PeteM

For Father's Day, delivered to Son in Law, one folding workbench per request. He's a keeper.

Instead of oak....bamboo?

H-degree is worth anything now? Hunh. I have typical engineer's attitude toward the courses I took to keep my GPA above water. Of course my daughter got a degree in art history. But then she makes more than I do. And she's part time. I've found few careers where the degree really made the career. Some careers are carefully crafted to eliminate those w/out degree (medicine), but the degree seldom guarantees competency. Someone builds and maintains robots, but it's usually not the poor shlub who got replaced by the robot. OTOH, what we're seeing isn't at all new (try finding a buggy whip), but the velocity of it is stunning. The I-phone is only 11 years old. Happy Birthday, job killer!

HD clerk tells me Sherman Williams bought minwax, and has decided that Lowes will be their only horse, so HD switching over.

I use pine a lot. I haven't found that much pitch in it, either the "select", "common" or stud KD (kiln dried). I used KD pine to mock up my den doors; final material was red oak. It doesn't sound like you need to do much mock-up for counter edging. Wouldn't just a few straights tell the story? Then you'd only have to test the oak for tear out and similar species-related issues?

can't resist

Alexa, what's a "keyboard"?

Full media press here: paper, radio, TV. Bravery and a Sargent's boot sole emptied those boats! And some kid with a gold bar that got to be first.

Sooner or later the bark comes off anyway, right? Now = Later.

Three words: storage, storage, storage. You rarely lose big tools (you often stub your toe on them), but it's the little things that drive you nuts. Three ideas that I found handy: Left: "juice and screw": I drink orange juice in these small containers (balancing carefully between sore gums and diabetes). I now have 50--60 of them, mostly devoted to screws. I had no idea how many/type/size/ color screws I had, and as a result kept buying more. Middle: that's a blue pencil box (Amazon): this one for jigsaw blades (again, a dozen blade packages in various places); I have about 14 pencil boxes now, assigned to various tools; don't forget the mandatory "misc". Right: more small juice bottles (with screws: this cupboard is for outdoor/house stuff, not woodworking); the larger containers turned out to be perfect for installation stuff where you buy 4 to install 3; I have a lot of wire trellises to support bougainvillea, and the jar has wire connectors, S-clips, screweyes, etc. "one jar to hold them all, and in the darkness bind them". This took about 8 months to fruition, and now I have spare containers hanging around. The picture at right is mostly peanut butter and mayo containers.

They have the attitude that it is beneath them to scrabble for efficiency. That's why so many companies outsource: just too much trouble to do the job, like, "Management". They all just want to clip coupons rather than roll up sleeves. Of course, that's part of the story of why the stores are closing. It is interesting that very few novel ideas come from yesterday's success. The arguments about who gets which parking space drown out innovation.

I've tried several things here in Phoenix, including AC-ing a small area. Best solution is a small (300 cfm) evap cooler that you roll/point at your work area, which does mean it works a lot better for bench work. It doesn't change the humidity in the overall room that much, so not much rusting. It points at an area (position it about 5' from where you will be), and does feel better than just a fan. Got it HD for about $150. Reservoir of water (I'd use distilled) lasts about 2 hours, so it's not a permanent thing. Helps at times.

I'm in lust.

I've used both the clamp-on straight edge kit (they make a "rider" plate for a saw; I never tried that), and the Festool track saw. The Festy is very nice, but awful pricey (got mine as a gift). Looking at the Festy, there are some tricks used that could apply to any other solution: --Really good blade. Blade might be more important than saw! --They have adhesive rubber strips along both sides of the track; the strip on the blade side is installed maybe 3/16" past the edge of the track, and the blade shaves it with the first use. After that, the gasketing presses down on the cut edge which eliminates splintering of the edge. The gasket material grips the workpiece so I've never needed to clamp it. --I use the blue building insulation as a pad/base, and adjust the blade to score about 1/8" into the base. This really helps prevent splintering the edges of the downside. I cut my 2'x8' blue pieces in half for flexibility and ease of storage. --The saw blade comes up at the front, so you get a splinter edge on one of the four edges of the cut. Blue painter tape over that cut will give you four good edges if you want. --I still use a circ saw and straight edge for roughing out some pieces if it's too much trouble to break out the Festy, then do the finish edge on the table saw. --Dang saw (Fest) is calibrated in mm, and doesn't include the track offset, so I made my own table of "piece depth vs saw setting". That sped up the adjustment process. --I would conclude, given that I use the Fest maybe every one/two months, that buying it new wouldn't be worth it. You can buy a lot of beer for $700. Well, "enough" beer.

I've edited a few (Scout, Engineering, hobby) newsletters in my (volunteer) career, and you quickly realize that there are no new topics, only new readers. So, you have to make up a mix of topics to interest a spectrum of readers. All zines then follow a pretty common pattern of such mixing. All zines return to the same topics periodically, looking for some new twist, but also recognizing that many current subscribers haven't seen it. The cycle is about 5--6 years for most "topic streams". I also found that readers are more "now oriented". A friend gave me about 30 back issues of zines (Wood, FWW, as I recall). I thought it was such a treasure trove!! Two years later, I took that stack, unread, plus a couple of my own stacks, to the local WW club, put them on a table and announced "FREE". Jumped back to avoid trampling. I still have collections of Wood and Woodsmith (having dropped, oh, four? other subs), and will eventually dump them on Timber WW in Mesa, with a "free" sign. I keep a few special interest issues (the mil toys from Wood, and construction toys), but only until I have time to scan the articles. Paper is soooo yesterday. Some many years ago, I used to attend educational seminars. My criteria was to come back with just ONE good idea to implement ("kaizen"), because anything more than one is too diffuse. Now, in each zine I also look for just one good idea. When a couple issues have gone by and I don't find one, I don't renew. W and WS have managed to survive that system. I've got several CDs of past issues, but don't use them (getting more difficult for computer to read them). Thumbdrive a bit more convenient, but I suspect simply subscribing to archives (if attractively priced) would be more efficient, if I ever feel the need to look for something specific. Up to now, web search on a build topic often coughs up free plans, but at worst $15 covers most projects needed. Have more empty cupboard space, too.