Machinery, Tools, Research, Reviews and Safety

Does anyone here have any experience with ToolKraft shapers? Someone near me has one that needs some work, but it's only $50. Parts are still available for them from what I've found online. I also read that ToolKraft made machines for a number of companies, but I'm wondering if they were decent machines or something to stay away from? Any thoughts?

The $45 nut https://muellerco.com/product/woodpeckers-dado-nut-for-sawstop-table-saws/

I think Gene Howe will remember a Texas Bandsaw...that Gary gave me a long time ago....well. the current motor has started having "Issues".. and will need replaced.. IF you can get the breaker in the motor to not only reset, but STAY that way..it might run for a while....but.the next time you try to start it up...run, CLICK..DOA for the day So...the hard part will be getting this motor out...last time, I needed a floor jack... I do have a "spare".. That will need cleaned up and oiled up...test drive? If you didn't have your foot on top of the motor, you'd never know it was running....nice and very quiet... …

Just a quick little comment here. I love perusing the Facebook Classifieds, I never buy anything, but it's fun, I guess what I'm doing is yard sale hopping from my arm chair, anyway it occupies about a half hour of my day, I like to see old trucks for sale, antique furnishings, and during my perusing I have noticed that woodworking machinery seems to be tanking, the values. If there is a time to get into woodworking and anyone wants to out fit a shop with second hand, at least here on the left coast, the values are pretty danged low. I'm seeing quality Delta and Powermatic table saws for 5 or 600 bucks, and other machinery at a 1/2 or less of what they were boug…

A carving board for SWMBO has been on hold forever. I couldn't get it to lie flat without rocking. I'd been watching several models of router sleds and took the plunge this summer. Model 3002 is their smallest for full size routers. I also ordered their recommended bit. Total cost under $400. For me, this is a very good product. The price is reasonable and it does what they say it will do. I didn't have to use their customer service line, but reviewers have left positive comments. The directions for assembly are clear and straightforward. They stress to use this on a flat surface, so I used my table saw table. This model will handle proj…

Just a heads up if you are thinking of buying a Table Saw in the near future.

Anyone remember when these were the rage? One for sale here for $20

Need Help, not sure if this is the right forum, so please move if not. My daughter was given a large shopping bag full of drums for a drum or spindle sander, thought I could use them. This bag has everything from 1"x2" to 3"x3" all from Klingspor. I do not have a spingle/drum sander (not at this point). I am not familiar with them, do they have interchangeable drums? can you get drums to fit on a router? Educate me.

It appears that Festool has come out with a table saw, well a small one as it fits in a Systainer? Hard to get too much data on it. May not be available in US or Canada and might have some SawStop technology. Cordless job site saw? https://www.misterworker.com/en-us/festool/18v-4ah-cordless-table-saw-csc-sys-50-ebi-basic-576820/75577.html

My dad purchased a Harbor Freight Saw Blade Sharpener a couple months ago, and had a hard time setting it up. He stated that his ol brain just doesn't work the best anymore for this sort of stuff, not too mention typically HF directions can be a PITA. So he asked me if I could take it home and set it up for him and show him how to use it. Before I even read the instructions I looked it up on YouTube and it seemed a pretty straight forward contraption to use. It actually came pretty much assembled out of the box. All I had to do was tweak a few of the settings on it to bring it into calibration sort of, then the rest went along pretty smooth. I wasn…

A friend of mine is asking for help to rotate the cutters on his helical head Powermatic jointer. I knows that a 300 lb gorilla originally tightened the screws. He is asking if he can use his impact driver to help break the screws loose. What say you? Thanks in advance for you replies. Danl

I normally stick to the wood turning forum but I just had an unbelievable customer service experience and wanted to give kudos to the company. I bought an "Industrial Air" compressor at a local farm store in 2012. About a year ago the head gasket went so I bought a 3rd party rebuild kit and replaced it. Well, it blew again this morning. Rather than keep replacing it again and again I wanted to see if a new pump was affordable. Called the 800 number on my owners manual and the lady found what I needed and said they have it for four hundred(about) dollars. She then said, here is a company that has it for $360.00, hang on, Oh here it is, "Air Compressors Direct" has it for…

We had a new guy come to the woodworking club meeting last weekend. He went on about a product he developed called the "Mortise Master" as the Domino killer. I was a bit unimpressed as I've seen lots of articles, demos, and videos on similar type of things. It was a real deal at $249 for a couple of pieces of wood and plastic. I'll do a hard pass. https://www.mortisemaster.com/

I searched for Harvey table saw and had 0 results. I was wondering if anybody here has one. I just bought one today and it hasn’t shipped yet. I have watched a lot of reviews on YouTube and all are very good. I bought the table saw with the router extension table and dust collection box for the router. The only table saw I have owned so far is my wife’s dads from the 1960’s that is around 18” square. This one should be a big difference.

I was out of town last week but at the theater shop they were running a bunch of dados in some 2x4 when the table saw stopped working. It's a Jet contractor's saw with the motor out back. The shop manager, who's a pretty adept guy, kept trying to hit the reset button without success. He was afraid that they'd killed it. He was in yesterday looking at it again and discovered that the reset only worked if the thing was plugged in (or maybe it needed 5 days to cool down). Regardless, if you ever have that problem and it does not reset, plug it back in (or let it cool down for a couple days). If you don't know where the reset button is, RTFM (as we used to s…

I understand that Gene Howe modified his Ridgid OSS to lengthen the spindle. I am hoping that he, or someone else, can provide information such that I can update my machine. The part Gene had machined screws into the standard spindle to extend the length by 2 inches, enabling the use of standard 6 inch drums. The extension requires LH threads. Can someone spec this thread, or even better identify a shop that has made one? Gerry

Government regulation will change woodworking forever from your garage to the largest users of table saws. I am not taking any shots at SAWSTOP if you like one buy one but soon big brother will make you buy a SawStop or something just like it . This video hit YouTube less than one hour ago. calabrese55

We have been wanting to upgrade the surface sanding for some time. We have a couple projects coming up ( kitchen and stairs) that without a good sander will perhaps extend beyond my serviceable life span. We have been following Craigslist etc for some time now without much luck. They went on sale so my boss decided to bite the bullet. It was delivered today. It’s a 37” double headed Grizzly drum sander. The wiring and dust collection were a bit of work but now it’s time to install it. Paul

On a whim I ordered up an anonometer. Mostly due to the fact I wanted to see what the cfm was at the new drum sander. In the past I just figured it it what it is, but for 40 bucks it seemed good to know info. I have two 2hp dust collectors one at each end of my system. In tandem the greatest flow has always been in the middle of the run, getting the most out of both collectors. The outdoor collector has no bag, just a dome of window screen and the indoor one has a Wix canister system. When I put the anonometer up to the 4” hose at the sander it says 5100 ft/min. Calculating the 4” diameter of the hose as 12sq inches ( 1 foot of area ) times the flow in ft/min gives me 51…