Shopsmith Forums

Another week, another change in the weather. Wednesday started with snow (about 2"), then snow pellets, then freezing rain, then snow, then more freezing rain. Today it is just above freezing so the mess is melting. I guess winter is around the corner.

I have several things going at once in preparation for the show next Sunday. As usual, I had a mishap working on the oak doll cradle. I thought I would use my SS as a router to form a 1/8" round over on the pieces. Set it up, tried a test piece on scrap oak, everything worked fine. Tried a GOOD piece, and immediately took a chunk out of the edge. After several unprintable words, I decided to salvage it by routing (using my router & table) a 1/4" round over with a bit of a profile edge. Of course that had to be done on all pieces so some minor modifications had to be made.

I'm also working on a couple of indoor decorative snow men and Christmas trees that stand about 35' tall. They both have a set of 35 lights to highlight them. While the snowmen are white with painted detail, the trees are green and decorated with small items. One of the details I sometimes miss, is drilling all of the holes. Of course we find this out at the end when we try to string the lights. I swear I counted the right number when drilling.

My painter lady arrived back home but seems to be focussing on choosing colours for the home renovation instead of getting back to painting the remaining Mr. & Mrs Frosty. Obviously she has her priorities mixed up, but I would never tell her that. She also will be painting and decorating the above mentioned snowmen and Christmas trees, I hope.

Everything will be going right down to the wire for the show. Especially since I have to take a few hours off starting at 6:00pm to watch the Grey Cup, our version of the Super Bowl.

It is supposed to be an East vs West championship, but one eastern team folded so a western team (Winnipeg, Manitoba) was moved into the Eastern conference to even the schedules. Wouldn't you know it, they made it to the big game so we have two teams from the prairies battling it out for the Canadian championship. First time in about 75-100 years of this event.

I found the posts on the lathe chisel sharpening interesting as I tried to sharpen mine by hand with poor results. I guess I should look into the Strip Sander accessory.

Have a good week!

John

Wow! It's Wednesday already! How the weekend flies by, when you're having a wonderful Holiday. With all of the recent posts - the weekly blog was almost hidden.

It was a mixed week for my shop. Had two projects going. A gift and shutters. Here was a problem it trying to alternate between tools. Finally gave up and finished the candle holders, while the shutter parts took over a storage shelf. (In reality, littering the benches). Pix of the candle holders attached. These are from Woodsmith Magazine. They are made from 1/8" walnut sandwiched between poplar cutoffs. The only hard part of making the candle holders is clamping the unit while bending the cold walnut. A 3x3" block of poplar was sliced with the bandsaw and thin walnut glued and pressed into the slice. This slicing was done 4 times. Then the unit is squared again and shaped with bandsaw and sander.

The other day, I decided to use my Overhead router to make the mortise and tenons for the shutters. As I have said earlier, the OPR can be a complicated thing to set up. This time it took a little over an hour to get things set right. My major problem is the height of the table. I can see that a small bottle jack, like Nick uses would be a real time saver. Did a test cut for a mortise and it did the job extraordinarily well!

While I'm at it - can't resist commenting on the recent rush to strip sanders. I certainly won't deny it is a very good machine. I'm sure anyone buying a new strip sander will be very pleased with it's performance, but how did folks get sharp tools before the strip sander? Is there another way?

In a wood carving class - the instructor had all of the students make a strop for keeping sharp tools. The strop is nothing more than a block of wood (about 3/4" x 3" x 12") with leather from Tandy glued to each side. One side has the rough (inside of leather) side out. This side is occasionally rubbed with white rouge. The other side of the strop has the smooth side showing. This is the finish/polishing side. Any tool can be stropped on this block. Another method of polishing an edge is to buy one of those little leather wheels and mount it on the SS. With a little polishing compound this becomes a very effective strop. There is also the glass and very very fine wet dry sanpaper method.

Also - need to mention I am entirely through with trying to brag about the weather here. It got down to the teens early last week and the lows were in the 20's most of the week. Bummer, trying to get into the shop in the mornings:( .
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Chuck,

I loved the candle holders. Very nice method and results!

