Machine Tools

While Marv and I enjoy his “out” time, I am reading about machine tools.

They’re very confusing. I have figured out a couple of things, though, analogizing from woodworking. I think a milling machine is pretty much like a router for metal, only mounted in a really nice fixture that does great stuff with it. And a lathe…is a lathe.

It’s very tough, figuring out what size machine would be useful for me. Jet makes something called a JMD15, and it only weighs 400 pounds, and it appears to take up about as much room as a drill press. A thing like that, I could conceivably accommodate. But what can it do? Is it worth the aggravation?

Many years ago, I used Vise Grips to break stone crab claws, and they were wonderful, but I had to adjust them over and over, because crab claws are not uniform. I thought it might be fun to make pliers just for the purpose of breaking claws. I drew up a design and bought a piece of tool steel and tried to make them, using a drill press. You can imagine how well that worked out. Then I paid a local machinist to make the pliers. They might have worked, had he used a better grade of steel. Will a JMD15 make an item like that?

What if I want a steel fence for my table saw, so I can use magnetic jigs to hold work down? How big a mill would that take? Say I want a piece of steel 48″ long, with T-tracks in it. Can I do that? Can I make something as big as a typical shop vise? Can I make myself a new drill press table from cast iron?

I have no idea. I guess there is no such thing as bulk cast iron, ready to be milled. I suppose they only cast it in shapes that are already dedicated to some purpose.

I have to make a mobile base for the bandsaw. I keep reading depressing things about HTC bases. The one I got for the table saw is great, but I read that adjustable bases flex too much for tall tools. I could buy a welded base, but it would surely cost $200, and that’s insane.

I should be able to make a frame from 1 1/2″ angle iron and then fabricate some kind of attachments for casters. The whole thing might run me $85, even assuming I use overpriced Home Depot metal. I’m wondering if I’ll be able to drill the necessary 3/8″ holes in the base with my hand drills. When you don’t have the right tool, sometimes the answer is the wrong tool and incredible patience.

I apparently caused myself some problems by buying a 19″ saw. I figured lots of people had them, but it looks like a good number of the parts and accessories out there are only available for smaller saws. Maybe that means only hobbyists are dumb enough to buy trinkets and doodads; I’m not sure. I can’t buy zero-clearance inserts, except for the ones the manufacturer sells, so I suppose I should learn to make them from plastic. I guess I could resaw it to the right thickness on the table saw, cut circles with a fly cutter or maybe even a hole saw, and add hex screws to keep the inserts level.

I’m definitely making progress, though. I have finally reached the point where I can go in the garage and just MAKE things.

I Love my Table Saw

I finished my planing sled. You may now grovel before me and explain that you are not worthy:

I love that table saw. Every time I think I need to go use a different saw, I find myself reaching for scrap and clamps, and before you know it, I have a jig that lets me use the table saw. I had to redo all those supports (the long wooden pieces across the table) because I screwed up the dadoes, and I did everything on the table saw.

Hope the sled works.

I’ll Have the Whale Bacon Smoothie

Elisson is opening a restaurant. I doubt his rabbi has cleared this.

Religious Cursors

Here is another interesting way to remind yourself to behave while using your computer. It occurred to me last night that surely someone out there had come up with cursors with religious themes. And it turns out they have. You can get an ichthus, a cross, or any of a number of other shapes. You can probably get a star of David; I haven’t checked.

Here’s how it works. You download a file with the extension “cur,” and you put it in your Windows/cursors folder. Then you go to  your control panel, click “Mouse,” and use the browsing feature to find and activate the cursor.

Might make it harder for you to be a jerk while you’re online.

Here’s an ichthus cursor you can download: CLICK.

Most Intimidating Tool of All

According to Mish, Leah Friedman i snow responding to pain. I assume that means her caregivers are poking her or something to see how she is. Her responses are considered encouraging, but she is not awake yet. So prayer is still needed.

Reader JeffW is trying to get himself banned from my comments by pushing me to get Sherline mill. The thing that saved me from getting a mill last time was the expense. That, and the fear that I would never learn how to use it.

Actually, here is the whole complex of neuroses. 1. I didn’t want to spend the money, especially since small mills aren’t much cheaper than used big mills. 2. People told me small mills were useless, because they could only make tiny objects. 3. Big mills take up as much room as bumper pool tables. 4. I was afraid I’d never learn how to use a mill.

