Highdesert Splintermaker

Good link. Impressive! Thanks

I've been anticipating the possible new release of an 8" helical bench jointer by Steel City. They aren't planning to introduce their new tools 'till August 20-23 at the Atlanta Tool Show. I won't be going. Silly me - who else would want to avoid HotLanta in August. Never the less, I am curious to know what new tools, or even improved for woodworking old tools, may soon thereafter be showing up on retailers' shelves. So, if any of you plan to go, I'd appreciate some feedback of what Steel City may have on display there. Also, if you should stumble across the Carter Products booth and a guy named Alex Snodgrass is giving his bandsaw setup clinic - don't pass up the opportunity. IMHO (not all that humble, at times) no one else on the planet knows as much as this man about the common bandsaw. If you can't see him in person just Google 'Bandsaw Clinic with Alex Snodgrass' and watch the video.

I'm looking forward to the day when you can feed wire stock into one of these and get a metal part out. Feed in copper and get a copper part. Feed it aluminum and get an aluminum part. Feed in solid core solder and get a lead alloy part. I guess you might even be able to feed MIG welding wire into it and get a steel part. That kinda reminds me of the old alchemists' quest of being able to turn lead into gold. Feed in solid core solder and get a gold part. Yep! I want one!

Yep! like my uncle use to say, "Why be a nuisance? With a little more effort you can be a real stinker!"

Hey Regopit, Where do I go to see Guy's wood shop?

My old man was a cop so the drinking and pot was pretty much off the table. But, chasing a skirt or two was, as they say, a whole 'nother story!

WOW! I have Charter cable and get between 35 and 45 download speed depending on the test point location and bandwidth usage. Google Fiber sounds awesome! Sadly, I don't see it on the map in Northern NV - yet.

Cool! I think this thread will probably end showing that the longest lasting tools are the most basic and simplest of hand tools. In the decades before most of us roamed this planet the theory was, make it once - make it right - make it to last - we don't want to spend the time to have to make it again.

Not yet. But, I keep on tryin'

I have recently scratched the entire state of Tennessee off my 'I'd like to go there sometime' list - permanently. Two years ago my daughter and her then fiancé were driving through central Tennessee on I-40 eastbound heading for Knoxville. West of Nashville they were stopped by Tennessee's Anti Drug Task Force without probable cause. They were blocked from moving, ,extracted from their vehicles, forced to sit in poison Ivy while a drug dog was being summoned to the scene. They found a couple grams of marijuana (confiscated - possession of drugs). They also had vacation snacks and drinks in zip lock bags and a couple extra empty bags (confiscated those - possession for sale). They also had personal firearms locked in handgun vaults with the keys around their necks (confiscated - armed drug transporters). And, the vehicle, a one year old Odyssey (confiscated - drug transport vehicle). They were taken to a small county jail west of Nashville where the local cops had to hold them all the while apologizing and telling them they really didn't belong there. Both have since been tried and convicted of charges serious enough to keep the confiscated SUV as well as both glock 40's and their vaults. Tennessee has very liberal confiscation laws and an antiquated court system. The State and County Officials want only the cash money they can take from Westbound out of state vehicles and the cars and other property of value they can confiscate from Eastbound out of state vehicles. They do not want to imprison their victims. That would be a counterproductive expense to the state. It's simply a legal form of Highway Robbery. It's how Tennessee earns income. They do all this under the guise of Drug Traffic interdiction. At any given time today on I-40 in central Tennessee you can see clusters of as many as six or seven of these black unmarked SUVs in the median looking for East or West coast plates and ready to pounce. Sometimes several of these unmarked vehicles actually pull out and compete with each other for who is going to get the credit for stealing from the poor sucker in their sights. When my ex-wife returned from having accompanied my daughter back there for trial, she said she was petrified by what she saw on I-40 during their roughly 35 mile drive from the airport to the adjacent county courthouse and back. There is one obvious flaw to this whole story, however. The entire state of Tennessee, with a total population smaller than the incorporated City of Chicago, isn't a spit in the ocean of a drug market. Any real drug trafficking could easily be rerouted to avoid the entire state and there are other roads besides I-40. But, here is the real kicker. If this activity really was interfering with major drug trafficking, after about the second major drug or cash confiscation several high ranking government and law enforcement officials in the Nashville area would be found dead one morning all wearing Columbian neckties. Should you have doubts about this story or think this can't really be happening; please Google Nashville's local News TV Station Chanel 5 coverage videos exposing this entire operation on You Tube, and yet it continues. Where the hell is Scott Pelly & 60 Minutes when you need them? All those nice Tennessee vacation spots will go unvisited by me. I don't want so much as the shadow of the rear view mirror of my rental car to fall on Tennessee soil. My apologies if I've stepped on any sensitive non-involved toes. Color me just a bit pissed at how low the Tennessee state government has gone to make money.

