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Congrats to all of those who participated in this summer's annual fund raiser. Thanks for the donations and the help in keeping our site alive. As @Gerald pointed out last week, we are in the summer doldrums. Not much turning taking place. This week's post is all about videos. Hope you find something interesting among them. Our Patriot Turners- What’s Coming Up- Something from Todd Raines- Click on the image for the link to registration. For The Newbies- A bandsaw is probably the turners second most used power machine. Kent Weakley offers this video for Bandsaw safety. As turners, we typically reach for the "old standby" tool for a specific task. Turning a spindle? Spindle gouge. A bowl? Bowl gouge. Here are videos that use some not so typical tools for turning- Richard Raffan- Craft Supplies USA- Expand Your Horizons- August brings another installment of the "4 Ways" series. This month the topic is turning a wheel. From Tim Yoder- A short video on using colors to enhance your turnings- New Turning Items- From Mike Peace, a 6Pc M2 Cryo HSS Woodturning Tool Set Review- Everything Else- From Ron Brown's Newsletter- In A World Full Of Problems, Be The Solution- There is plenty to complain about every day. I am issuing a 7-day challenge: every day for the next 7 days address a problem that has been bothering you and implement a solution. Here are some common challenges that every woodturner faces. I bet you can think of plenty non-turning problems you can fix too. 1) If you are having difficulty because your tools need sharpening and you are not very good at sharpening them yourself, find someone to teach you how to sharpen them properly. If you need a sharpening jig, buy one and learn how to use it. 2) If you always get catches with a skew chisel, watch some YouTube videos or spend a minute with someone who knows how this tool works. Then practice until you can show someone else without getting catches. 3) You always get torn grain on the inside of a bowl and sanding to remove them takes forever. Watch some videos on shear scraping and practice until you can sand the surface beginning with 180-220 grit. You might have to learn to use a negative rake scraper to get the results you expect. 4) You would turn more but the wood is too expensive. Visit the owners of a tree service company and make a deal to get free green wood in exchange for a few salad bowls. This is a perfect solution when you have more time than money. 5) Your shop has so much sawdust that you can’t walk. Take time to sweep up the shavings and save them for your flowerbeds. Be careful with each dustpan full, there might be long-lost treasures (spur drives, sockets, T-handle Allen wrenches, scroll chuck jaws and/or screws!) 6) Your scroll chuck is hard to operate, open, or close. Take time to disassemble and clean your chucks and jaws. Re-oil and reassemble. 7) The banjo sticks and is difficult to move. Clean and wax the bed ways often. I prefer ceramic car polish. Turning green wood coats them with a lot of moisture. You might have to do this every day or two if you turn a lot of wet stuff. 8) Your tools stick and don’t slide on the tool rest anymore. Dress the top of the toolrest with a file to remove the nicks. This is basic maintenance. 9) Turned-lidded boxes are always a crowd favorite with threads or without. You can use exotic timber, branchwood, glued-up blanks, or domestic timber, they all look marvelous. Practice until you can get a suction-fit lid or, if you are up for the challenge, learn to hand-chase the threads. 10) If nobody participates in show-and-tell at your turning club, bring extra things yourself. If you have trouble getting guest presenters, volunteer yourself. These are obvious issues, but the point is that someone has to do something, it might as well be you. Safe turning
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- richard raffanmike peace
- sam angelo
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I ordered this lathe a couple of months ago. Rikon was having supply chain issues. I believe this lathe has been unavailable for a year or more. Didn't take long to set it up. The semi driver couldn't get up my driveway so I took the truck down and loaded it up. That actually turned out to be a big advantage because I could slide the lathe out and onto the legs without having to lift it. I'm sure I'll feel it a little tomorrow but it wasn't bad at all. I tinkered with it a bit but it'll be tomorrow before I really give it a workout.
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Been meaning to post this for a bit now. On my sister's recommendation I purchased this Hart studfinder at Walmart. I think it was about $35. I gave it a whirl this summer while working in the garage and I have to say it performs great. Without a doubt this is the best (of 3 or 4) studfinders that I have used. The three center lights come on when you are centered over the stud. And a yellow light comes on if there is an electrical run in the wall. I found it easy to use and accurate. I used it on both the wall and ceiling in the garage. The directions say it will work with lath & plaster walls. I've not tried it on that to know for sure or how well it might work on that. Based upon my limited use this summer, for the price I give this two thumbs up.
