I gave them two small jars of the mineral oil/beeswax combination and a google doc with upkeep instructions (including reheating and using the mixture). I then got a friend who makes jams/jellies for the farmer's market to dress the jars up nice like she does for her jam jars and voila. Easy accessory gift.
Just ordered this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KX4OKKE/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 with discounts was ~$113. Seems like a decent intro saw. I really need one to finish a project and foresee it being used regularly.
It’s more about the blade than the saw these days. Put a high quality Diablo blade on it and go look up Jimmy DiResta’s saw tips he posted last week and you’re golden.
This year most of the Christmas presents I'm giving are things I've made from my shop. I made a couple of puzzle boards for my sister and her best friend. Her friend's was made with oak planks (that I re-sawed myself from a rough log), with walnut and purple heart trim. My sister's is Birdseye maple with a purple heart border. The pic is the board I made for my sister... re-sawed the maple on my band saw, no fancy joints... just straight up butt joints and some domino action to keep the boards straight, sanded down to 340 then treated with mineral oil and a furniture paste. It's got a great feel for doing puzzles on... nice and silky smooth, and it's not shiny or glossy. (The pic doesn't do the colours justice). The only problem I have now is that the board is pulling up on a corner for some reason... maybe 1/2" so that it rocks a bit and isn't sitting flat on a table. I've got it weighted down on a flat surface now, and am hoping it flattens out before Christmas morning... but seriously... WTF.
I picked up a Laguna 14/12 last year. https://www.lagunatools.ca/laguna-machinery/bandsaws/14-12/ I've found it to be a more than capable 110 Volt band saw.
Is the panel free floating inside the frame to account for wood movement, or are you just gambling and hoping it won't split the joint?
That's a pretty large piece to not have battens to help it stay flat. Back when I did cabinets, we'd have the customer sign off that a "slab" style door could warp even with battens
It's all held together with dominos around the perimeter... a fair number of them. So the really hard/dense purple heart should keep it from warping, I think. (The panels are actually pretty thin so I tend to think that the border/frame will do good job holding everything in place). I guess we'll see how it goes. (And it's my sister, so if it gets screwed up in some way, I can just make another one). The biggest "WTF" so far was when I thought that the boards were warping because when I put them on the kitchen table to wrap them, they were not flat... as in about an inch of vertical movement across diagonal corners. As in push down on one corner, the corner across from it was up about an inch off the table. Fuck me. Well, after trying to figure shit out, and delivering 2 puzzle boards that I thought were warped but were flat when delivered to the recipients, and me banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how I fucked it up that badly when it all seemed to be going so well, I came home to throw a level on the kitchen table to find out that it's got a huge fucking crown in it. That kitchen table was the first table my dad ever made, and I have no doubt he's up there laughing down at me saying, "gotcha!". The bastard. Merry Fucking Christmas everyone!
That's what you get for referencing against wood. I try to always reference against machined steel or iron if it's available, or in the case of doing the final sanding of some cutting boards in my own apartment against my stone countertops.
I ran into something similar when I was doing glass work. I went to work for some crusty old bastard and I was setting up some 1/4" mirror to do a wall for a customer. One of the panels I had to drill holes for an electrical outlet. It broke while I was drilling it. Then a second sheet broke while drilling. I'd done this thousands of times and had never had a sheet break on me while drilling holes, now it happened twice in a row? I told him his table was fucked up. He stormed out there telling me the whole tine how he was going to fire me when he drilled the needed holes. It immediately broke a 3rd sheet. I grabbed a 6 foot straight edge and the table had a huge crown in it. It didn't affect cutting sheets, but it stressed the glass to the breaking point when you attempted to remove material from the middle of the sheet.
Does anyone know a good site that has full plans for furniture items? I want to replace the sagging IKEA-knockoff TV Stand that my former roommate bought years ago with something made of solid cherry. But I've been playing around in sketchup and am just driving myself nuts with questions of wood thickness, and dado depth, and trying to figure out something both aesthetically pleasing and sturdy enough to hold up a TV without breaking the bank and just making everything two inches of solid wood.
I know Lee Valley has a ton of plan books for sale. I have a few of them that were gifts and they are pretty good. One is for couches and one is for book cases. You can also check out The Wood Whisperer Guild as he puts a lot of plans up there. I’m not a member so can’t speak to the options, but Mark Spags and the guys he has working in his guild to a great job with instruction.
Yeah I was hoping I wouldn't have to go the paid route, especially since most of the stuff by Spags and the like are a little more ornate or complex than I'm looking for.
I hear you. Personally, I just keep a folder of pics I run across on the Net that I use as inspiration, and just try to make shit on the fly. I'm kind of amazed at all the people that need plans for even simple shit... "hey, how'd you make that 2x4? have any plans?"
Totally agree... especially Matt Crimona... that highboy he made was insane... and something I'd never ever want to build for myself. Ever. One thing I've really picked up from him is the use of simple curves to make things look so much better than just straight lines. His recent video of the bunk-bed slide he made for his kids is a prime example... seeing how he did the various pieces with random shapes/curves was pretty interesting and something I'll be incorporating in my upcoming work when I can.
I got the plans for my dining room table and bed frame from Ana White (ana-white.com). There's a ton of decent ideas there and they give you pretty solid material and cut lists, too.