Success!

The bandsaw WORKS.

I wheeled it out to where the cord would reach the new 220 socket and plugged it in. Nothing happened. I removed the disconnect between the socket and the breaker, and I started fiddling with the wiring. POOF, I smoked a Craftsman screwdriver. How can that happen when the disconnect is out? It can happen when you wired the circuit wrong from the disconnect to the socket.

Now I’m out one cheap Philips screwdriver. I suppose Sears would honor the warranty, but it’s not honest to return stuff you destroyed out of stupidity. Which is very clearly what happened here.

I shut off the breaker, fixed the wiring, and started again. The saw ran!

I turned it off and got out Mark Duginske’s book, and I started tuning the saw.

First, I took off the silly 3/4″ blade that came with it. I could not fold the stupid thing up, so I dumped it on the garage floor. I installed the new 1/4″ blade and got it adjusted. Then I checked the book’s instructions on folding bandsaw blades, and I sort of got it folded, but the loop was bigger than I wanted. Oh, well. Not everybody has the remarkable spatial aptitude required to understand a bandsaw blade. It’s like a Moebius strip with rabies.

I think I understand why the seller chose to sell this saw instead of his Grizzly. I am pretty sure nobody in his business had the slightest clue how to make a bandsaw work, so when this one acted up, they decided to get rid of it. Name an adjustment. They had it completely wrong or didn’t even try.

The thing that holds the upper guide bearings was out of place…by about HALF AN INCH. This is like missing a parking space by six feet. In case you’re a BMW driver and you do that all the time, I’ll clarify. It’s bad.

The thrust bearings weren’t even close to right. None of the bearings under the table were anywhere near where they were supposed to be. One was so far back, it had probably never been in contact with a blade.

The blade guide post wasn’t square to the table, either. I had lots of fun fixing that. I also had to grease the guide post rack, gears, and screw, and I had to get the fine dust out of the mechanism so it would move.

Why would anyone spend over $1300 on a tool and then fail to learn how to maintain it? This tool looks like it was used ten or twenty times. After that, they apparently gave up. All they had to do was buy Mark Duginske’s book.

I fired up the saw and tried it out. I ripped a piece of scrap to see if the rail gauge was correct. It was perfect. Right on. I finished up by applying a whetstone to the blade’s rear edge. I don’t have one of those cute little stones with a handle, so I grabbed something I used to use to sharpen fish hooks.

I like the bandsaw, although maybe I could have been more aggressive in my choice of blades. The 1/4″ blade I got will take tight turns, and it’s supposed to be a good compromise blade, but it’s pretty slow. I can see why people run to the bandsaw instead of the table saw. There’s no push stick. No ear protection. No kickback danger. Very little dust. And you can use your hands.

I don’t know if this is a particularly good saw; it’s Chinese, after all. But it seems to work fine, and it has a great capacity. And now, thanks to me, it’s PORTABLE. Can’t beat that. I think I got a better deal than I realized.

I’m really disturbed now. The table saw works. The bandsaw works. The planer sled is built. I may have to MAKE SOMETHING. I am running out of excuses. No, wait! I still need a sander! Yes…yes…a pneumatic sander! And a drill press! No, a milling machine! THEN maybe I can get crazy and make…a picture frame or something.

Oh, hey! I can make new inserts for the table saw! That would be fantastic! I’d actually be able to use my Microjig splitter!

Life is sweet.

Remember Mish Today

Please don’t forget about Mish Weiss. She is still fighting the life-threatening side effects of her treatment with Mylotarg. She needs your prayers more than ever.

I got an interesting email from a reader named John. He has been trying to change his life. He says:

Unfortunately, I have trouble improving my personal habits and they are slowing my progress to Christ. I would greatly appreciate it if you would ask your readers to pray that God gives me the grace and strength of will to change.

Consider it done.

“Renewal” Should Mean Something

I have been getting links from other blogs because I wrote some critical things about Pajamas Media and some of the people who are involved in it. I wrote one remark which has gotten a lot of attention; at the time I wrote it, I thought it was mild and relatively inoffensive, but re-reading it, I think it was unnecessarily harsh.