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No, It's not Kangzilla or even a salt water croc. It's a VM150 Chuck from the land down under made by Vicmarc. This is a massive heavy duty chuck weighing in at 11.6 pounds with a 6" diameter. Accepts VM120 jaws giving it a very wide selection of jaws for many applications. Photo of EWT Zoom chuck sitting in a VM150. Note the size difference of the keys. Top View Made in Australia Requires a lathe specific adaptor to function. Notice the solid back...no dust in here. In use, I've noticed that it has a very low gear ratio. 1 revolution of the chuck key moves the jaws a shorter distance than the EWT for example. It also has a "Zoom" feature similar to the EWT but without the need for a "ring" with the chuck installed and the spindle locked simply rotate the body of the chuck to open or close the jaws. Short video showing this feature. https://youtube.com/shorts/emc-kZC5l4Y?feature=share Very smooth when running, perfectly balanced Cadillac ride. I'm very impressed with the equipment over all. The only lacking feature is easy change jaws. The EWT Zoom chuck has an advantage there. Like similar chucks with screw in jaws, they are numbered and correspond to a specific numbered location on the chuck. .40
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After quite a bit of consideration, I recently bit the bullet and bought a Veritas router plane kit and after using it on a couple of projects I have some comments. First, this is a really really useful piece of kit. I have routed out notches in my split top benchtop filler bar, cleaned up the bottoms of blind mortises, routed dados for ledgers, and dealt with some particularly stubborn grain on a couple of tenons. In each case, this has been a joy to work with. I bought the whole kit with cutters from 1/16” to 3/4” The larger cutters are two piece to facilitate sharpening with the clever flat extension included in the kit. I debated a lot between open and closed mouth router planes but the Veritas solves this problem by being able to swivel the cutter clamp 180 degrees and lock the cutter in place on what would normally be the back side. It is a compromise on the open mouth cutter for sure but it does work well. Adjustment of the depth and depth stop is straightforward and using some brass setup blocks, very precise. The pitch is 1/32” / turn so you can accurately dial in your depth of cut even if you aren’t using the depth stop. The fence is well constructed and a lot sturdier than it looks, it also has mounting holes for a longer fence piece if you need to make one. Definitely happy with this one.
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In my opinion some the open stand 6 inch jointers such as the Delta JT360, Jet JJ-6OS, General International 80-075L, Steelex ST1001, CraftexCT086, King CanadaKC-150, and probably a couple other brands that I may have missed, which all basically have the same type of open stand and dust collection setup where the dust port is directed very close to the floor of the dust chute, more then likely causing some air flow resistance and lowering CFM before it reaches the cutter head area. I feel that the port should be pointed in the direction of the chute's flow to be efficient. I had a JET JJ-6OS, and this is what I came up with for a more efficient dust hood.
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I located my old windows 2000 computer. I knew it was here but didn’t know where. It had a lot of old projects that I made & forgot this is a small vase that I made out of spalted Alder. I found this piece in my firewood. It has some great color & I just had to try.
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Working today on the drill press and the crank handle broke. The swivel just ended up in my hand. The other end cracked years ago and was temp holding with some epoxy. And of course the bushing is 12mm. So I probably can't find a generic replacement at the repair shop. Also a while ago the connection of the table broke (because the bolt was minimally long) and since it had an odd thread pattern, I just had to tap it out rather than spend $25 with them for a bolt with the right thread pitch and hope it was longer. Another tool from them is the jig saw that lost its setscrew to hold the blade. It's about 4" down a hole. They insisted the setscrew was 1/4" (another $25). Finally determined it was 6mm (must have gotten a deal on them at the factory and didn't let corporate know). But I had to buy a new allen wrench set to get a metric one that was long enough because the supplied one didn't fit a stock setscrew (49 cents). I did sell my band-disk sander before it gave me more problems. People seem to like their stuff but i've had nothing but problems, no more of their stuff for me.