Seriously, though, how hard is it? I thought woodworking tools would be hard to use, but they’re not. Most of the skill is in setting them up for various procedures. Once you get your jig or fence or whatever set up correctly, things work pretty smoothly. Are machine tools the same way, or do you have to go be an apprentice on a swamp planet for 25 years?

Bigger Sham Than Global Warming

My old man found out he had to do legal CLE; he thought he was exempt because of his age. So he got himself some CDs, and I decided to borrow them so I could get my own CLE out of the way. I sincerely hope I will never have to practice law again, but this stuff usually costs hundreds of dollars, and I can’t pass that up when there is any possibility that I will want to use my license.

While I give the birds some time out of their cages, I’m listening to some professional do-gooder lecturing on ethics. It is absolutely disgusting. He’s talking about filing charges against people for cussing. And for rudeness. I am not kidding. This is what happens when a person goes straight from law school into a job where his main function is to persecute other people. They never develop any sense of proportion or mercy. This is why bureaucrats and academics are so heartless and tyrannical; they have no idea what real life is like. They can’t be fired. It’s impossible to get them disciplined. So they sit on their ivory thrones, bashing the rest of us with their tenured scepters.

Mercy is important. Without it, life can be unbearable. I have forgotten that many times in my life, and I am ashamed of it. When you’re in a position where you can hurt other people but they can’t do much to you, you have to do your best to empathize. This is one of life’s great moral lessons. I truly mean that. Think about it after you read this. In the age of assertiveness and Internet rage, it’s an easy thing to lose sight of. I have to wonder if this lecturer thinks enough about mercy.

If every lawyer I know who used bad language at the office or in the courthouse got disciplined, I suppose about 5% would escape the mighty sword of the avenging do-bees. The percentage for rudeness would be a little better, but if even one lawyer gets disciplined for something that trivial, it’s one lawyer too many. I mean, sure, if he literally flings dung at other lawyers, he should get a wake-up call. But barring egregious and bizarre behavior, he should be left alone. There is a remedy for attorney rudeness. It’s called “failure.” You lose your clients and go broke. And judges fine you for contempt. I don’t see why the bar needs to turn itself into Henry Higgins.

Law is funny. When we feel safe, lawyers are irreverent. We do things we should not do. We tell dirty jokes. We gossip. We make fun of people. I stood next to a Miami-Dade public defender in court, while he whispered to me, making fun of a criminal defendant who was talking to the judge. No one cares about these things; we know we’re only human. But when these peccadillos come to light in the context of an investigation, we are SHOCKED! SHOCKED to learn that [insert type of bad behavior here] is going on in the sacred halls of justice!

The hypocrisy stinks to high heaven. And I say that as a Christian who is working to cut back on dirty talk and other mischief. I guarantee you, many of the lawyers who, when volunteering to help the bar regulate other lawyers, squeal in dismay over the smallest infraction, behave like mere mortals when no one is looking. This is how life is. There is one standard of behavior for day-to-day life, and then there is another standard when you find yourself under the microscope. It’s completely unfair. Bar associations need to worry about things like fraud, overbilling, and stealing. In those areas, they do a very poor job of enforcement. But this lecturer says he threatened a man who swore and took God’s name in vain. I think he should be ashamed of himself.

On top of that, the lecture is terrible. It’s boring, and it seems to have no point whatsoever, except that the bar has extremely perplexing priorities. If that’s the message, I hear it loud and clear.

I will alway resent being forced to do CLE. My guess, and other lawyers I’ve asked have the same impression, is that the real purpose of CLE is to make money for CLE providers who lobby the bar to impose requirements and recommend their expensive materials. That’s only a guess, but that’s generally how government works. The materials are almost always bad; no respectable lawyer would rely on this garbage to educate himself for the benefit of a client. I would consider it unethical. There is absolutely no way I would sink that low, when a client’s interests were on the line. I could not live with myself, and I would most assuredly lose in court.

This guy asked the recording audience if they thought their law schools did a good job of preparing them for actual practice, including teaching ethics. He asked it in a sneering way, as if the answer could not possibly be yes. His pride is really something, given the quality of his lecture. My answer would have been “ABSOLUTELY.” The University of Miami had its shortcomings, but my ethics instructor was excellent–much better than these ridiculous CDs–and the people who taught me about litigation were competent. I can’t remember the name of my ethics professor, but he ended up clerking for the Supreme Court, and he prepared a beautiful set of notes for his students, and the CD guy can’t compare to him.