I’m taking down the posts I wrote. I’ve been trying to change my life, and I don’t want to let my faults drag me back into the pool of smoldering invective and gossip which is the political Blogosphere. I apologize to those I made fun of, not for their sake, but for my own.

There is nothing wrong with pointing out the problems with PJM, but it’s possible to do it in a more constructive way.

I also apologize for those things I wrote in the past which were really over the line.

I Did It

1. My mobile base does, in fact, hold up my saw.

2. My hoist can take 367 pounds of saw without even creaking.

3. I can’t believe I put those front wheels out in front instead of off to the sides.

4. I think I’ll redo this, with the rear wheels the same, shorter tabs and no brakes on the front, and two additional side tabs for screw-down stabilizing feet.

Nonetheless, I am the King of All Tools. So to speak.

R.I.P.

Andrea Harris’s cat Squeaky has passed away.

Go say something in her comments.

Finito

The bandsaw base is finished. I think.

Today I brushed the rust off of it, which was probably not necessary, and then I wiped it down with denatured alcohol, and I put it out on the grass and blasted it with canned truck bed paint. It’s drying now. I think this was a good choice, because the saw won’t hurt the paint easily, and the reverse is also true. This stuff will be like a layer of padding between the saw and the base.

I’m not sure how long it has to dry before I can put the saw on it. The can doesn’t say, believe it or not. A website for a similar product says 24 hours.

One problem with painting it is that if I have to weld extra metal in to support the swiveling casters, it will be hell getting the paint off.

Even though I painted outdoors in a breeze, I think I’m a little high.

Little Killer on Your Workbench

A while back I complained that my 6″ bench grinder was not big enough, and I wrote about getting a different machine. I considered buying another bench grinder, but I am now dead-set against it, and here’s why: those things are extremely dangerous.

I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. The wheels come apart, and guess where the pieces can end up? Inside your skull. Or where your teeth used to be.

Here’s more wonderful information: angle grinders are dangerous too. If you Google, you’ll find a story about one that came apart. The wheel fragments entered a man’s TORSO. You can wear a face shield to protect your head. How do you protect the rest of you? Think of all the things you’re exposing to the grinder when you work. That list contains a lot of stuff you really don’t want to have mutilated by flying debris.

You really have to be careful to keep the guard between you and the wheel. If not, you’re inviting truly hideous injuries.

The more I think about it, the more I think belt grinders are better. They’re faster. They’re a hundred times as versatile. They don’t get hot. They use cheaper, faster motors. And they are a lot less likely to maim you.

In fact, I’m even thinking I may get a little pneumatic belt grinder to replace my angle grinder. Why risk being perforated if you don’t have to? And a little grinder like that would probably do much better work.

Bench grinders are weird, because they seem so much safer than they are. It’s very obvious that a table saw can mess you up. Nobody with any brains would take chances with a lit torch or a nail gun. But grinders look perfectly harmless. Most people wear no safety equipment at all when they use them.

Glad I learned this before splurging on a big Death Grinder.

Pay Six Figures to Memorize Cliff’s Notes

I got an obscene comment today. Here’s the unbelievable part. It was from a liberal. No, it had to be a GOP fake. Liberals always take the high road, right? Darn that Karl Rove. For a minute, he fooled me.

The funniest thing about it was that it came from a university. Obviously, someone’s parents’ money has been well spent!

We live in a time where people gladly pay institutions over twenty thousand dollars per year to teach their kids to take drugs, fornicate, give up their belief in God, bring curses on themselves and their families, read Cliff’s Notes, and absorb creaky, discredited leftist notions that bring mankind only suffering. Don’t ever try to tell me God wasn’t right on the money when he described us as sheep. When it comes to judgment, just about any mammal you can name is superior to man. Find me another animal that would base jump or smoke cigarettes.

For the most part, universities are gigantic wastes of money. In two weeks, a smart person who doesn’t watch TV all day can absorb everything a school can offer in a liberal arts course, with none of the bias and BS. At a cost of maybe a hundred bucks, if he buys his own books. Gas money, if he uses a library.

