Everyone knows that fine saw dust can be bad for your lungs, but last weekend I learned about another saw dust danger the hard way. My shop dust collection isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough for now. I usually have some dust laying on the top of the table saw, Thus last weekend I thought nothing of it when I went to use my cross cut sled. It wouldn’t drop into the miter slot, so I bent down and looked down the slot. when it dropped in, I got a shot of large MDF dust particles in my right eye.
I got most of it out with the eye wash kit in the bathroom, but one or two chunks would not come out. By the time I was able to get to the doctor the next morning, I had a severely scratched cornea. For 2 or 3 days I could barely open my eye, but thanks the ointment the doctor gave me, I have since fully healed. While I’m fine now, the doctor warned me that I could have easily permanently damaged my eye. Thus next time you’re in the shop, make sure you keep in mind some of the other dangers related to sawdust.
While I was waiting for the Varnish on my end tables to finish drying, I made some lift top boxes for an important woman in my life. I’ve documented how to make them on my blog before, so I wont go into the details of their construction, instead I’ll share some pretty pictures I took of the Finished project. All the boxes are finished with a few coats of varnish & wax.
Peruvian Walnut sides with Maple keys.
Panga Panga sides with Purpleheart keys.
Quilted Maple lid
PurpleHeart lid
I freely admit I’m an accuracy addict, when I’m milling stock my calipers are never more than a few feet away. The only problem with my calipers, is that they are graduated in thousands of an inch,and while I know some of the decimal to fraction conversions I’m not in the shop often enough to memorize all of the useful ones. Fractional calipers can be had, but they are usually only graduated in 1/64ths and in my opinion that’s just not fine enough, so I never purchased one.
Fast forward to black Friday, and Berland’s House Of Tools. if you have ever been to Berland’s, you know it’s more of a contractors tools store. I wasn’t expecting to find anything spectacular, but while browsing the layout & measurement section I came across the little gem below. When I saw this baby i lit up like a 5 year old on Christmas day. A fractional caliper graduated in 1/512ths, yes please.
My first, and hopefully not my last attempt at resawing & bookmatching. The panel is kind of thin, as it started off as 4/4 stock. After two rounds jointing, planing & sawing it came in at a little over 3/8″.
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.
counterboring
