I Cannot Get Enough Cast Iron

While I was at Woodcraft yesterday, I got a Mag-Switch featherboard. I got the pro version; some wood nut on the web said it was a better featherboard than the standard job, which has smaller magnets. Whatever. I didn’t want to buy twice, so I got the big one.

I tried it on the Powermatic 66 today. I wasn’t cutting; I had other stuff to do. But it’s very, very strong, so I think it will be a great tool. The guy at Woodcraft loves his. The great advantage of this thing is that you can put it anywhere on a cast iron table. No worrying about slots.

The Walker Turner band saw I was thinking about buying turned out to be sold. It was an old Craigslist ad that hadn’t been deleted. Bummer.

I think that if I can get my hands on a drill press, a band saw, and a decent sander, I’ll be able to do a few things. I could fake a lot of the band saw stuff with a jig saw.

I’m trying to summon the courage to go outside, joint a couple of two-by-threes with the router, clean up the edge of the cut I made in the end of the computer desk/router insert, and finish the extension on my saw. I think maybe I need a big piece of Costco beef first.

I have to have two long pieces of wood to run lengthwise under the insert, and I’ll have to have at least two going the other way, to eliminate sag.

The Ebay guys with the big Powermatic drill presses do not return messages, so they can take their tools and eat them as far as I’m concerned. A person who won’t tell you what he’s selling you deserves to go out of business. I think a Steel City is in my future. If I can find someone who will sell me one! I want to buy locally and save the enormous cost of residential delivery, but you have to beat people to get them off their rear ends to do business with you. In this economy, people like that will be the first ones to hit the bread lines. It’s going to be a real education for a lot of folks.

I think I need a Dynabrade air sander. In his box video, Doug Stowe uses a half-sheet finish sander turned upside-down. That does not seem like a great idea to me. And here I am, with compressed air to burn. On top of that, the Dynabrade will have a hundred feet of hose on it, so there’s no reason I can’t sand things in the yard. Forget dust collection. It lands where it lands.

My heart is broken over that Walker Turner saw. Where else am I going to find an Art Deco band saw? I could paint it yellow and purple and sell it on South Beach, to decorate a gay bar. It looks like something Batman would have had in his shop, back when Bob Kane was drawing him. Whoops, that goes back to the gay theme, doesn’t it?

Batman wasn’t really gay. He was just shy around girls. As all rich men should be.

Time for my pre-tool-session meal.