"While I'm at it - can't resist commenting on the recent rush to strip sanders. I certainly won't deny it is a very good machine. I'm sure anyone buying a new strip sander will be very pleased with it's performance, but how did folks get sharp tools before the strip sander? Is there another way?

In a wood carving class - the instructor had all of the students make a strop for keeping sharp tools. The strop is nothing more than a block of wood (about 3/4" x 3" x 12") with leather from Tandy glued to each side. One side has the rough (inside of leather) side out. This side is occasionally rubbed with white rouge. The other side of the strop has the smooth side showing. This is the finish/polishing side. Any tool can be stropped on this block. Another method of polishing an edge is to buy one of those little leather wheels and mount it on the SS. With a little polishing compound this becomes a very effective strop. There is also the glass and very very fine wet dry sanpaper method."

Chuck,

Of course there was life before the strip sander. As it turns out a lot of life depending on how long ago you started the process and how many things you tried.

The "other" sharpener guide that shopsmith has is useful in keeping the angles and the sandpaper gives an OK finish for some tools and operations. (I will not go back to the early days before that guide and what we had to work with. If you happen to have some one of the early editions of the PTWFE you can check it out.)

Some tools require a finer edge and in my case that is sandpaper on optically flat glass. Again depending on what you want you can stop any where along the path. For me the "best" I can do is 2000 grit with that system. I have a 1x30 strip sander (non-shopsmith) with a leather belt. I don't know how to classify anything beyond these points, they are "scary sharp" already even before the leather.

The process is a lot faster with the strip sander even if I can only go to 1200 grit paper. And the 42" leather belt is a good addition. You can also get the "blue" belts for major material removal... axes to lawn mower blades to somehing way at the end of the alphabet....

And besides the stip sander is a very nice addition to the shop for other wood sanding operations.

The 1x30 machine I have is more of a toy... way under powered and needed to be replaced... but somehow it still is hanging around the shop for what it can do. If and when I get a second shopsmith stip sander I promice to get rid of it.

One other side note. Not all tools work best at the shapest they can be. Not all tools can hold edges this sharp. "Defects" sometime appear when you have a mirror finish but they may or may not be defects. On tools with flats on one side like plane irons the back must be polished as well. And lots more but I've got other things to do then to go into much more detail.

Ed

I like the candle sticks! What issue were they in? I have back issues but currently don't get any new ones... so I might have access to see some of the details. If not I might have a few questions for you. I have a couple of piece of left over walnut sitting out in the shop waiting to be built into something small, this could be their chance.

I have a temperature probe in my shop and can read the temperature sitting here at my computer table... it says 49.7 deg. I sometimes work at that temperature but the things I can do are becoming limited.

Ed

Chuck:

That's another fine job on the candle holders! I really like the contrasting wood and wavy lines.

As already asked, what issue of Woodsmith did the design come from? I currently subscribe but don't rembember seeing this item.

John

Hi again! The candle holders are in issue #156 of Woodsmith. They also show square blocky ones. I made the set of three some time ago - wife didn't like the square shapes - so I put them on the lathe and made barrels. She O.K.ed those. That's pretty good because she doesn't like candles.

I think you guys can make more graceful sweeps and curves than my candle holders had. Should have used a french curve to draw guide lines, but instead I just free sawed them. I would glad to answer any questions - anytime!

Thought a little contrariness would attract an answer or two. No more to say on that subject - Go! Strip Sander!:) Hope more tell about their newer projects/problems/accomplishments on this weekly blog!

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Hi Chuck,

That issue is to new for me. Unless I picked up local, which could be but is not to likely.

Say speaking of sanding stations I heard they might be on sale for like $50 off and that they make come with a few extra thown in. I didn't get the email but I say it at the yahoo group.

Ed

reible wrote:Hi Chuck,

That issue is to new for me. Unless I picked up local, which could be but is not to likely.
Ed

To be more specific it is Woodsmith - Annual volume 26 - Number 156 - page 20 http://www.woodsmith.com/issues/volume-26/