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Well, Dave. I haven’t used a true lathe, but the job is not made by hand, since I’ve used a poor man’s version made with a drill mounted on a horizontal stand. You can see it in the pictures.
For rough rounding I used a “turning gouge” made from a piece of hss steel. For final rounding I used sandpaper in a dowel. Working very carefully, very slowly and with lots of patience, this was the result.
I use rag-in-a-can oiler on saws, planes and chisels… tools with straight parts. On more complicated shapes I use oil applied with a piiece of cotton or a rag. If I see that rust has grown in some tool, I deal with it with oil and a soft scotch brite pad.
I haven’t problems yet, and the ambient moisture indicator that I have in my (home) shop reads around 80% nine months a year.
The wood is called in spanish [i]Encina[/i] ([i]Quercus ilex[/i]). I’ve found Holm Oak as translation. This species belongs to the family of Oak, although it is not a real oak. This wood is very hard and beatiful, but very prone to twisting and cracking. It was very common in wooden tools from many spanish tool makers, despite this problem, decades ago.
Tools of this kind an with this wood are very frequent in flea-markets in spain, badly twisted, worn, unsquared and cracked normally, but they can be bought for a few euros and sometimes they can be decently restored and come back to life. I bought two of them for five euros of the spanish maker “Castillo”. The first one I restored is the one on this post.
Unfortunately, I still haven’t been able to make it work in the project for I restored it. Two days after taking these pics I had a fall at home and I broke two bones of my left wrist, so my woodworking will be stopped until I finish my rehabilitation.
I bought in Amazon five Faithfull sash clamps a pair of years ago. I retrofitted them following Paul’s recommendations and yes, they made better, but they keep being bad clamps. Yes, they are light, they are “relatively” cheap and dont require the investment of these made-for-rich-people-clamps, but they aren’t clamps for a solid work, at least in my opinion. About the Silverline brand, all tools that I have tried from that brand were, with no doubt, junk. Trash. Wasted money.
I prefer the classic english style sash clamps heads, combined with a timber of laminated wood as beam for extra strenght. I use these (the green ones at the end of the page), bought at Fine Tools, in Germany. Just one thing: for a mysterious reason, the same clamping set that I bought for 16 euro/set, costs almost 43 euro now. I shouldn’t probably buy them for this price, but with a laminated timber of 1 inch thick, they are strong as a rock.
[url]https://www.fine-tools.com/pipeclamp.html[/url]
The bandsaw is Lombarte HBS 355C. As you say, it is a medium-size saw, with 14 in wheels and a cutting capacity of 345 mm wide x 235 mm height. It can use blades from 1/4″ to 1″ and have 6 roller bearings to guide the blade.
I’ve tried to find a manual of this machine searching in the web, but I haven’t found any. I’ve read two reasonably complete books about bandsaws and about how to adjust them, specially after changing the blade, and watched some videos on this subject, specially Paul’s videos. I’m habituated to adjust machines due to my job an I’m pretty sure that this machine won’t be a problem for me.
The doubt is on blade thickness. I suppose that 0.05 mm of diference in thickness is negligible, but all I’ve read come to say that thicker blades are for big wheel-machines, due to tension generated on lesser-diameter wheels, so I’m not sure about if a blade of 0.65 mm thickness can be adequate over a 0.5 or 0.6 mm one on a carbon steel blade.
Thank you again.
Well, I don’t have noticed anything on my drill yet. It’s a “budget drill”, bought in a super-store 21 years ago, made in China of course, but it is behaving like a amazing sturdy drill. It has a power of 810 W, and continues working as the first day, without noise, vibration or loosenes. In fact, I use it for anything except drilling: shaking paint, as a grinder, with the brass circular brush when derusting an old tool (this has been its principal use in these 20 years)… everything except drilling. Now its working like a lathe-motor.