Absolutely, Nick: Perhaps I left too much doubt about my choice of materials. My final design will definitely be made of steel. I am, however, looking at tool rest designs executed in wood as well as steel. Many home built tool rests clearly show traces of grey matter having spawned their design and functionality - as opposed to the more commercial approach couched in a total concern for minimal manufacturing costs and the wholesale bottom line.

I say B&D and DeWalt (basically one in the same), but they blew it when they didn't make an impact driver to accept the 18volt NiCad batteries. Granted they wanted to promote their new LI battery technology by forcing everybody run right out and buy up new drills when the old ones, not to mention all the spare NiCad batteries we'd purchased for them, still work just fine. When I do have to upgrade to LI batteries I won't be buying B&D or DeWalt just because of that blatant disloyalty to all their existing NiCad powered tool owners.

I have a hammer I've had since junior high (before Summer 1956). My father gave me the head (a 16 oz. claw head with a slight chip out of one side of the face) but with no handle. On it's side it said PLUMB Guaranteed. Later that Summer I started to do add jobs for the family that owned the local Western Auto store and there I bought a hickory hammer handle. Somehow I managed to shape and fit the top of the handle to fit into the head, drive in the wedge from the top, and seal the top with two part epoxy. A couple years later my father bought me a Dunlap block plane. And a year later he bought me a Craftsman 1/4" socket set. Today, 58 years later, I use the hammer as often as I need a hammer, used the plane just last week to shape a couple curved templates, and the socket set mostly collects dust now thanks to cordless drill drivers.

I'd like to see a merger of Hitachi and Makita. Hey! They are almost the same color and to the colorblind a Makita is just a shop worn Hitachi. Kidding aside, I think both companies could benefit. Leave all the cordless tools to the Makita folks and the corded and pneumatics to the Hitachi folks. They could each almost double their individual retail exposure and combine their warranty maintenance and service facilities. More importantly however would be the benefits from shuffling the Engineering & R&D decks to inject a little 'new blood' into both houses. What think you?

Kokjaywin: I wouldn't mind getting involved in writing tool reviews. What tools or tool lines do you have in mind?

Wouldn't a Micro 3D printer be the cat's meow for an ultimate tool bag prize? Make your own tools, parts, knick nacks, etc. I do like the nicks but never cared much for the nacks. Kinda' like those Thomas' English Muffins with all those nooks and crannies. I think the nooks are great but I never could develop a taste for the crannies.

Here is an 'old codger' trick. It may sound a bit crude but, in a pinch, you can usually find a way to improve a less than sharp edge in the average kitchen cabinet. Even when you can't find the most basic of knife sharpening tools you can use the unglazed bottom ring of a dinner plate or coffee mug to at least improve a distressed edge. Later, you can get your knife together with one of the more preferred methods.

Ditto! Good gyroscope there RedS

Wolverines and now wood chippers! Remind me to stay out of Michigan.

Nope! My philosophy is; a boat is nothing more than a hole in the water constantly begging to be filled with money. When they are not in the water they are only an 'in the way of everything else' liability and another source of income for those who sell boating supplies, services, and government agencies that require licenses for your boat and your trailer. My son experimented with an 18 ft. 'Alumaweld' a few years back. That's when he discovered his fish were only costing him an average of $109 a lb. He traded his Alumaweld for occasional trips to Safeway. Both the savings and the selection were all the proof he needed. Rather spend my few remaining hard earned $$$s on wood and wood working tools, do my fly fishing from the banks of a stream, and keep my feet dry.

Okay! I was trying to do it late at night and again after midnight. I'm on the left coast and midnight for the website may be in another time zone, or another whole world!

Watch the video for the IDH182, the combo 1/2" socket & 1/4" hex drive impact driver, third from the left. It's amazing how the second battery pack magically appears (for a quick power pack exchange demo.) and then just as magically disappears. Oh well, if I'm not winning anything I may as well amuse myself with the slightly less than professionally done videos. Just sayin'

