Woodworkers Thread
- Thread starter AgronAlum
- Start date
So the top in the picture above started bowing and splitting over the last week and a half with the temp and humidity change and needs rebuilt. It was dead straight when glued up. I need to buy a moisture tester. Any suggestions on which one to buy?
Fair. I shouldn’t have used trash as a descriptor. DeWalt has massively improved in the last 5 years. But from personal experience they are still the “occasional use” type brand and won’t make it longevity wise. Now, I’ve HEARD that if you can manage to buy from a construction only retailer that DeWalts commercial tools are waaayyyy better than the off the self tools from Home Depot etc.
That’s a bummer there. I’ve had trouble with thin wide panels like that before. Now I don’t do anything like that without bread boarding the ends.
Bread boarding seems almost impossible without a good table saw and a dado stack, correct? Cutting a mortise that long seems pretty difficult as well. Is there enough material left on a 1 by that the tongue won’t just crack if the boards warp as bad as these did? If I put a straight edge side to side it’s probably a half inch of bow.
I think I’m just going to eat the cost and source some better wood this time. I’m going to weld up a metal frame for the underside to help keep everything in place.
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I normally do it with a handheld router when I do it. I have a slot cutting bit to cut the groove and a straight bit for the tongue. You can make a jig for your router to cut them both with a router though.
How deep do you cut the tongue and do you just use dowels to attach it or do you glue it?
Usually I use a 1/2” deep groove when I do it with the slot cutter. I haven’t used dowels on them before but I do want to try drawboring sometime though.
Barely qualifies for this thread, but I have this old gutted breadbox radio made by Globe Electric. I could just throw it away but it's still in pretty good shape and kind of a cool piece so I thought I might take a stab at cleaning it up and using it as a box for winter gear - gloves, hats, masks, etc. Would I need to do anything other than cleaning it, maybe a light sand and finish with linseed oil? The front panel is, I think, either acrylic or plexiglass. What's a good cleaner for cleaning that up a bit? Is there such a thing?
Cabinet shop closed and auction of their equipment in Marshalltown tomorrow (Sat, 11-7)
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Public Auction Sale: Furniture Manufacturing & Woodworkers Dream - Marshalltown , Ia
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Anyone have advise on sliding meiter saws? Re-building a deck next summer and am wondering what to get.
10" or 12"? Brand?
Thank you
10" or 12"? Brand?
Thank you
10” or 12” depends on how wide the boards are your planning on using, I’d look at the cross cut capacity and 45 degree capacity. As far as brands go if you can get a deal on a DeWalt, Milwaukee or Makita any of those would be fine.
I got a 10” ryobi compound sliding miter saw 5 years ago and it worked well. That one was good for the intro DIYer like me (I was a total noob back then). It had some minor accuracy issues but otherwise did the job with no complaints.
Home Depot has the ryobi 10” saw plus stand at $390. The DeWalt 12” saw plus stand is $550.If you can afford the extra $160 and you plan to keep this saw and use it, id go with DeWalt in that scenario with the “buy once, cry once” approach. If you don’t plan on doing much work with the saw and will occasionally use it, I’d go cheaper in that case, speaking for myself. I just replaced my Ryobi with the DeWalt but I do a lot of DIY and woodworking projects every year.
Where are the best places for wood supply in the DSM area? Am I stuck with big box stores for sanded plywood and hardwoods? Or are there other places. I don’t yet have a planet or jointer, so I need the pieces to be prepped when I buy them.
Woodsmith store has good quality wood, I'd start there. You are going to pay a little more for it though. You can also go to liberty hardwoods in Ankeny.
I ended up with a Dewalt 12” slider last year and it has done well but if you plan on moving it around, a slider is awkward and heavy so keep that in mind. It was around 350 at Christmas time. Blades are also quite a bit more expensive for a 12 vs a 10.
I know my family will borrow it from time to time. Would the 12 be too heavy to move in and out of cars ever so often
I have a ~10 year old Kobalt 10" slider that I'm pretty sure has enough slide travel to cut 2x12 lumber in one shot, and I think that's pretty normal. A 10" slider has a bunch more size capacity than a 12" pivot. I haven't really run into much that I thought it limited me on.
As far as brand, I'd suggest looking at some stuff in person to decide what you like and how much you're willing to spend. If you think it's going to just get used for deck and framing work you don't necessarily need the most expensive saw, because your cuts don't need to be as dead nuts accurate as if you are building cabinets or furniture.
When I bought mine it seemed like the stuff I really liked was 2-3x as expensive as the Kobalt; Kobalt seemed to have less play in the slide and a better fence/pivot setup than a lot of low-midrange stuff, so I decided to go cheap and figured I'd buy a nicer one if I wore it out. So far, it's still turning wood into sawdust, though the laser died pretty early on and it seems to have developed a tiny amount of play/backlash in the blade spindle that you want to make sure you keep the motor running as you retract the blade after making a cut if you're doing stuff that needs to be precise (probably wouldn't matter for building a deck... and for the record I've cut some steel and quite a bit of aluminum on mine, so it hasn't exactly been babied, and that may have been a factor in the spindle play). They've changed the design on the Kobalt saws since I bought mine (and I haven't really looked at anything else lately, either) so I have no idea how the current model stacks up
Woodsmith
And I couldn't agree more on the other comments.