I suppose that if I use enough time as a lathe it will wear due to side pressure, but that has been the reason for not buying a lathe: I only need one very from time to time, so it won’t work hardly in this task. About your question, I haven’t seen comments about this, but I haven’t done an exhaustive searching either, that’s the true. Perhaps this task will be the one wich make this drill grow old.
I use two ones my wife made for me. They are made from fabric (sorry, I’m spanish and i’ve doubts about if “tissue” would be a better word) that has the same strenght of good jeans trousers. They work very well. No pockets in them because I don’t find them very practic.
When my wife was making the second one she found that there wasn’t enough fabric to finish it, so she used a piece os fabric from an offcut from making cushions. My second blue apron has the strips for neck and waist made with white tissue with FLOWERS. Really, really coloured flowers. I’m absolutely spectacular when wearing it. George Clooney, you’re done.I’ve flattened the sole of my #5 and my #5 1/2 using 80, 180 and 320 grit sandpaper in roll firm on a piece of 14 mm thick plate glass. The measures of this glass are 115 x 15 cm. I,ve checked later with a feeler gauge (0.05 cm) and the gauge didn’t pass under the sole.
I’ve controlled carefully the pressure over the plane, mounted completely but with the blade retracted, and i’ve used only the forward stroke. You must try not to hold the plane too strong because you cant flex the sole or even break the glass.
I tried to do this using an offcut of kitchen counter, but it wasn’t flat and the sole ended with a concave shape.
I’ve uploaded three pics of the process. The grid on the sole allows to control your progress. It’s a slow and, tedious process and the sandpaper wears quickly, but the results are great.
By the way: I apologize for the MDF top of the bench (LOL), but it was made from offcuts for the garden shed. In fact, we could call him “the Paul Sellers-inspired Frankenstein bench” (LOL).- This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by Julio T..
- This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by Julio T..
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You must be logged in to view attached files.I have a 8 ppi/7 tpi rip saw for cutting long pieces. I find it very useful when the stock is rather thick and a 10 ppi saw is rahter slow on cutting. I also have a Spear and Jackson 7 tpi filed for crosscut that I bought in Amazon for big crosscutting, though I use it less.
Nice saw, by the way. I have a “similar” problem with saws and planes. Since I like restoration very much, I’ve bought several saws for restoring them, though I don’t really need them. It’s a clear case of GRS (Gear Restoration Syndrome), I’m afraid… XD
- This reply was modified 3 years ago by Julio T..
The part of the blade that fits into the handle is cut straight. The steel has a curved shape only in the part that is out of the handle, next to teeth, so I could use a dovetail saw to cut the blade slot.
If I had to make a handle for a curved heel blade I suppose I would have to cut it straight before, and relocate the holes for nuts in a new position, according to the new handle. I don’t know if it is possible to make a slot so thin whith “garage methods”.
I didn’t have a circular saw. I used brace and bits and a portable jigsaw to cut the rough shape of handle. After that, I simply used a small dovetail saw. I marked the cutting line using a marking gauge, adjusting the tool to get an exactly centred line. I did saw very slowly and very carefully to maintain the saw blade in centered position and equidistance from both sides of the handle. It took me a while, but it did work. I passed very carefully a sheet of 140-grit sandpaper to clean the walls of the kerf, helping the sandpaper with a 0,5 mm-thick metal sheet, to maintain sandpaper flat and straight. After that, saw plate got into the handle with the adequate grade of friction and completely straight. Since the thickness of the saw plate was 1 mm, I used a saw with the more similar size of kerf.
The funny thing is this: I found that dovetail saw in a flea market and paid 0,50 euro for it. I restored and sharpened it for ripcutting (it has 14 tpi). It’s a very old William Hall saw, but it’s one of my best saws now. It never fails.
I leave here a pair of photos of the process.
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You must be logged in to view attached files.I bought six saw screws of those that are sold in Workshop Heaven. They are good quality screws, but they are rather short for using them in a 7/8″ thick handle, and if you want to use them you must make recesses in the handle. In fact, I think that they are the ones that appear in Paul’s post.
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