Seriously, how much time did you have to put in to get a B+ in a literature or history course, or in a nonsense course like sociology or black studies? Be honest. Two or three days of cramming, at the end of each semester, unless you had to write a paper. I had to take anthropology to “balance” my physics and math courses when I was in school. I studied for about a day, and I got an A. Try that in multivariable calculus and see what happens. If you’re Norbert Wiener, you can do it. Otherwise, expect to fail. Most college courses are a tremendous ripoff. And strangely, we don’t care. All over the US, there are people who don’t mind paying several thousand dollars for a child to study a course like the history of comic books or–here’s a good real-life example–the textual appeal of Tupac Shakur.

Man, think about that. What does a course cost at a private college? About four grand, I’d say. Would you invite someone into your house and pay them four large to teach you about Tupac Shakur? If not, why would you pay it to a university?

If we really cared about educating kids, we’d have accredited tutors who visited them twice a week. “Here’s your assignment. I’ll be back in three days. Know it, or your parents will take away everything that makes your life bearable.” That would work for any course not requiring special equipment. It’s how kings used to educate their kids. These days, we just shove them into the pen with the rest of the livestock and send them checks.

A lot of people think one of the best things about college life is that it gets kids away from their parents. Nothing could be further from the truth. Contact with our elders is an essential source of strength, guidance, and knowledge. This is why drug abuse and fornication are so big on college campuses. Mom and Dad and their values are a thousand miles away. If we really wanted to have a society with strong values, we’d go back to living in extended families, like people in the Bible did.

For decades, professors have been telling us our parents are idiots. Guess what? Your parents are treasures. They know a lot of things that can help you, and unlike your professors, they care more about you than they do about themselves. Your professors, on the other hand, probably ARE idiots. How do you think they ended up in academia? It wasn’t because their mad skills had the private sector chasing after them. Tenure used to exist because academic pay was too low, and job security was supposed to make up for it. Now it exists in spite of astronomical pay and benefits, simply because many academics can’t survive without it. Put an English Literature Ph.D. on the street, take away his cradle-to-grave benefits, and see what happens to him. I can tell you what WON’T happen to him. Private firms won’t offer him big money to teach them about The Canterbury Tales.

Here’s another bit of bleak news for academics. Now that we have DVDs and the Internet, it is easier than ever to completely replace professional instructors. Do you really need to subsidize an old hippie’s artificially grandiose lifestyle in order to learn college material? I’d rather buy a couple of disks.

I often say that the only people who get their money’s worth from universities are those who study things like languages, science, math, and music. Things that can’t be taught via cramming. But truthfully, you can learn all these things without instructors (or at least without costly institutions). When I studied physics and math, very often I had bad teachers and bad books. I solved these problems by buying other books and reading on my own. While I was studying first-semester calculus, I had a good teacher, but I had no background, so I studied algebra at the same time, from a book which probably cost fifteen dollars. My first mechanics teacher was so arrogant and incompetent, he nearly qualified as mentally ill. I survived by dumping Fetter & Walecka (the execrable text he liked) and buying Schaum outlines. Now that I think about it, there were a number of times when my teachers and their chosen books did me no good whatsoever. What was I paying them for? The grades, I guess. Everything else, I got on my own.

We spend too much money on secondary education. Maybe we should be working to develop a better system. Many, many courses could be replaced by tests. Show up, prove you know differential geometry, get credit, move on. Cost: $150 for proctoring and grading. Wouldn’t that make more sense than spending four thousand dollars? We already have a lot of tests to help us avoid unnecessary study. Maybe we need more of them. It’s insane to make someone spend a big six-figure sum and waste four years, just to become a member of a cubicle farm. Do you really have to spend three hundred grand to produce the Pointy-Haired Boss? I don’t think so.

Now that I think about it, I still don’t know differential geometry. I got an A in graduate mechanics anyway, but I think that was because only four students survived to take the final exam. I would really like to go back over that stuff and learn it. It’s one of those mathematical disciplines that requires memorization as well as reasoning ability; I didn’t work hard enough at it to memorize the little details that make it work.

It would never be of any use to me, but it irritates me that I never got a grip on it. I wonder if my memory problems would permit me to learn it.

I added some filters to the comment system today, so hopefully, juvenile, unintelligent remarks like the one I received this morning will be filed appropriately before I have to deal with them.

