how to fix? I was about to go out and buy a new board, when I decided to just try making a dowel and driving it in. It worked! Unless you really scrutinize, it’s just a knot in the wood.
[quote quote=625269]Warning – slightly gory pic below[/quote]
Hehe, someone’s learning a lot today. 😛 For me, it’s a toss-up which is worse: a marking knife cut, or a newly sharpened handsaw jumping from it’s kerf onto my thumb at full speed.
A knife wall only needs to be about 1/32 – 3/64 deep, enough to see and prevent tear-out. Too deep, and the cut is widened, which can defeat the advantage over just using a pencil.
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