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So this afternoon I wanted to do some more turning while I wait for my last project to cure. Either way I finally decided to try out my High Speed Steel spindel Gouges. I sharpened them up on my belt sander. Please keep in mind that I DO NOT HAVE A GUIDE, to sharpen the chisels. I do this all by eyeballing it. So I got started on my new project and gave the new spindelgouges out. So far I like them. I origionally bought the hole set for a cost of 76 dollars. For the handles the England beech wood feels great in the hand and is a really comfortable hand hold especially if the chisel decides to buck you've got a good firm grip on it. Overall length of about 10 inches. I'm only doing the review on two of the chisels since I have not yet been through all of them. Eventually I will be doing that. I believe it is the 1/4 inch bowl gouge and the 1/8 inch bowl gouges that I've used. Sharpened quite well they do hog off quite a bit of material. How ever I had a few catches (Please NOTE... I am not sure if this was due to OPERATOR ERROR in not having an exact proper angle on the gouge up against the work piece and tool rest). Either way at 76 dollars for an Artisan Chisel Set with 6 inch HSS blades. I'm not going to gripe and complain. I bought these a while ago and just now got around to using them. Would I recomend buying them yes. If you are on a budget buy its a bit of a jump cost but worth the money for an "In Expensive" set of chisels. Either way that's my 2 cents on the deal. I'll put up some photos in here of the work piece some of the wood shavings and chisels. My opinion they are good enough for me. Here is the web link I bought these through the Home Depot website. (Please CORRECT ME if I am wrong on the gouge sizes THANK YOU). https://www.homedepot.com/p/WEN-Artisan-Chisel-Set-with-6-in-High-Speed-Steel-Blades-and-10-in-England-Beech-Handles-6-Piece-CH11/308758879 Hope this helps for anyone looking for an in expensive set of High Speed Steel Chisels.
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I mean honestly guys should a hollowing tool handle be this big. Is it me or is this company over compensating for something???
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Has any of the websites actually taken table saws from each year and done comparisons on prices and performance based on the manufactures specs. Table saws,blades ,etc.....
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Interesting article. I, too, worked for Sears for a couple of years, but have become disappointed their products and customer service since.
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My table saw is a 1947 Delta Uni and is extremely accurate. I had been using a digital Craftsman miter and it did the job well but I wanted to upgrade my miter. I looked at several Incra models as well as the new Kreg KMS7102 and after reading the Kreg reviews, I opted to buy it. The pricing wasn’t hateful at $140 and I was hoping that it would be as accurate and repeatable as promised. The assembly took about 20 minutes and wasn’t rocket science. There are 5 adjustable nylon set screws that you tension the slide in the miter slot to get a nice tight but movable fit. In my mind, the best option on this miter is a flip down stop that really makes short work of accurate and repeatable pieces. I cut 4 3” pieces of oak off the stop and checked the lengths of all four with a digital caliper. There was only .006 difference in the length of all four. I can live with that. The angle of the miter cuts is set with a pin that drops into a pilot hole. That is, you turn the miter to say 45 degrees, slip the pin in the pilot to secure the position and the lock down the miter. I cut a 22.5 and a 45 and checked them with a digital protractor. Both angles were spot on. The only potential negative that I can see is that you must be careful not to lose the brass locking pin. Or buy a spare. My final word on the miter is that it proves to be as good as the reviews and it is made in the USA. Another plus.
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Introduction Dear folks, I am going to dive head first into creating forms for tools and machinery reviews as part of our projects list we created the other day. Please see this topic at: Input I am looking for your input as to what you want to see in a review for a Table Saw. I am embarking on the table saw arena for our first review form because it is the most popular purchase we make for our shops, and I feel it will help those who are ready to jump in and buy that first, or replacement table saw. I need your help. Fields For now, what I would like is some feedback from you regarding the information you need to see in a great review. Let me start and lead this off for an example, perhaps the fields that you are prompted to fill in may look like this on your table saw review form. Firstly we will have four categories with four different forms, the categories will be Contractor, Portable, Hybrid, Cabinet. Within those forms could be the following fields: Title (Brand of Saw) - text field Model No. - text field Image upload - button prompt to browse for image of table saw Design - 5 star rating Functionality - 5 star rating Price - 5 star rating Review Summary - text area with full editor Weight - text field Dimensions - text field Voltage - text field Wattage - text field Power Source - a drop down menu with choices (corded electric, battery, alternative fuel, human power) Basic Features - text area with full editor Design - text area with full editor Dust collection - text area with full editor Safety - text area with full editor Pros - text area with full editor Cons - text area with full editor Conclusion - text area with full editor I was able to glean the above ideas from this website https://www.toolnerds.com/saws/table-saw/portable/dewalt-dw745-review/ I don't want our review area to mimic the site I linked you too above, the list are only suggestions. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated, this will be your review department, you will be using it, so please think about what you would like to see in these review forms.
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I needed a quick workbench so I could set up for gun maintenance and reloading away from the dust of the woodshop. The wood bench with four drawers and a vice looked like it would do the job and it was $119.00 with a coupon. The first one I picked up the top was totally destroyed beyond repair. After a trip to HF for a replacement I put it together easily by not reading the instructions. About a half hour and some extra screws and glue it is surprisingly very sturdy and will fit my needs. All that is left is assemble the drawers and mount my reloading equipment. Someday I will build a better one and donate this one to Habitat. My rating: 4.5 stars for quality and assembly and -1.5 for packaging.