Here’s what I always say about CLE, and it’s true: every competent lawyer does CLE every time he does research. Unless you’re utterly incompetent, you refresh your knowledge of the law EVERY, EVERY, EVERY time you handle a case. That’s real CLE. These CDs are useless, and it’s a shame people are profiting from them, and that lawyers are wasting their very valuable time playing them. And when I say that, I am referring to those lawyers who really play them, instead of buying them and putting them in the trash.

Bought

I decided to buy the Shop Fox bandsaw I was talking about. I am satisfied with the deal. I am sure I could have gotten the seller to take less, but I was pretty sure his business was in trouble, and I didn’t want to be a complete bastard. It turned out I was right. When I got there, he had a bunch of other stuff he was trying to sell, including a gorgeous Powermatic 66. I tried to hook him up with the crew at Sawmill Creek. It’s really disturbing, hearing how businesses like his are tanking. In a country where people live on credit and count on steady income (and where they don’t save and invest), times like these are very, very hard on a lot of people. I pray for better times, but the signs point toward something else.

In case any of you need the information, it is possible to put a Shop Fox 19″ bandsaw in a Ford Explorer. We took the table off, and in it went. Four guys loaded it. One person can hold up the heavy end, although I don’t recommend it.

Sadly, one person unloaded it. And as Dean Vernon Wormer said, that foot is me. I slid it out until the base was on the grass, and then I tilted it upright. I managed to get my handtruck under it, and the rest is history. Which is what I nearly was at several points during the move. A cop who was driving by saw me floundering (second Animal House reference in one post) in the garage, and hollered to see if I needed help, but by then all I really needed to do was set the saw down, so I told him I was okay.

Here’s the crappy phone photo:

I would guess it weighs about 315 without the table and fence (manual says 367 total), so it’s a scary but not terrifying load to move.

I think this was the right buy. The other saw was much cooler and cheaper, but it won’t do what this one will do. I have read that this saw won’t take really thin blades, but it is my understanding that you can fix that by getting some aftermarket parts.

It’s still wired for 220, but it has a stupid plug that will have to be replaced. I may add one or two more 220 sockets just so I won’t have to run around switching plugs when I work. I suppose I should leave it fixed for 220, since it draws 20 amps and is likely to blow my breaker. If I put this on my big 220 circuit, I could actually run the bandsaw and table saw at the same time. Not that there would be any point.

I finally feel like I have some tools. When the drill press arrives, my life will be bearable. It’s hard to think of anything really vital and big that I’ll need after that. AND DON’T HELP ME THINK OF ANYTHING. Enablers.

This should be pretty sweet. Band saws do lots of stuff other saws can’t do, and there are things other saws can do, which bandsaws do easier.

I decided to go with the single-word spelling, “bandsaw.” Google shows it’s the most popular spelling, and it’s easier to type.

I’ll need some blades. I think the one that came with it is 3/4″, and I can’t even guess at the teeth. I believe I want something small, like 1/4″, so I won’t be limited as much when it comes to turning corners. I also need a miter gauge. Dang it. I also need a good one for the table saw.

There was a very nice workbench down there, just sitting by the road. I wish I needed one. I’ll bet this is a good area to forage for scrap.

I think I’ll go strip down and see if I ruptured anything.

Craigslist is Unforgiving

Things are not looking good, RE the Craigslist Rockwell band saw. I called the seller because he had not gotten back to me, and he said some sleazy character was on his way to look at the saw. If this thing is in good shape, only an idiot would refuse to pay $165 for it.

This is what I get for being polite. I probably called the owner earlier, but he forgot to call me back.

Sounds like a nice old guy. His name is Charlie, he’s an EE, and he has a pacemaker. These are among the biographical details I learned while chatting with him.

The guy with the Shop Fox is down to $850, which is actually not a bad price for a $1250 saw. Not great, but acceptable. I could get most of it back on resale.

Charlie said he would call me if the nefarious slimeweed who butted in front of me doesn’t take the saw.

Don’t Forget Her

I should have posted this yesterday.

Leah Friedman had her aortic valve replaced on Wednesday morning. She is now on life support; Mish Weiss says this is normal, but things are not going as well as hoped.

