Featherboards Galore

Whats a new bandsaw good for you ask? Well its good for a lot of things, but one is making feather boards. I made the feather boards bellow out of some leftover willow I had laying around. They work on the router table, the tablesaw, and the bandsaw. O the joys of simple projects.

The one hour project

A project that I have in the works, is going to require some routing with a guide bushing. Back when my only router was PC 890, I picked up a nice guide bushing base that centers with a locator pin. About a year ago I switched to a Bosch 1617,  and sure enough when i checked the other night, none of the mounting holes lined up. The first thing the came to mind, was “crap I need to buy a new base“, but then I remembered I have a set of counterbores, after about an hour of marking, drilling, & counterboring I was back in business. I guess one of the benefits of being a woodworker & metalworker, is having the tools to make or modify other tools.

Sanding Joy

The bandsaw looked so lonely in the shop, I decided to but it a friend. Ok, not really, while a bandsaw is perfect for making curved cuts, it’s usually leaves a semi rough surface. Convex cuts are east to clean up with a sanding stick. Large concave curves can easily be tackled with a sanding stick. Small ones on the other hand, can be a real pain in my opinion, I only know of two ways to smooth them out, with an oss, or by hand. I’ve done it by hand for years, and to be honest, it kind of sucks, It’s fine for one or two curves, but for several it’s really annoying.

I’ve been wanting an OSS for years, and I had always planed to get the Jet JBOS-5, but when it came time, my local woodworking store only had the General 15-220, so Thats what I brought home. I also picked up the 3″ accessory drum.  I’ve been using it for a few days now, and i’m more than happy with it’s performance. The top has been ground very flat, and smooth.  The dust collection is excellent, and it’s also very quiet. So far I only have to minor dislikes. The insert hole had a slight bur that I easily cleaned up with sandpaper. A little less trivial is the fact that inserts are thinner than the depth of the dado they sit in, this a minor annoyance that can probably be addressed with the careful application of masking tape.

Wine Rack Pt. 6

I finished setting up the new bandsaw mealier this week, so last night i got back to the wine rack. The only thing worth reporting, is how I sand small parts like those in the rack.  When it comes to small parts, the only method I’ve found to give acceptable results, is “lapping”. Forget your power sanders, they will just round over the edges, even sanding blocks can be problematic, depending on the size of the parts. Next time you need to sand some small parts, find a flat surface and tape down some sand paper, you won’t regret it.

Bandsaw Joy

My wine rack project is on a little hiatus, while I set up the newest addition to my shop, a Rikon 14″ deluxe bandsaw. I have lived without a bandsaw for years,  because all my projects  where strait and kind of bland. The few times I’ve needed to make curved parts, I made do with router templates and my jig saw. Lately I’ve been making more curvy pieces, and it’s become obvious that a bandsaw is a necessity. after a few weeks of researching, I settled on the Rikon, because it meet my free primary requirements. It costs less than $1k, it runs on 120 volts, and it has an excellent re-saw capacity of 13 inches. Hopefully I will have it all tuned up, and ready to go by the end of the weekend.