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Came in a no nonsense plain brown box. Packed well. Initial impressions, very solidly built, a tad heavy, sealed on/off buttons, 6' cord, box style DC. Nice, comfortable top grip. Not too soft, not too hard, just right. Variable speed. Velcro pad. Came with 6 sanding discs. Minimal vibration on high. Fairly aggressive, great DC. Hardly any residual dust after 5 minutes of use with 80 grit. Easily controlled on crotch grained mesquite. It replaces a not quite dead PC 5". I think I'll like this one better.
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If you have WIFI dead zones in your house this may be a solution. The WIFI router supplied by our internet provider isn't the most robust so, I've never been able to get a WIFI signal in the shop. Even though, the shop is only about 100' from the router. Several different types and brands of extenders were tried and returned. Thank you Amazon. I finally happened on to this TP-LINK AV500 range extender that uses your house wiring as a transmission medium, thereby eliminating problems caused by walls, metal studs, distance, etc. There are two components, an "adapter" that is connected to the router and plugged in to a nearby electrical socket, and the "extender", plugged in to a socket located in or near your dead zone. It's optimum if both sockets are on the same circuit. In my case, I used a socket in a wall closest to the shop. It's not on the same circuit but, it works. Now, I have WIFI in the shop.
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Picked this off of a Twitter feed- https://tablesawreviewspot.com/best-table-saw-under-300/
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Introduction @Jim from Easy Wood Tools contacted us a time ago and asked us if we knew of a turner here on The Patriot Woodworker, who is experienced, and open minded to new tooling and designs, in order to fill a product testing position. Of course we could think no further than our own Lew Kauffman, our Wood Turners Forum host. After some back and forth and information gathering between interested parties, Lew was hired on an as needed, on call basis to test Easy Wood Tools products. Album by Lew Kauffman Candle holders by Lew Kauffman We are pleased to announce Lew Kauffman as an official Easy Wood Tools product tester. Lew is a highly experienced turner, he knows the industry and he has the pulse of the turning world. Lew's work speaks for itself, from bowls to chairs to candle holders (shown at left) and various other vessels and forms, he has proven himself to be a great asset to our own organization here as a form host, and now he is being called upon into service by our own supporter, Easy Wood Tools. What happens next Easy Wood Tools will occasionally send Lew a tool to test, and review. There will generally be three kinds of reviews that Lew will perform for Easy Wood Tools. Reviews of tools in the development stage, not market ready, but in development. These reviews are confidential, these are intended for product feedback between Lew and EWT only. Reviews of tools ready for market entry. These tool reviews may or may not be accessible by the public. Reviews of tools that are in open market, these reviews will be publicly accessible, as a review topic here in our community of that particular tool, and the review will be displayed throughout our newsletters and social media. Lew's reviews, both to our community here, and Easy Wood Tools, will be open and un-biased. We would expect nothing less of Lew. So without further adieu, perhaps @lew will step in and offer up some words, and this topic is open to any and all feedback and attaboys for Lew. Thank you for reading along, and thank you Easy Wood Tools for entrusting our very own Lew Kauffman with this important task at hand.
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In today's Email.....Paul Sellers was doing a review of a new drill from Aldi's.....18v Lithium ion. Seemed very pleased with it. Cost him about 24 pounds ( English money). Seems to think it will do the same as his DeWalt 18v. Seem to be about the same size. I guess I will have to keep a eye out around this side of the "pond" and see what they look like. Just a heads up...
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I recently acquired a slightly used Craftsman BAS350 14" band saw. It is the same saw as the Rikon 10-321 band saw. It is equipped with a one horse power motor and a very nicely machined cast iron table with a rip capacity opening of 8.5". I got a 5/8" 3TPI blade and ran some firewood pieces through it to make turning blanks and was very pleased with the performance. It has a 2" dust port below the blade and a 4" port at the bottom of the lower wheel. I connected a dust collector to the 4" port with great results and see no need to hook up the two inch port. With the 4" port hooked up air was being sucked into the 2" port effectively sucking any dust the 2" port might have yielded. I really liked the idea of blowing the dust out into the back yard. No muss no fuss. The red knob on top of the saw is the blade adjustment knob. It is easily removed which is a nice feature. Once the tension is released the knob can be removed and laid in plain sight on the table as a reminder that the blade needs tensioned before using. It has roller blade guides which are bearings mounted to adjustable pins. One of the bearings was making noise so I oiled it. I got the number off of it to see about getting some spares and found they are inline skate wheel bearings which makes them readily available. In fact, I had bought a set of cheap skates to use the wheels to make a lathe steady and had five extra wheels I could get the bearings out of. I did and sure enough they were the same. All in all, I am happy with the saw.
