Vinito Caleb
03-18-2017, 5:37 PM
Hi Folks.
I just joined and thought I'd post a verbose intro first with a few pictures to break things up a bit.
I am a machinist by trade, which has come in handy for upgrading & setting up my woodworking machines. When I was younger I did only woodworking, helping Dad & such, and dove down the metal rabbit hole in my late 20s. That's been my focus for forever it seems. But the past few years I've been putting off setting up a woodworking shop but I just can't ignore it any longer. I have 3 kitchens worth of cabinets I'm going to make, plus my house doesn't have a lick of trim in it from tearing it all apart remodeling the whole thing over the past decade or so. That and the continually growing to-do list seems to make it a no-brainer to get back into doing wood again in a major way.
My shop building is a detached 24' x 24' cinder block garage with decent 220 single-phase power run to it. It has a flat roof and has leaked most of the over 15 years I've lived here and I was planning on building a gable end roof on it soon, but I'm nearly tapped out with the upcoming other projects which are all on a rush timeline. So today I've been working on giving it one last coat of tar to buy me a few months of temporary (but hopefully) dry roof before I need to tackle the dang thing for good.
I've had a kind of decent 10" old Craftsman table saw for quite a while, but I decided it just wasn't stable and repeatable enough to keep up with what I need it to do. So about a year ago I picked up a used Powermatic 66 off Craigslist. It has 5hp 3-phase so I attached a phase converter and even with the de-rating it should offer up 3 of those original 5 horses, so that should be plenty of power for me. It certainly seems to have 10 times the poop of any other table saw I've used before so it seems pretty deluxe to me. The fence (Biesemeyer style) is OK but it seems that the face plates were designed to be warped at the clamp screws. One side was laminated particle board and needed replacing so I removed it. The other appears to be UHMW and I figure I'll machine new replacements from 3/4" maybe. UHMW is fairly inexpensive but the PM replacement part is sky high, thus my desire to just make my own. Anyway, I was ordering a few things from Grizzly the other day (more on that later) and while I was at it I picked up one of their tenoning attachments to check out. It seems like it might be OK but I've only given it a cursory look so far. The saw itself works like a champ - I've set it up so everythings straight and true to within a thou or two.
So here's a picture of that:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/mikeyphoto/PM66.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/mikeyphoto/media/PM66.jpg.html)
I had a little Woodmaster model 500 3-wheel band saw for several years and this new direction inspired me to finally make the motor mount and get it running. It's somewhat flimsy, wimpy (1hp) and not the smoothest thing, but it seems to work pretty well despite itself. It won't handle resawing large stuff, but it will be handy for nibbling things and cutting curves if I need it.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/mikeyphoto/BSaw.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/mikeyphoto/media/BSaw.jpg.html)
I have access to some rough-milled lumber from time to time and have a couple stacks of it in my own storage so I decided I needed a jointer. I was looking at investing in an 8" Grizzly parallelogram bed with helical cutterhead and almost went that route. But my space is kind of small and figured that the projects I can think of so far consisted of non-wide boards for the most part. And a nice little 6" Grizzly came up on CL for cheap the other day, so I figured I'd do that instead and picked it up. The next day I went ahead and ordered a spiral cutterhead from Grizzly (because... I set up the knives for the jointer & planer for the carpentry department at work and I've put in my set-up quota dangit). The "Grizzly" brand cutterheads you usually see orient the inserts parallel to the axis of rotation vs. a shear angle such as the Shelix offers. This one wasn't Shelix nor was it the typical ones I've seen offered by Grizzly. It appears to be a less expensive version of a Shelix (see pictures) saving a hundred bucks. Maybe a new Grizzly offering?.. I got it already and installed and tested it out last night. I must say I like the cutterhead immensely. When sighting down a fresh pass at a light source, you can kind of see "witness" lines between the insert edges I guess, but otherwise it's shiny smooth and very flat. I am certain I could use some more length on my tables so I plan to add some 12" (or so) extensions to it. That's not a tough project when you are surrounded by machine tools all day. Anyway, the jointer does indeed appear to take rough, ugly sticks and transform them into straight, flat clean stock. I never have used a jointer before so even though this one is small, it does well for what it is and I like it. By the way, my jointer is an older G1182 and the tech guy at Grizz said it wouldn't fit, but I bought it anyway assuming I could make it work somehow. The only thing I did was turning to shorten the length between the shoulders of the cylinder by .050", but during assembly it appeared that may not have been necessary and might have fit fine with the extra length due to clearance in the bolt holes. So anyway, decent jointer, new spiral cutterhead with new bearings. I'm good to go for a while - the table extensions will make it even better once that happens.
The cutterhead installed:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/mikeyphoto/spiral.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/mikeyphoto/media/spiral.jpg.html)
(The inserts looked "chipped" or something in the picture but they're not. They are sharp as can be.)
Cute little machine, but big enough to be of some good use:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/mikeyphoto/J1.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/mikeyphoto/media/J1.jpg.html)
So that's it for now. I have a HF dust collector I'll be putting together eventually too. My plan is to build a doghouse outside the building for that and plumb the duct work to it to cut down the noise in a major way. Also won't take up valuable floor space that way either of course.
Looking forward to participating in the forum. I will definitely learn a lot and I hope to offer something useful now and then as well. I already regret not coming here first before ordering my Forrest WWII blade with the special grind rather than just getting the more practical standard grind. It might be nice to have that flat bottom now & then but I'll probably just be cutting through almost all the time. Well maybe I'll do more flat bottom slots on purpose just to "justify" my choice a little.
More as the shop develops. At least I am able to do a few useful things with the stuff I've got as-is.