Don’t Read Before Eating

I have about had it with protective glasses.

It seems like every time I wear my polycarbonate specs, crap flies in under them and goes directly into my eyes. I don’t understand it. They are completely worthless, yet–as far as I know–just about every tool expert in the US recommends them.

Yesterday I thought I had an eyelash in my eye. I put up with it for hours. Then I got out my reading glasses (man, I miss being able to see), and guess what the problem was? A splinter. In my EYE.

Talk about freaking out.

I’m pretty sure it was a piece of the wire brush I used to clean the metal.

I figured I was on my way to the emergency room, but I decided to rinse my eye and give the splinter a poke, and PRAY. And the silly thing came out.

Am I the only one who gets bad results with glasses? I am really fed up. I think I’m going to give up on them and use the face shield from now on. It’s the only thing that works.

Isn’t She Lovely

You thought this day would never come, but here it is:

How about that? And it WORKS. I can rest my fat on the side rails and hop up and down, and if the base is flexing, I can’t detect it. It should hold the saw just fine, even with the less-than-beautiful welds.

The design is not optimal; I’m limited by my tools and the amount of work I’m willing to do, plus what I’m willing to pay for steel and parts. But it’s much stronger than it needs to be.

I got much better performance out of the welder today. I tightened up the ground; this may have made the difference. I had no problems seeing the puddle or keeping the contact tip from welding to the wire.

In case you’re wondering who gave the best answer about removing rust and scale prior to welding, I think it was Ed Bonderenka. I believe he was the person who suggested a wire wheel for the grinder. I got a wheel and tried it, and it blows through rust and crap a paint removing wheel barely polishes. Wonderful.

I learned something new today: Hitachi drill bits are crap. At least they seem to be. I bought a big box of them, and I was trying to drill through the 3/16″ steel on the tabs that hold the wheels to the mobile base. The smaller bits didn’t seem to do anything, and the 1/4″ bit was really slow. I dug out my old Craftsman bits, and they went right through the steel. Go figure. It’s clearly time to get a Drill Doctor. I wasted maybe 20 minutes with that stupid Hitachi bit before I realized something was wrong.

I plan to grind off the scarier bits of weld, and then I’m going to go over the base with a brush, and then I’m going to hit it with a can of truck bed paint. I have some in the garage, and it’s much better than ordinary spray paint for this purpose. Once that’s done, I’ll shove the saw over to my hoist and see if it pulls the roof down while I try to put it on the base.

Man, this was great. I learned how to cope welded corners. I used my plasma cutter. I used the welder and the dry cut saw. I bought a soapstone holder, a wire wheel, and a scribe. I had tremendous fun. And now I can roll my bandsaw around the garage, so I can get it within reach of the new 220 socket I made.

I have a new table pin, three blades, and an Incra miter gauge for the saw, and I am DYING to do something with it.

Maybe some day I’ll make a better base for the saw. Now that I fixed the welder’s problems, I know I can make a much prettier base. But I think I’ll wait for a drill press or a mill. I did not enjoy making those stupid holes.

Another thing: I got a little Baldor grinder a couple of years ago. I thought it would be more than enough for my needs. WRONG. Because the radius is small, it’s hard to get stuff up against the wheel. I’m wondering what’s the best size. Eight inches? Surely not ten. That would weigh 200 pounds. I believe the one I have now is 6″. It’s wonderful, but just not big enough. It’s dandy for sharpening certain tools, and I used it to pretty up some of the base parts, but it’s limited.

I suppose the real answer is a belt grinder. I have to get to work on that eventually. The price of a big Baldor would more than cover the parts cost for a belt grinder, and a belt grinder does more. Man, that would be sweet.

Time to celebrate. I’m breaking out the fettuccine.

By the way, if you read about me helping Mike find Li’l Paul’s Smokehouse in Lebanon, Tennessee, the other night, you have been waiting for these photos.

Heat & Brute Force

I hit Home Depot for the purpose of buying casters. While I was there, I picked up a bar of 2″ by 3/8″ steel and some MAPP gas.

