Why WW pubs look down on SS?

[JPG]

Labor is the largest controllable cost, but if you're talking how much potential savings are out there you have to look at labor cost as a percentage of total cost. Larger, less complex products usually have the lowest labor content. Something like a SS, how much labor does that take? You've got some cast parts, some parts fabbed from sheet metal with simple brakes, electrical components and a few parts that could be machined in-house. In a well run factory you might have 10 to 15 hours per unit and that's being generous. At $20/hr that's $200-300. Add 50% for variable OH, mainly benefits, so you're at $300 to $450. Not chump change but not a game changer when you factor in the cost of capital projects to cut hours or logistics and headaches to outsource.

I still maintain wages aren't the real reason for outsourcing to China.

Keep uncle sam and his underlings out of the picture and see what happens to 'costs'.

[nil]

The raw piece was too long to use the rip fence where I needed to cut off to have the maximum length that would fit in my van.

I clamped a loose ikea shelf to the bottom and actually ran it against the extension table. In retrospect, I should have done this on both sides.

I have used this method successfully in the past to cut down an ikea toddler bedframe from "unique to ikea" size to standard size. That was no problem, but it was also free of knots.

In this particular case, I was cutting off the largest defect in the walnut as close to it as I could get to keep the length I wanted. The blade was relatively new and definitely sharp.

To the powerpro's credit, I would bet on a different machine, it wouldn't have sensed the problem and wouldn't have cut power to the blade itself and maybe instead a circuit breaker would have popped or maybe worse stuff would have happened inside.

I did not attempt the *exact* same cut on the sawstop table since obviously I had already cut the piece with a hand saw before moving, but it was pretty much cake for a hand saw. I used a dewalt 18v cordless circular saw to give me a head start on half the thickness and it needed a fresh battery to just get through half thickness, and it took more than one attempt.

I think having hundreds of pounds of wood is a lot for anyone to guide through fully supported, even with help, so I don't fault the mark 7 here, but in this case my effort would have been better spent starting with the hand saw rather than trying to arrange all the extension tables for infeed and outfeed support since the circular saw + hand saw on the second slab was about as fast as all the time I spent trying to set up the mark 7.

I know the rest of the project will be no problem for the thing since all the pieces are now a manageable size and weight, but starting with a slab that is larger than two inches thick and more than 24 inches wide at its widest and 110 inches long was a lot to ask the mark 7 to do without any supplemental tables. I am guessing if I had twice as much table on both sides of the mark 7 as it comes with, I would have had a much more successful experience -- and probably safer.

[algale]

The raw piece was too long to use the rip fence where I needed to cut off to have the maximum length that would fit in my van.

I clamped a loose ikea shelf to the bottom and actually ran it against the extension table. In retrospect, I should have done this on both sides.

I have used this method successfully in the past to cut down an ikea toddler bedframe from "unique to ikea" size to standard size. That was no problem, but it was also free of knots.

In this particular case, I was cutting off the largest defect in the walnut as close to it as I could get to keep the length I wanted. The blade was relatively new and definitely sharp.

To the powerpro's credit, I would bet on a different machine, it wouldn't have sensed the problem and wouldn't have cut power to the blade itself and maybe instead a circuit breaker would have popped or maybe worse stuff would have happened inside.

I did not attempt the *exact* same cut on the sawstop table since obviously I had already cut the piece with a hand saw before moving, but it was pretty much cake for a hand saw. I used a dewalt 18v cordless circular saw to give me a head start on half the thickness and it needed a fresh battery to just get through half thickness, and it took more than one attempt.

I think having hundreds of pounds of wood is a lot for anyone to guide through fully supported, even with help, so I don't fault the mark 7 here, but in this case my effort would have been better spent starting with the hand saw rather than trying to arrange all the extension tables for infeed and outfeed support since the circular saw + hand saw on the second slab was about as fast as all the time I spent trying to set up the mark 7.

I know the rest of the project will be no problem for the thing since all the pieces are now a manageable size and weight, but starting with a slab that is larger than two inches thick and more than 24 inches wide at its widest and 110 inches long was a lot to ask the mark 7 to do without any supplemental tables. I am guessing if I had twice as much table on both sides of the mark 7 as it comes with, I would have had a much more successful experience -- and probably safer.

Still confused. Were you ripping or cross-cutting the board when it bogged down the Mark 7. I assumed ripping but now I think you were making a cross cut?

[JPG]

Some folks have a different understanding than I of what 'hand saw' means.




Sorta like 'push mower'.





Back in my 'day' push mowers did not have motors(or engines).





Neither did hand saws.




P.S. 'back then', we just called them saws. Variations were rip/crosscut/combination(not worth a damn!) and back.

[cincinnati]

I have a shop full of equipment and a Shopsmith with many attachments.
I only own and use one wood planer, the Shopsmith. At the time it was the only 120 volt unit other than the Makita benchtop. The Shopsmith planer is a workhorse and I love it.

I can hear you guys gathering and getting the rope so if I going to get lynched let me ask a question.

If you had the money of the cost of the new Shopsmith Mark VII, plus a SS bandsaw, plus a SS jointer, plus a SS planner and were not limited in your shop space.

Would you buy standalone or the Shopsmith. Be truthful now, I know most of you bought you SS at well below manufacture list prices. I'm saying you have the money and you must spend it on woodworking

I think if you are really honest most of you will say I would buy the standalone. And I say there you have your answer was to why more Wood Working mags don't do SS articles.

[nil]

Still confused. Were you ripping or cross-cutting the board when it bogged down the Mark 7. I assumed ripping but now I think you were making a cross cut?

Cross cut. Just to make the pieces short enough to load into the van to resaw on a larger bandsaw elsewhere.

On the subject of "hand saw" .. Yes, I know using a circular saw is not a hand saw. I finished the first board with a hand saw completely. The second board I just went to the max depth my cordless circular saw could do with the piece on the garage floor, and then I only had about 3/4" thick walnut to saw through for a 24 inch width with a hand saw after that.

I didn't even give the mark 7 a chance to re-prove itself on ripping the walnut, and instead i just took it to the location where I had access to a bandsaw with 12 inch resaw capability and two sawstop tables, but since I will be needing to cut several more pieces to make aprons and drawer fronts, it'll still get a workout coming up.

[keakap]

It will be difficult to build a box without any right angles, but I'll try

"Not so bad", I first thought. But when I looked at the drawings again to see how 'off-square' that box is, I noticed two sides are 2 feet but the other is 241 feet. Talk about yer odd angles!
Not to mention that a jig to make that thing would not only clear all the scraps outta yer own shop, but half the local lumber yard's stock as well!



;-)

[nil]

So I discovered what was wrong with cutting the giant slab of walnut...

Apparently it is possible to install the top safety guard on the shopsmith in a way that the splitter doesn't actually line up with the saw blade itself. This requires tweaks to how the lower guard is mounted on the shopsmith to line it up carefully. Since I am relatively new to having a shopsmith (less than a year) and it was my first time using the upper guard, I didn't think about it.

I realized the pieces didn't self align when I was using the riving knife for some multi-pass dado slots I was cutting into some poplar. The riving knife made it pretty obvious to me what was wrong, so now I am careful to line the saw blade with the riving knife every time I install the lower guard. Everything is smooth like butter on every cut now... even the remaining walnut that I had previously cut on a sawstop table (though the pieces are much more manageable size now -- I could still use better infeed/outfeed support for the original size they were).

Project threads for most of the projects I'm currently working will be coming soon.

[JPG]

FWIW there is an adjustment on the lower guard to set its seated position.