Vinito out.
I just joined and thought I'd post a verbose intro first with a few pictures to break things up a bit.
I am a machinist by trade, which has come in handy for upgrading & setting up my woodworking machines. When I was younger I did only woodworking, helping Dad & such, and dove down the metal rabbit hole in my late 20s. That's been my focus for forever it seems. But the past few years I've been putting off setting up a woodworking shop but I just can't ignore it any longer. I have 3 kitchens worth of cabinets I'm going to make, plus my house doesn't have a lick of trim in it from tearing it all apart remodeling the whole thing over the past decade or so. That and the continually growing to-do list seems to make it a no-brainer to get back into doing wood again in a major way.
My shop building is a detached 24' x 24' cinder block garage with decent 220 single-phase power run to it. It has a flat roof and has leaked most of the over 15 years I've lived here and I was planning on building a gable end roof on it soon, but I'm nearly tapped out with the upcoming other projects which are all on a rush timeline. So today I've been working on giving it one last coat of tar to buy me a few months of temporary (but hopefully) dry roof before I need to tackle the dang thing for good.
I've had a kind of decent 10" old Craftsman table saw for quite a while, but I decided it just wasn't stable and repeatable enough to keep up with what I need it to do. So about a year ago I picked up a used Powermatic 66 off Craigslist. It has 5hp 3-phase so I attached a phase converter and even with the de-rating it should offer up 3 of those original 5 horses, so that should be plenty of power for me. It certainly seems to have 10 times the poop of any other table saw I've used before so it seems pretty deluxe to me. The fence (Biesemeyer style) is OK but it seems that the face plates were designed to be warped at the clamp screws. One side was laminated particle board and needed replacing so I removed it. The other appears to be UHMW and I figure I'll machine new replacements from 3/4" maybe. UHMW is fairly inexpensive but the PM replacement part is sky high, thus my desire to just make my own. Anyway, I was ordering a few things from Grizzly the other day (more on that later) and while I was at it I picked up one of their tenoning attachments to check out. It seems like it might be OK but I've only given it a cursory look so far. The saw itself works like a champ - I've set it up so everythings straight and true to within a thou or two.
So here's a picture of that:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/mikeyphoto/PM66.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/mikeyphoto/media/PM66.jpg.html)
I had a little Woodmaster model 500 3-wheel band saw for several years and this new direction inspired me to finally make the motor mount and get it running. It's somewhat flimsy, wimpy (1hp) and not the smoothest thing, but it seems to work pretty well despite itself. It won't handle resawing large stuff, but it will be handy for nibbling things and cutting curves if I need it.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/mikeyphoto/BSaw.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/mikeyphoto/media/BSaw.jpg.html)
I have access to some rough-milled lumber from time to time and have a couple stacks of it in my own storage so I decided I needed a jointer. I was looking at investing in an 8" Grizzly parallelogram bed with helical cutterhead and almost went that route. But my space is kind of small and figured that the projects I can think of so far consisted of non-wide boards for the most part. And a nice little 6" Grizzly came up on CL for cheap the other day, so I figured I'd do that instead and picked it up. The next day I went ahead and ordered a spiral cutterhead from Grizzly (because... I set up the knives for the jointer & planer for the carpentry department at work and I've put in my set-up quota dangit). The "Grizzly" brand cutterheads you usually see orient the inserts parallel to the axis of rotation vs. a shear angle such as the Shelix offers. This one wasn't Shelix nor was it the typical ones I've seen offered by Grizzly. It appears to be a less expensive version of a Shelix (see pictures) saving a hundred bucks. Maybe a new Grizzly offering?.. I got it already and installed and tested it out last night. I must say I like the cutterhead immensely. When sighting down a fresh pass at a light source, you can kind of see "witness" lines between the insert edges I guess, but otherwise it's shiny smooth and very flat. I am certain I could use some more length on my tables so I plan to add some 12" (or so) extensions to it. That's not a tough project when you are surrounded by machine tools all day. Anyway, the jointer does indeed appear to take rough, ugly sticks and transform them into straight, flat clean stock. I never have used a jointer before so even though this one is small, it does well for what it is and I like it. By the way, my jointer is an older G1182 and the tech guy at Grizz said it wouldn't fit, but I bought it anyway assuming I could make it work somehow. The only thing I did was turning to shorten the length between the shoulders of the cylinder by .050", but during assembly it appeared that may not have been necessary and might have fit fine with the extra length due to clearance in the bolt holes. So anyway, decent jointer, new spiral cutterhead with new bearings. I'm good to go for a while - the table extensions will make it even better once that happens.
The cutterhead installed:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/mikeyphoto/spiral.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/mikeyphoto/media/spiral.jpg.html)
(The inserts looked "chipped" or something in the picture but they're not. They are sharp as can be.)
Cute little machine, but big enough to be of some good use:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/mikeyphoto/J1.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/mikeyphoto/media/J1.jpg.html)
So that's it for now. I have a HF dust collector I'll be putting together eventually too. My plan is to build a doghouse outside the building for that and plumb the duct work to it to cut down the noise in a major way. Also won't take up valuable floor space that way either of course.
Looking forward to participating in the forum. I will definitely learn a lot and I hope to offer something useful now and then as well. I already regret not coming here first before ordering my Forrest WWII blade with the special grind rather than just getting the more practical standard grind. It might be nice to have that flat bottom now & then but I'll probably just be cutting through almost all the time. Well maybe I'll do more flat bottom slots on purpose just to "justify" my choice a little.
More as the shop develops. At least I am able to do a few useful things with the stuff I've got as-is.
Vinito out.