Why are the tool rests that come with bench grinders such a useless pain in the ass? It's as though the design engineers want to taunt their consumers with something of genuine value they can't use. I'm not laughing. With most grinders it's a given - the included abrasive wheels need to be replaced with quality wheels. It also seems like no matter whose nameplate is on the grinder or how much it costs - two facts prevail, it is made in China and the tool rests are junk. Aftermarket tool rests are available. Some of them aren't much better designed or built than the ones that come with the grinders. Then there are a couple that really reflect some user awareness thinking behind the design and some quality materials and execution in their production. The brand name Veritas comes to mind, but, currently priced at $58 each, a pair of them can cost more than the grinder and their functions are limited until you spend even more for their accessories. Their main accessory, a sliding tool clamp, much like the tool rests themselves, are both beautifully made and again, at $29 each, overpriced, but unlike the tool rests they are a letdown because as I'll explain below, they lack that all important user aware thinking behind their design. The end result, in my opinion, renders the entire tool rest and accessory combination, at $172 for a pair, worthy of far less attention than this paragraph has just given them. There is some salvation in sight for those of us who prefer to use an abrasive wheel on one end only and replace the other rotating stone with either a wire wheel or a polishing wheel. Neither of those necessarily require a tool rest so you've just cut your tool rest problem in half. Where tool rests are required, however, in my opinion; A tool rests should NOT; 1.) have a notch at their business edge (the edge closest to the grinding wheel). The only thing those notches are good for is supporting something you're attempting to grind on a side face of the grinding wheel. Grinding wheels are not made to withstand lateral pressure and when forced to do so (even with only a slight amount of pressure) can, without warning, virtually explode and ruin your whole day. 2.) have a diagonal v-grove in them (supposedly provided for the purpose of sharpening drill bits). Sharpening drill bits is not a task the intelligent tool user would take to a bench grinder, although considering the price and limitations of a Drill Doctor I can't say I blame them much. Ever try sharpening a bit in one of those shallow troughs? Even if you can keep the bit in the bottom of the trough you can't keep the tip of the bit centered in the bit diameter. Besides, there are several types of bit tips, sizes of bits, and hex drive bits that simply don't lend themselves to sharpening on a grinder. Best solution; buy a new bit. That diagonal v-groove makes the tool rest all but impossible to use for anything else in a normal manner. Aha! I can just move the other tool rest over - problem solved. Nope! You can't simply swap out the tool rests because they are left/right handed. You can't even order a replacement tool rest with a plain flat surface (without the angled v-groove). Question - If they are clever enough to make their junk idiot proof, why don't they use that cleverness to make it more usable to begin with? 3.) be attached directly or indirectly to the grinder itself. The tool rest support brackets usually bolt to the inboard sides of the shields. The shields are usually of thinner metal than the tool rest support bracket and because of the way the shields are attached to the grinder many of them vibrate thereby shaking the tool rest even when the grinder's wheels run smoothly. 4.) have that pinking shear serrated interface with their supporting bracket. That serrated interface locks your tool rest into a very limited number of probably not so useful angles and absolutely denies you any other angle settings you might want. 5.) deter you in any way from dipping the work piece in a coolant, usually water, to prevent overheating and thereby loosing the temper in a thin edge. [This applies mostly to aftermarket tool rest accessories.] This is usually most critical when hollow grinding plane irons, wood chisels, and/or some lathe tools and is all but impossible with the work piece clamped in a tool rest accessory. A tool rests should: 1.) allow you to set them anywhere from level on a horizontal plane slightly below the wheels' center of rotation to almost tangent with the top of the wheel at a 'convenient-for-you' angle. 2.) allow you to space the business edge of the tool rest within 1/8th of an inch (3+ mm) from the outside diameter (OD) of the grinding wheel. This allows you to adequately support the work piece. NOTE: These two things simply can't be done with most out of the box tool rests supplied with today's grinders. 3.) allow you to completely remove it, and later reinstall it, without destroying a setup. Try that with your out of the box DeWalt, Porter Cable, or Delta tool rest. 4.) allow you to move the item being ground, side to side, across the (OD) of the grinding wheel in a straight line while it remains under your control. You can't control much of anything if the tool rest is shaking from vibrations. Neither can you have control of the work piece feed into the OD of the spinning wheel if your work piece is clamped into an accessory which slides laterally in a groove but can't be moved forward or backward because it is clamped. [i personally like the lateral groove concept but not the idea of clamping the work piece into a carrier that follows the lateral groove.] The feeding (and retracting) of the work piece into the OD of the grinding wheel is the most sensitive part of grinding and should always be under the operator's physical manual control. Why? Only your tactile touch sensitivity can ultimately produce the edge you want. 5.) allow for an adjustable guide which may be used to grind or maintain any particular skewed angle of the work piece as it is moved across the OD of the wheel. Such an angle, however, can be easily maintained, without clamping, simply by using an adjustable guide (much like the adjustable head of a sliding miter gauge on a saw table). It can slide laterally in a horizontal groove and, without clamping the work piece, leaving work piece feed totally in your control. I am currently in the process of designing tool rests that will perform in accordance with the above cited parameters. I have scoured the internet and seen many homebuilt tool rests. I am looking at both wood and steel designs for ideas but will, in all likelihood, finalize my design in steel. I am also inviting all of you to comment, make suggestions, criticisms, post photos, provide your ideas, etc.

Probably the Cen Tech. - just kidding. I have Fluke 79 III that will do more than I'll ever use.

Perhaps we need to refresh the link. About half the time, after watching their fast talking video, the web site doesn't give me the "click on this link to see if you've won" button. Anybody else having this problem?