What did you do in your shop today?

Made a Vase & a lamp shade using Norfolk Island Pine. Shade is 11 1/8" diameter by 8 7/8" tall.
Vase in oil now. Shade in oil tomorrow after wood dries. Colors will be very vivid when oiled & polyurethane done.

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Built a quick shelf out of some 3/4" plywood I had sitting around to give the stereo in my shop a permanent home. Did a little cleaning. And did some sanding on a cutting board and a desk top. I hate sanding and everything in the shop is now covered in a layer of sanding dust that I'm going to have to vacuum up next time I'm out there...
 
HELLO!!! You just had a thread on the Modified Dust Collector System you built!! :whatever::whatever::whatever:

My random orbital sander has the stupidest design for a dust port that makes it impossible to hook up a hose. Even tried Rockler's universal small port hose kit and that won't stretch enough to work.

I'd have taken this thing back and gotten my money back for poor dust port design when I got it, except I got it for free with my miter saw! Bought the miter saw about 9 years ago. Mailed in the rebate form. 4 weeks later free sander was delivered! Been working great - except that whole poorly designed dust port that I haven't been able to find a solution to hook it up to either a dust collector or shop vac... Determined tonight, after about 9 years of use, that it finally needs a new pad.

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Melt some pvc tube to fit and leave the end round to fit the hose....
 
Or just get one of those ports that sits on the table close to where you are sanding with a wide opening to suck the sawdust out of the air. Tony
 
Melt some pvc tube to fit and leave the end round to fit the hose....

May have to try that.


Won't fit my sander, unfortunately.

Or just get one of those ports that sits on the table close to where you are sanding with a wide opening to suck the sawdust out of the air. Tony

Hey, I sand stuff larger than cutting boards! If that's all I sanded, a downdraft table would be in the works. This was a 2' x 5' desk top last night - I wasn't about to try and follow the sander around with a dust hose/port...
 
Put a blue blower motor in my fan. Worked great untill I put a screen mesh on front. It bogged out hard.
Oh well....back to the drawing board...
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Oiled the vase & lamp shade I made the other day! Looking GOOD!!!!
& woodturned another Norfolk vase & cut end grain slabs off a Florida Red Cedar log to make a bed side table fer a client.

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Had a go at some stabilizing !! Since it was a first time I went the cheap and nasty route. Bought a $ 20.00 brake bleeding kit, and finished off the jar of pickles.

First thing I had to do was take the pressure gauge apart and "zero" the needle, then it was on to the jar, a half inch hole and some hot glue got the fitting attached.
Hooked it up and the lid leaked, so some silicon around the top to act as an extra gasket and I'm good to go again. Well I got some bubbles but the hose collapsed!
Back to the hardware for some proper hose, it turned out it was cheaper to buy an air hose kit with a bunch of different fittings, so I hooked it back up and got lots of bubbles. Stopped pumping and almost immediately started losing vacuum, (I think this is normal as everyone seems to keep their pumps running ), anyway kept on squeezing until my wrist gave out, which wasn't near long enough.

Oh well a couple of lessons learned. A few good things along the way though.
1... I now have a proper hose and fittings that I can also use on my pressure pot.
2... The pickle jar seems to work.
3... Since I began I've found a web sight that has started importing cactus juice and aluminite here.

Anyway back to Ebay to look for a real pump.

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You can pull vacuum on a piece numerous times Walter. If the hand gives out just let it soak and hit it again tomorrow. And, the next day, and the next, until it quits bubbling altogether, or your piece no longer floats, or until you're tired of trying to pickle it. I've left them in there for weeks. All the vacuum does is speed up the soaking process by pulling air out of the wood. If you just let it soak in the cactus juice long enough, it will eventually penetrate.

On the leak down... I'd guess a lot of pots probably do leak down. I know my 1 gallon pot won't hold vacuum at all, I can pull it to 29 inches of vacuum and in 2 hours I'm lucky to have 15 inches. My 10 gallon pot on the other hand, I can pull to 29 inches, close the valves and walk off, and it will still have 29 inches of vacuum 3 weeks later. I know, I have forgot I dropped goodies in there a time or two, or was busy and didn't have time to mess with it, and 3 weeks later, go back and the gauge hasn't moved. It's an awesome pot!! Love it!!
 
I finished moving things to the clean side of the shop so I can close the doors while making lots of sawdust tomorrow.

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Ah, good. The coffee press will be happy there.
Good job.

:coffee1:
 
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