What did you do in your shop today?

Finally had a day off I could play in the shop... Had seriously ugly storm yesterday. Supposedly tornado on the ground a little west of us, lots of rain here. Woke up to more rain this morning, somewhere around 3 1/2 - 4" in the gauge. Was headed out to the shop when the power went out! So I wandered around in the dimly lit, powerless shop for awhile wondering what I could do. Was looking at shelves contemplating what to do with them when I remodel, and spied a pile of planes sitting there. Decided to sharpen planes since I could do that in front of the window.

Sharpened up 3 planes, got them all properly adjusted, turned a scrap piece of 1x6 into a almost 1x4 in the process. Then grabbed the 12 piece carving chisel set, (cheapy off Amazon, they were ground, but not sharpened), and my wood chisel out of my Carpenter belt, and sharpened all of them too.
 
Ended up in the basement shop for a couple hours tonight. Decided to do a little work on getting the restoration done on the 1938/39 Delta 24" Scroll Saw I have been restoring. It's almost done. One of the last things I need to do is standoffs for the belt guard. They're hard to find, and expensive if you do find them. So I decided that I'm making my own. Got the front two done tonight. Have the back two to make still, but needed to get the front two done first so I could get some measurements for the back ones.

First I cut some aluminum 5/8" rod to a little over length. Then, using my Taig Mirco-Lathe and the pieces mounted in a collet chuck I squared up the ends and trimmed down to length.

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Then, since I have a tap and die holder that mounts in the MT2 of my tailstock, I did the drilling and tapping on my wood lathe, even though I could have done at least the drilling on the Taig (but not the tapping, since I don't have a tap holder for it yet). Started with a center bit.

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Then drilled and tapped. Used a 1/4"-20 threaded bottoming tap. Drilled and threaded both ends, but not all the way through.

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Now, these standoffs would normally be steel and have a turned down threaded stud. With the reality that the aluminum may possibly give me fits and snap the threaded stud off either while forming the threads with a die or while holding on the belt guard, I opted to instead drill and tap a hole and install a long set screw to create the threaded stud.

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And both done, with studs seated with some loctite, and a quick brushed finish.

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In place.

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And with part of the guard on so that I can get measurements for the other two studs. I'll detail those when I make them.

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Finally had a day off I could play in the shop... Had seriously ugly storm yesterday. Supposedly tornado on the ground a little west of us, lots of rain here. Woke up to more rain this morning, somewhere around 3 1/2 - 4" in the gauge. Was headed out to the shop when the power went out! So I wandered around in the dimly lit, powerless shop for awhile wondering what I could do. Was looking at shelves contemplating what to do with them when I remodel, and spied a pile of planes sitting there. Decided to sharpen planes since I could do that in front of the window.

Sharpened up 3 planes, got them all properly adjusted, turned a scrap piece of 1x6 into a almost 1x4 in the process. Then grabbed the 12 piece carving chisel set, (cheapy off Amazon, they were ground, but not sharpened), and my wood chisel out of my Carpenter belt, and sharpened all of them too.
Glad you got a day off. I am getting ready to order some bees when the weather gets better. Reading about how busy they keep you I may want reconsider. Although one hive shouldn't be as much work as 1700.
 
A facetious reference to the 'blood' (juice) groove that some people put in their cutting boards.

Since these are for cutting cheese the closest equivalent I could think of was whey.

Just a poor attempt at humor, my apologies.
I think its actually a crumb groove - you sweep crumbs into the groove and dont contaminate other cheeses.... then when done just upright into the bin....:coffeenews:
 
Glad you got a day off. I am getting ready to order some bees when the weather gets better. Reading about how busy they keep you I may want reconsider. Although one hive shouldn't be as much work as 1700.

One hive would be easy! It's trying to turn 500 hives into 1500, while working 3 pollination contracts, and making honey, that gets interesting.
 
This Taig lathe that I've been using used to belong to my uncle. Sometime after he passed away my dad ended up with it. Already owning one that he had bought used, dad passed this one on to me. This is the first time I've used it - and I certainly plan to play around with it more in the future. Don't mind the green tape on the motor - it's covering up holes in the motor and I still need to make a motor shield to protect the motor from metal chips.

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I'm no machinist, but I've managed to get the job done on the other two as well. One side it drilled and tapped for 1/4"-20 and other other for 10-32. Drilled and tapped prior to turning down the diameter so I'd have the strength of the full rod to support everything during that process.

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These actually mount to the motor and replace a couple of the connections that hold the end bell in place.

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To mount the swing out belt guard.

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And, with that, restoration of this scroll saw is officially done - the only thing left is to get a new belt for it. I'll get pics of the whole thing sometime.
 
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@gman2431 @hdtran

Pictured, the Russian olive was in 4 pieces, but glued it together. Still has one seem but others mended well. The 2 part laminate bird's eye shows the split edge well and a little early white rot. The other piece was too thin to get the chainsaw grooves out, but the other side is great. Might just be a cool talking point some day.

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I'm nearing completion of my restoration of a Sprunger Brothers 8" table saw, so it was time to figure out where I was going to put it. This saw is going to reside in my shop space in the basement, giving me the ability to also do non-turning projects in the basement during cold winter months or hot summer days when it doesn't pay to heat or cool the garage shop. I wanted it mobile, so I can move it out of the way when not in use. I also wanted it to contain storage and a place for the sawdust to drop to/be collected.

Since it was 40 in the garage shop, I spent a few hours breaking down plywood and cutting dados and rabbets in the pieces. 40 was 20 degrees warmer than it has been in the garage lately! Helped that last night I drew up some plans for the carcass portion, which made all the table saw work go easily. Carcass is obviously out of plywood. I plan to put tops, drawer fronts, and trim on it made from Elm.

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And to give an idea of where I'm going with this. The portion on the right side will be level with the top of the saw, giving me an extension to the saw's top. The top of this saw is 17" wide, 20" deep, way smaller than I'm used to working with, so I wanted to at least extend the width a little bit - this will give me about 8" of extra width.

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Got into the shop for a while this afternoon. Continued working on the saw stand. Put in a dust chute that will funnel the sawdust towards a port that I can hook up to a shop vac. Installed casters. And got the tops made up - still need to sand and attach them. Wood is Elm.

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One board had some nail holes in it - and some bits of nail still in most of the holes. Decided to feature that in the top that will serve as the extension to the side of the top of the saw. Have more of the same board that will end up as some of the drawer fronts.

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I've always wanted to try my hand at making a knife. I've tried a couple times in the past with no success as I didn't have the right equipment, etc. This time, tinkering around in my spare time I finally pulled it off. It is not professional by any means and I didn't do all the necessary steps like heat treating etc. This is a piece of steel from an old saw blade. Next time I'll be a little more thorough and precise. But for tinkering around... I am impressed with it. And it did take an edge worthy of cutting paper. good enough. Nuff said.

Shalom!

Clay
 
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I've sold a few bonsai stands on Etsy the last 18 months and this attracted the attention of a large bonsai club in New Mexico. They have ordered 25 stands for their members to use in shows. Here are a few I finished and am shipping today. Each have feet to raise the stand by 1 inch. They wanted them to have some live edge and be a dark wood. The finish is three coats of orange shellac and three coats of Watco wipe-on poly. I really like the Watco and the ease of application with a cotton rag.

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