Please continue praying for her recovery.

My Cheapness Gene is Screaming Audibly

Okay, tool people, I have a new one for you.

Some guy just put a 14″ Rockwell 28-200 band saw on Craigslist for $165. I have read up on it, and it is supposedly a very good saw, and you can put a riser on it to resaw big stuff. He says it cuts metal, but I have no idea what he means. This is a wood saw; apparently you can put a transmission and different motor in it to cut metal, but I haven’t called this guy to find out if he has done that.

I feel pretty sure I can get the 19″ Shop Fox I mentioned for $800. It seems likely that the guy who is selling it is having some problems. He is about to move, and he complains that business is too slow to support the big tools he owns. But money is money; $165 is certainly better than $800, and I can almost certainly get my cash back out of the Rockwell, whereas I would probably lose a couple hundred if I had to unload the Shop Fox.

What would you do?

I Have Dadoed

I spent like an hour and a half playing with my tools tonight, and here is the result:

That is a planing sled. You put crooked lumber on it, use the triangular pieces of wood to adjust it, and run it through a thickness planer. For thin wood, this works like a jointer, except that you have to finish the edges with another tool, like a table saw or router.

The idea comes from a woodworker named Keith Rust. I used his plans, which you can find somewhere at Taunton.com. His sled was different. He used plywood, because he happened to have it on hand, and his sled was five feet long, because the sheet of plywood he used happened to be that long. I had MDF, so that’s what I used. And because I had no flat wood to use between the sheets of MDF, I had to buy some oak. But the idea is the same.

Look at all the stuff I did! The first time I worked on this, I ripped two sheets of MDF on my table saw, and I used various drills and drivers to put everything together, along with my unbelievably cool Irwin clamps. Today, I did everything you see on top of the MDF.

I only used two cutting tools: the table saw, and the 10″ miter saw. And with them, I made 1″ square supports from a scrap two-by-four, eight quarter-inch dadoes in the supports, and eight 1/4″ wedges cut at 15 degrees.

The table saw is fantastic. I can see why woodworkers like Kelly Mehler and Doug Stowe like it so much. It’s as big as a house, and it has a 5-horsepower motor, but you can easily do work with tolerances of much less than a millimeter! And there’s very little setup. You just fire it up and go. And unlike a router, it’s trustworthy and cooperative. Routers like to bite your work and shift around. They’re a lot harder to use well.

I started by making the supports. I ripped a two-by-four down to one inch in height, and then I peeled two one-inch strips out of it. Then I had to figure out how to make the dadoes. I finally decided to rip a piece of long scrap at 15 degrees, rest it on a miter gauge, clamp other scrap to it, and use the result as a sled. Those Irwin clamps are perfect for this purpose. They’re strong, but they’re so small you can put three of them on a gadget like this without worrying that they’ll be in the way of the saw.

I clamped a stop block on the sled, made initial cuts, put a 1/8″ thick piece of aluminum against the sled’s stop block, and ran the supports through again. This gave me two 1/8″ cuts in each support, joining to form a 1/4″ dado which crossed through the supports at just the right angle.

I had no 1/4″ thick lumber, so I sawed a two-by-four down until it was narrow enough to resaw, and I ripped two 1/4″ sheets off of it. Then I cut them in two, stacked them, and cut wedges from the stacks using the miter saw. I was able to cut four wedges at a time. Keith Rust used a band saw and a jig, but I have no band saw.

The rest of the job is trivial, to steal a phrase from math and physics. I have to screw in some hooks, add grippy stuff to the wedges and supports, and cut very simple dadoes in the supports. I forgot to cut those tonight. I could pop them out on the router in a hurry. I also have to add some adjustable screws to hold the wedges in place.

Man, what a sense of satisfaction I feel. I lacked the tools you would ordinarily use to do the things I did, but part of the beauty of woodworking is using the innate versatility of your saws and drills and routers to overcome challenges like those. And the whole point of making this thing is to enable me to use one tool to do the work of another. I’ll be making straight stock with a thickness planer.

This was a good day, all around. My sister called just to thank me for cooking, and she said it was the best birthday she could remember. She said I should market my cheesecake. I reminded her that in a way, I already had. It’s in a book, after all.

