See my Saw
January 12th, 2009You Would Never Guess I Made This Myself
Russ was asking for a photo of the table saw with its new extension. Don’t laugh. Here it comes.
Actually, it looks better in the photo, because it’s hard to make out the defects in the surface of the old desk.
The supports look bent, but I think that’s a trick of perspective. I hope. I better go look.
Anyway, that’s it.
January 12th, 2009 at 1:16 PM
very very nice.
January 12th, 2009 at 1:59 PM
Steve, have you seen Mish’s blog today? She says Leah will have surgery to replace an aortic valve on Wed. Let’s get some prayers going for her!
January 12th, 2009 at 3:27 PM
Nice! That looks good and sturdy. I guess you will start on the Hoglodeck cabinet now? Or some storage boxes? Its too cold in my little garage to do much safely, so I need your frequent doses of shop encouragement…
January 12th, 2009 at 3:29 PM
What I like to see is that fire extinguisher mounted back there on the wall. I lost a house to a fire in the early 2000’s and, while I wasn’t home at the time, through divorce and neglect of my own rules I had ZERO fire fighting capability except baking soda and water.
Since it was an electrical fire I’d have probably died in the process trying to squirt it with a fire hose or pee on it.
Your readers need to log off the internet right now and go buy at least four extinguishers. One for grease fires in the kitchen, one for the garage, and a general purpose one for every work area like shops and basements that are more than a few steps away from another extinguisher. Then do yourself a favor and get electronics friendly extinguisher(s) for the office/computer(s) in your house.
I’m not saying that you bolt fire extinguishers on the door jamb to every room, but having them hiding around your residence is at least as important as smoke/CO detectors and these days four can be had for a little over a hundred bucks.
Take it from a guy that moved away in a SUV in the middle of his life because everything else he owned was black with soot and water soaked…
January 12th, 2009 at 3:55 PM
One more thing…put yourself a deep 4×4 handibox on the end of the router table extension and hard wire it to a heavy 10 or 12 GA extension cord (cut the female end off of it) you can plug into an unused wall outlet. Then put a cover plate over a switch and a duplex 120 outlet mounted in the box, coil the router power cord up and secure it neatly underneath the table so a little short length of it can be easily reached without getting on your knees and plugged into your new table mounted 120 power supply box.
By making the outlet switched, you can leave the router turned on all the time and control it from the box (unplugging it while changing bits) , plus you have at least one other 120 outlet available close by on the table for another hand tool like a Dremel or a drill or whatever.
January 12th, 2009 at 4:51 PM
That looks great.
January 12th, 2009 at 6:32 PM
Second the fire extinguisher. In fact, buy some more. You can never have enough.
January 12th, 2009 at 7:38 PM
Looks great! I need to setup something like this when I redo the Kitchen. Chicago to Miami is a little too far to drive to borrow yours š
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Wormathan wrote:
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“Its too cold in my little garage to do much safely, so I need your frequent doses of shop encouragementā¦”
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I needed to heat the Garage to at least 65 degrees in the Winter to do epoxy work, so I got one of these and plumbed it into the house’s natural gas supply:
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http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=45601
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Heats everything up very nicely. I also installed a carbon monoxide monitor/alarm for safety, but the levels have never approached a detectable level (I did test the alarm outside with a car exhaust just to be sure it worked).
January 13th, 2009 at 1:45 AM
Steve, it’s lovely. I’m almost jealous.
January 13th, 2009 at 12:17 PM
Steve? – You really should add a brace between the bottom of the saw and the center of the legs. Otherwise the thing is going to rack every time you move it around (eventually loosening at the top corner joint braces).
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A brace tying the bottom of the extension to the bottom of the table saw will make it all move as a single cohesive unit (trust me: it’s wiggling a little bit at the top whenever you move the machine …it will take time before you can see it, but it’s there all the same).
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Or you could use two braces at each corner …and that could be the base for some shelfor drawer cabinets underneath there.
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Find an online picture of the commercial versions that are used on long tablesaw extensions to see what I mean (if it’s not obvious).
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January 13th, 2009 at 2:11 PM
I see what you’re saying, but this thing barely moves when you try to flex it. Those 1/4″ screws are surprisingly sturdy. And it’s temporary. I hope.
January 13th, 2009 at 4:22 PM
Have any F/A-18s attempted landing on that thing yet?
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I’m inclined to agree about the bracing for the extension legs. As an alternative, think about how much space you have under there, and how nice it might be to fill it with a rolling storage cabinet, secured to both the table and the legs.
January 13th, 2009 at 4:29 PM
If you think those legs are shaky, you should go back and take a look at the ones the previous owner used for years. They were braced only by two little pieces of bent aluminum.
CLICK.
You also have to remember, the table puts virtually no weight on the legs. If I took the casters off, I would have to push very hard to make the legs touch the ground. The rails are what really holds up the table.
As for a cabinet, there is no point in attaching it to this cheesy extension. The plan is to build one USING this table! Then I can discard this one and install the new one.