Modern Woodshop

Posted in Audio | Tagged luxury tools, podcast, to-do list, Woodworking | 5 Comments

5 Responses

1. on September 27, 2008 at 2:59 am | Reply Sal Giambruno

   One of the most important things to keep in mind with a Dedicated Mortiser is to be sure the chisels and auger bit are sharp and tuned up (roughness inside the square chisels is smoothed out to aid in wood chip evacuation). Most of the machines out there don’t come with sharp chisels (surprise). The chisels will feel sharp, but they’re not really. The difference between new chisels and sharp chisels is like night and day (as with any hand chisel). The new chisels will tear into the wood and give you a choppy mortise, which is OK, as long as it’s a hidden mortise, such as with a blind mortise/tenon joint, but if the face edge of the mortise will be exposed, I recommend sharpening the chisel(s) first.

   Rockler and Lee Valley sell dedicated sharpening kits and premium after-market chisels too.

   
   
2. on September 29, 2008 at 8:11 am | Reply John

   You can have your sharpener and shop maintenance person take care of that.

   Your to-do list and mine are almost identical. Because we do things in the shop we suddenly become the home maintenance man and in reality we do not want other people in our homes doing things we can do better and at cost. However as the list grows the shop time suffers. I also do things for my son, who lives around the corner, including installing close to 1000 sq feet of engineered flooring with molding etc.

   How do we say no? How do we tell our family that after a few days of what we consider grunt work our shop time suffers and our desire to go to the shop declines secondary to fatigue, mental and physical.

   Help us.

   
   
3. on September 29, 2008 at 7:16 pm | Reply jim

   I actually always try to do my crosscuts on the TS with a good miter guage equipped with an auxillary fence. I find it to be much more accurate then my 12″ miter saw. I have a fairly new Bosch miter saw. I think that the fact that you are bringing the blade down on top of the wood cause some slight blade deflection that throws the cut off. Perhaps a slider would work much better since the blade is entering the wood much like a TS. What are others thoughts?

   Also I have the 3.25hp Bosch plung router in my table. This router allows you to deactivate the plung mechanism for use in a table and also comes with an extension knob for height adjustment. All I do is reach under the table and rotate a large handle knob, no fussing with router clamps. It works great. Only problem is that the weight of the router over time had bowed my 1/2″ phenolic insert plate. Since I got a new plate I now remove the router plate after I am done for the day and rest it face down with the weight of the router pushing the plate flat.

   
   
4. on October 2, 2008 at 9:09 am | Reply Mack

   I just got given a Delta RAS in need of rehab. That ought to make some pretty fair tenons, but by the time I get it rehabbed I’ll be really good at using my crispy IT carcase saw… Oops… that starts me down the slope of being a hand-tool warrior…

   
   
5. on October 4, 2008 at 1:18 am | Reply Eric

   Great podcast, very thought-provoking. Hey, your “shop slave” luxury item is easy: It’s called an apprentice! Besides, do you really want a blackmailed person to have access to all of your blades?

   A router plane is on my luxury item list as well. Other things on my list:

   * A shoulder plane.
   * A rabbet plane.
   * A shop-made bench (don’t tell anyone I just said that).