I have my eye on a band saw, but it’s too big. Some guy on Craigslist is apparently dissolving his business; he has a bunch of tools for sale. One is a big Shop Fox 19″ saw. What I really want is a 16″ or 17″ saw, and I’d love to get my hands on a Walker Turner. But if a bigger saw comes along, and it’s cheap and local, why not get it? The floor area it will take up is about the same, and it will be more versatile and last longer.

I think a band saw will round out my wood tools very well. There are a lot of little things that are hard to cut safely on a table saw or miter saw.

Dust collection doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem as I thought. As long as I’m willing to wear a mask and drag the shop-vac around, I don’t make an unmanageable mess, and I don’t breathe in much crap. Maybe I don’t need a cyclone. Maybe a regular old dust collector with a very long hose will work, as long as the motor is big enough to overcome the resistance from the hose.

Tomorrow I fully expect to prepare a piece of wood to be made into a box. I am not willing to blow a lot of money, so I may use scrap spruce or go get a piece of cedar at Home Depot. As always, you will be informed of all the fascinating developments.

Versatility is Now Relatively Cheap

I am just starting to understand how wonderful a variable frequency drive (VFD) is.

While I was reading up on band saws, I noticed that Grizzly made a fairly inexpensive saw that cut both wood and metal. Naturally, I had to check into it. It turns out they take plain old wood band saws and add 3-phase motors and VFDs to them. That’s it. That’s the whole secret.

This is interesting, because while I was shopping around, it occurred to me that I might be underbuying by getting a saw that wouldn’t cut metal. I have plenty of metal-cutting technology, but it seems to me that there are some things a bandsaw could do that other types of tools can’t. Imagine cutting a lap joint into a bar of metal. I have no idea why you would want to do this, but you might. You’d need a bandsaw or a milling machine.

It seems to me that a metal-cutting bandsaw could function as a crude mill for some operations. That would be a nice capability to have.

It occurs to me that if I get a big ol’ wood band saw, the worst-case scenario for metal is that I might have to find a used motor and VFD later. That would sure beat forking out for a new saw and selling the old one.

Isn’t technology interesting? And I wonder if VFDs will drive the price of used metal-cutting saws down, too.

As for my earlier idea, about buying a bench drill press and adding a column, the wisdom of the approach seems to depend on the model. For a Delta, it’s cheap. For a Powermatic, a new column can cost something like a thousand dollars. Why? Search me. Maybe they’re made of gold.

My Brilliant New Plan

Here’s an interesting question.

I have noticed that used bench drill presses sell much cheaper than floor models. The same drill press, I mean, except the column is half as tall. But replacement columns are cheap. You can get one for between fifty and a hundred bucks.

SO…why not buy a bench drill press, save money on the buy and shipping, and then slap a new column on it?

I found an old Delta bench press online cheap, with a 1 HP motor. And NOBODY seems to want it.

Once Again, Bacon Comes Through

I have highly useful information.

A while back, I spotted a bag of Roegelein bacon scraps at Gordon Food Service. Naturally, I pounced. This is wonderful bacon. But it was getting old, and I hadn’t finished it. So I put it in a Pyrex dish to render the grease out of it. I got it started in the microwave, and then I baked it, covered, at 175-250. Mostly 175. At then end, it was dark brown and slightly crunchy, with kind of a glazed appearance. I realized…this is the perfect crust for my barbecue beans! Next time I make them, I’ll put about half an inch of this stuff on top before I bake it.

It’s really good.

Mere Mortals are Undeserving

My sister’s birthday is this week, and tonight my father and I planned to take her out to eat. Problem: my dad had a couple of skin cancers burned off, and he does not consider himself presentable while they’re healing.

SO…

Champagne chicken and strawberry cheesecake. I just bought the stuff. Florida berries are in season, so they’re good and they’re cheap.

Don’t you wish it was your birthday? We’ll be hogging down chicken and fettuccine and Champagne, with garlic bread made from a sourdough baguette. Then comes the cheesecake. Too much.

In other news, I have gotten some drill press info. I located a Buffalo #18 press, which at this point is my absolute favorite kind. It looks very nice, and it has the lamp, which usually gets lost. It’s 3-phase, which means I have to spring for a VFD, but I planned to do that anyway, so I could bypass the belts and get a good low speed.

Tool people: what do you think is a fair price for one of these things? Shipping will run me a little over $300. If I could get it here for $550, I wouldn’t feel violated. On the other hand, if it was local, I would hope to do considerably better.