I want to use 2″ swiveling casters with brakes on one end of my saw base. But to do that, I need 3 3/8″ of distance between the far end of the caster base and the side of the saw base. That means something has to hang way out over the floor, unsupported. If you use angle iron, the part the caster screws into will be fine, but the part that extends down from it will prevent the caster from turning. Clearly, the best option is a piece of flat stock with a right angle in it. You put the horizontal part at the top, weld the vertical part to the saw base, and attach the caster to the underside of the horizontal part. The problem is the right angle. How do you create that?

My hope is that with MAPP gas and my vise, I should be able to make a reasonably good right angle. If the lengths of the angle’s legs are a little off, I can fix it with the grinder, the dry cut saw, or the plasma cutter. I just have to make them overly long to begin with.

I have never used heat to bend steel before. I saw Indian Larry do it on The Discovery Channel, however, so I feel that I have sufficient training. His crew was making twisted forks for a bike, or maybe it was a twisted sissy bar. They put a square bare in a vise, heated it with a torch, and turned it with breaker bars. The little job I’m doing should be considerably easier. I don’t even need sharp right angles; they can be pretty round.

Another Chance to Help

Reader Wormathan says:

If it not to much of a bother would pass along one more prayer to your circle of readers? My sister has just been diagnosed with breast cancer at the young age of 41. She and her family are strong believers and her attitude is one of peace, but of course she needs strength to battle this.

It’s no bother at all. Thanks for asking. Usually it’s best not to do this on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, because fewer people see it. If you mention it on Monday, I’ll put it up again.

Common Sense Militates in Two Different Directions

Here’s an interesting Craigslist ad: CLICK. It’s a Bridgeport mill with CNC stuff on it. The CNC bits need repair, however.

Last night I was thinking about tools. I was thinking about how I had finally learned my lesson: NEVER BUY SMALL. I’ll tell you why this was on my mind. I bought what I thought was a gargantuan compressor, but it turns out to be just about the minimal size for sandblasting. For a few hundred more dollars, I could have had a 7.5 HP model which would have been better. And it would run on the same size circuit and take up the same amount of room.

I’ve also started to come up against the upper limits of my MIG welder. I bought 1/8″ and 3/16″ steel for my saw base, and 3/16″ is the biggest I can do without going to flux-core wire.

People assured me I was overbuying. Well…WRONG. I barely went big enough.

Here’s the funny thing. Right after I thought about the lesson I had learned, I started thinking about how I should go look at the Millrite milling machine I had located. Because a Bridgeport is just too big.

I immediately sensed the contrast between the two trains of thought. 1. I have been stung by buying small tools. 2. I should buy a Millrite because it’s small. I felt like I was getting a message.

But I’m still not sure what to do. I have no idea what I can do on a Bridgeport that I can’t do on a Millrite. And I wonder how much more expensive (if at all) Bridgeport tooling is.

Chemo Drug Causes Liver Problems

Because I was offline all day, I had no idea what was going on with Mish Weiss. There is a very ominous post on her blog. The new chemotherapy drug, which just about everybody encouraged her to take, is causing liver problems.

Here is my bad, third-hand, lay explanation. The drug causes cancerous material to be flushed out of the body, and it can collect in the liver, where it forms obstructions and generates a great deal of pain. Evidently, this can be life-threatening. There is concern that Mish may not survive the next few days. You might as well read it yourself.

I don’t know what to do. Pray, obviously. Maybe fast.

By the way, reader R. sent me a thank-you email. I asked people to pray for her daughter-in-law, who was having a painful recovery from aneurysm surgery, and whose marriage was under stress. R. says:

Thanks for the prayers. They worked. At noon she looked like she had been run over by a Mack truck, eyes so swollen she could barely open them. And nauseated very badly from the pain meds. At five she could open her eyes and was sitting in a chair but was a pretty big shock to the girls when we took them in to see her. She was also still very nauseated, but they changed to a pain patch and my son called about 7 and said she was so much better, had got up and walked twice, the Foley was out, plumbing was working, and when she talked to the girls to say good night, they thought she sounded normal.

She also requests continued prayer.

I am Back

My Internet provider was messed up all day. I wasn’t able to buy a single tool!

Well, that’s not totally true. I managed to get to Home Depot and pick up a square, a flap wheel, and a wire wheel.