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easy wood tools The EWT Loaner program, a tool review.
Charles Nicholls posted a topic in Wood Turners
First, let me say a big thanks to all the powers that be that made this program possible, without which, there would be no program OK so now, lets get to it. Above all, the tools are simple to use. If you are sharpening challenged, these tools are for you, If you like to be able to just turn the blade to a sharp part after the previous area is dull, then these are likely right up your alley. If however, you have been turning for 20+ years and have learned ways of sharpening tools, then these turning tools may not be what you need. all of these turning tools are great. Because of the fact that they use carbide cutters, they stay sharp for a good long time, providing many hours of turning bliss. Whether you get the midi tools or the full size tools, you really can't go wrong. The one drawback on these tools, is that no matter what size you get, you should only use them to their recommended depth of 3 to 4 inches. Going beyond that, is asking for catches, and possibly damaged/broken tools. The one thing I would like to see in the near future, is a tool that can go deeper, without having to worry about a problem of breakage. Perhaps that is in the works, I don't know, but it would be great to see. This is where most advertisers would say "BUT WAIT", there is also the Easy Wood Chuck, that has been added to the arsenal. This tool although I have not used it, I have seen it work and it is nothing short of amazing, due to the fact that you can easily switch out jaws without having to remove screws or reinstall screws,which makes using this chuck a breeze. Hopefully I can get one of these soon, we'll see. I think first though I will try getting the hollowing tools, I was hoping to get a chance to review those, but it didn't work that way, so stay tuned, because as soon as I can get a chance to do so, I will be trying them out. OK It's looking like I got a bit off track LOL (I do that a lot). Whether you are turning finials, boxes, bottle stoppers, pens, or bowls, this entire system is the best I have seen yet for the price. Hey, if you make pens or other very small items and are looking for something to give it a try without getting into the price of the full size tools, try the Easy Start tools, they are just as good as their bigger brothers, except that you CANNOT work them as deep as the bigger tools. 1 1/2-2" Is all they are really safe for. I have the Easy Start Detailer, I bought for Christmas a few years back, and it does great for detailing small things! -
Oh boy where to start? I wish I could keep them all! All the tools in the kit were very comfortable to use and they fit wonderfully in my hand. the finish on the handles was so flawless I was afraid to set them down and risk scratching them. The easy finisher, I found the easy finisher to be great for cutting coves and curves. I was challenged when I tried to use it for smoothing a cylindrical turning, I usually wound up creating a spiral pattern in the piece that took a bit of sanding to smooth out. If I had taken the time to watch the DVD and practice I probably would've been more successful using it. it was very easy to use and cut cleanly. I found this tool to be very useful and feel it is a good fit for my turning skill level and projects The Easy Detailer, I wish the detailer had a sharp point instead of the rounded tip. I think the sharp point would make it easier to cut fine details and sharp grooves. I used it to cut a slight cove in the end grain of a bottle stopper and it worked for this task, however I do think I could've made the same cut with the finisher tool. To be fair and give it other chances I used it to put some other details in turnings. While it worked for this and cut nice and clean I currently do not see a need to add it to my tool arsenal. To sum up my cutting tool reviews 2 out of 3 isn't bad. The 3rd was a good tool however it wasn't one I currently have a use for. Tomorrow or the next day I'll be reviewing my favorite, the Chuck!
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Oh boy where to start? I wish I could keep them all! All the tools in the kit were very comfortable to use and they fit wonderfully in my hand. the finish on the handles was so flawless I was afraid to set them down and risk scratching them The easy rougher, I used this to rough out a few rolling pins from 2.5" square hard maple, walnut , and cherry. I found that the tool chipped the hard corners when first starting the cut but soon smoothed out when the pin got closer to round. My preference for the initial rounding/roughing out step returned to my Sorby roughing gouge. When I used the Easy Wood rougher on stock that had the corners sawn off this wasn't as much of an issue. Where I liked the easy rougher was truing up the turning and tapering the ends of my pins. I did get a little tear-out on the walnut but a quick sanding (less than 30 seconds ) took care of that. I found this tool to be very useful and feel it is a good fit for my turning skill level and projects. reviews of the other tools will be coming over the next few days John
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