new bench for my Jet Mini lathe

Here are pictures of my new bench for my lathe.

My first lathe was a craftsman tube lathe mounted on a large table.  The lathe was designed for spindle work and was nearly useless for bowls.  So I bought the Jet 1420 mini and sat it on the back of the other table.  It was too high and I had to make a 4 inch box stand.

I got a set of metal legs from Dewalt and have now completed the stand.

With a couple concrete blocks on the bottom its very stable.

The old lathe and table will go to the NWA for the auction.

Panel Saw Construction Project ----  Enhance Safety of Shop Operations.

Submitted by Ed Buell

One of the things I’ve noticed as I spend time with the WOODCRAFTERS in the Mustang Shop was that Herm Finkbeiner always seemed particularly concerned whenever we were breaking down whole sheets of plywood.  On our big DELTA saw, even with the large table extension, this is a marginally safe operation.  We spend a lot of time talking in the shop about what things we do that are, either unsafe or at best concerning to our welfare.

A couple months ago I suggested during a Saturday WOODCRAFTERS meeting that we consider getting a panel saw for the shop.  This would alleviate the safety concerns and make that work much easier.   After some discussion, I sought out panels saws to procure or build.  I prefer to build stuff for the shop in the shop.  That’s the best way I have to learn about how to get projects in the shop and at home completed.

Commercially available panel saws are very expensive.  Those that could cut plywood both into 4 X 4 and 2 X 8 pieces were very long as the support has to hold the pieces up to 8 feet from the saw location soothe piece can be slid through the saw.  In my researching, I found a set of plans in WOODSMITH SHOPNOTES issue 88 that had a traversing saw carrier, that would cut both sideways and up and down, and the whole thing is only 10’ long.

After discussing this with several WOODCRAFTERS, we decided to go ahead with a PANEL SAW building project.  Charlie Goddard signed on to co-chair this project with me.

The one big problem we faced was where to put it.  The design is intended to be permanently mounted against a wall.  Well,,,  we don’t have much empty wall space.  We thought about putting it on the outside of the sheet good storage bin, but it is not square and wasn’t made to support anything else.  So, we are making the saw basically to plan and then we are going to design and produce a portable base, so we can move it around for storage and use.

I also found a modification another woodworker made to extend the height of the saw by one foot in height so that it would handle the 5 X 5 sheets of “appleply”…  so we have modified our plans accordingly.

Charlie sourced materials from our stash in the barn and milled materials for the main frame.  The original plan was made with 2X2 material.  We’re fortunate to have good stable Ash and mahogany for our project.  We’ve been working the project for a couple weeks and on Tuesday, May8, with Wayne Distin’s help we assembled the main frame.  I the pictures below the frame is actually upside down.  Our next task will be to begin to manufacture the carriage and carrier for the saw.  We will follow on other articles as the project proceeds.

RADIAN PRO FLAP MODS

After the successful flights on Monday, Ray was concerned that the flap travel was too low to actually kill of the lift from the central portion of the wing.  As a result we actually increased the lift and contributed to the difficulty in landing.

So.  Today I removed the covers from the flap servos, shortened the pushrods, and shifted to the outer hole on the servo and the second from innermost hole in the control horn.

With some radio mods, the flaps now go to 90 deg. when fully deployed.  In the first part of the video it displays the travel as it came from the factory with max travel.  The second half shows the new travel.

Next flight will have to see the impact of the changes.

First flying day for 2012

Monday was spectacular.  This was my first flying outing for this year.  Went out with Ray Meyer.  Made several successful flights.  2 with RADIAN PRO, 2 with the ParkZone Corsair and a maiden flight with the Eflite Mini Ultra Stick. 

I got some lift for awhile with the Radian.  This was still some fo the first dozen flights for this bird.  We discovered that the flaps don't seem to go down far enough to kill off lift and as a result it slowed some, but didn't want to come down.

The wings are in the shop.  I hope to rework the pushrods and make the flaps go as close to 90 deg down as possible.  We'll see.

Milling project - with Dewalt Thickness Planer

On May 2 My Friend Dave Free came to help me run the really long pieces, ( over 10') through the router table to add the shaping.  I was able to set up to run all the pieces through the DEWALT thickness planer with some stands.

See the Pic.  But I was appropriately terrifed about trying to put those pieces through the router table to run the profile.

This is a large router bit and I knew I'd screw it up doing it by my self.

With Dave's help, it worked fine and all the pieces are now cut to rough length andprofiled.

Now I need to get some good weather to set up one rooms worth in the garage for stain and a coat of finish.

Milling project - Cut up work with DEWALT Chopsaw

This page documents the work of my latest project.  This is baseboard trim for the downstiars, Living Room, Family room and Kitchen.

IT started with a pile of 1 X 6 lumber stacked on the ping pong table.
2 16'
4 14'
7 12'
1 10'
1 8'.


 did a layout in Sketchup of all the pieces parts.

Saturday, 4 28 I marked out the parts and cut up all the stock into manageable pieces.
However there remain 2 just over 14' in length.

With a couple supports I was able to do all of the cutup work by myself.

One thing I knew.  The DEWALT chopsaw ( like all of them )  throws sawdust all over.  I was able to get my dust collector attached to the chopsaw and I'd say 95% of the dust went into the can.  Saved a bunch of dust in the air and sweeping to do.  This is a pretty awful rube goldberg method but it worked.  A Good use for Gaffers Tape.

New woodworking project

I started a new page today, to follow along with my latest project.

Long awaited trim for most of the first floor.  Check out progress on that page.

Florida............Ah...........

In sunny florida for the Month of February.
We're staying in a nice condo in North Port Florida.

Erin, Brett and McKenna were here for a while.  They've now returned to Ct.

Hoping to visit with old Successful Living friends tonightl

if you're one of our friends who was involved with or was impacted by SL, see our new blog
and tell your story.

http://successfullivinghistory.blogspot.com/