Highdesert Splintermaker

Lets just say it was a Super Boring Bowl! Even the commercials, Anheuser-Busch excepted, fell short of the mark. Like a couple of you, my preference is definitely college football - a transplanted Buckeye but a Buckeye forever,

Conductor: Just out of curiosity I checked Amazon to see what I might find. Along with the heap of manual pop rivet tools they show several pneumatic guns ranging in price from $43 to $60. The brand names of the ones that caught my eye are Rock Ridge, Astro Pneumatic, & Allstar. I've never heard of any of them. They vary in what rivet sizes they handle, some don't state their operating PSI. and I didn't see reviews on any of them. Proceed with caution. Another alternative comes from HF. It's their model 66422 - a monster of a hand tool. It handles up to ¼ inch rivets and even catches the wire tails in a plastic bottle. You might want to read the reviews. It comes with five tips and the best thing is it's a hand tool and guaranteed forever. With a 25% coupon you can get one for around $15 plus tax.

Okay... Tell me about that Milwaukee M12 Pop river gun.

After patiently waiting, and occasionally pulling up Steel City's web site, I've yet to find a new benchtop 8" helical jointer added to their tool lineup. So, I dropped their cust. svc. rep. (the guy I exchanged a couple emails with last summer) and asked whether or not the idea had withered and died or might possibly still bear fruit. Today I got his reply in which he said they had decided to hold off any new tool introductions until this years woodworking show in Atlanta [20-23 August]. Then he said, "I have not seen the machine but I can tell you it is not like the 8" version from the Vegas venue." From that I can make all kinds of assumptions but, it does sound like there is definitely a new toy in their jointer lineup. Anticipation... .

I’m continually and eagerly looking forward to each and every tool ad I can get my hands on - mostly to see if someone, anyone, has come out with a really great new and exciting tool. Maybe some fledgling start-up company with a clever idea has just found the money to do some serious advertising. Maybe there is a 50% sale on that 13½” helical planer I don’t want to pay $550 for. Okay, that last ‘maybe’ might be a bit surreal, but anyway, I keep looking. Through manufacturers’ brochures, magazine ads, and the Sunday News ads, and online - I keep looking. But, what do I find? Cordless drill kits, cordless drill kits with extra batteries, cordless drill kits with extra batteries and a flashlight, cordless drill kits with extra batteries and a cordless impact driver, cordless drill kits with extra batteries and a cordless circular saw, and on, and on, ad infinitum (no pun intended). I think you get the idea but the amount of newsprint dedicated weekly to cordless drill ads (which by the way seems to be far more voluminous than all the ads for all other tools combined) boggles my mind. How many cordless drills, regardless of what comes bundled with it, can you possible want, find room to store and, even if you could remember where you put them all - can a person possibly justify? Perhaps I’m limiting myself by thinking I couldn’t possible need to use more than two at the same time and really only one at any particular point in time. So, do I have to give away the one I bought last week to make room for a new one this week? Can I possibly find one that uses the same battery, or charger as one I already have? And if I do and I buy it, will I then be able to stop reading cordless drill ads? All the while, I know these cordless drill ads will persist, yet I still keep eagerly looking forward to getting my hands on the next tool ad hoping to find that great new and exciting tool idea or 50% off on that helical planer. Addicted.

Just the thought of using lancelot cutters or, for that matter, any one handed tool to make dado cuts makes me want to ask the question, are you suicidal?

In my shop-in-progress (mostly still in the design phase) I do have space constraints ~ roughly one third of a three car garage. I do have expansion capabilities by parking one or both cars outside but, eventually, all that stuff has to go back in one third of the garage. That's when the third factor, where the hell do I keep some new tool when I'm not using it?, kicks in. Its as though there is this committee in my mind trying to balance many factors for every purchase decision. It's like; is it needed for this project?, vs. how often would I use the tool vs. potential return on investment of the tool's cost, then there is the long term storage space issue, vs. how else might I do this job? By that time I'm headed for Office Depot to buy more erasers for project design changes. I do envy those of you who have a Madison Square Garden size shop. But, as an older codger, I must admit that my projects list simply doesn't justify a full blown cottage industry setup.

Yep! And, next thing you know those damned violation cameras will be all along the freeways citing speeders. And, if you think no one knows if or when you're speeding if the cops aren't watching, your OnStar knows. Even if you aren't subscribing to their services, if there is one of those things in your vehicle, everything your vehicle does and every place it goes gets logged. So much for happy motoring!

Newspaper carriers who service those coin operated newspaper racks are issued quarter size (.955" diam.) slugs to use for opening those racks. You might be able to promote a handful of those from your local newspaper distribution manager. They are a tad larger than nickels but you won't run into plating problems with solid low carbon steel. An alternative would be to have a local sheet metal shop punch out some round blanks for you. You might well have your choice of diameters (punch sizes) and sheet stock thicknesses. The nickel coin measures about .835" in diameter and about .075" thick (roughly 14 gage). Either way won't cost you a nickel. Just a couple thoughts.

And all this time I thought the worlds best toolkit was a toothpick, a napkin, and a glass of water... Oooops! I think that's the worlds cheapest meal. Oh well, back to the drawing board!

The tool, or perhaps family of tools, I really like to see is a power nail puller. There are an infinite number of different gage and purpose pneumatic (air) nail guns from 23 ga pin nailers all the way up to the big boy - framing, roofing, and flooring nailers. Wouldn't it be nice to have a comparable set of nail puller guns that would accept different 'heads' for different nail types. So, all you'd have to do is cover the nail head with the tip of the tool and pull the trigger. The tool would capture the head, pull the nail, and toss it into an onboard catch tank that would hold the extracted junk with an internal magnet. When the puller got heavy (loaded with extracted nails) just detach the catch tank, rotate (neutralize) the magnet to empty the tank, reinstall the tank, and go pull more nails. Wouldn't that be a whole lot easier, quicker, and neater than ripping boards apart, beating bent nails backwards, wrestling them out one at a time with a prybar, then stepping on them for the rest of the day. I have to acknowledge that it would take some clever engineering but what the hell good is Yankee ingenuity if we don't put it to work?

I've been checking on the Steel City website for updates in their product line but have seen nothing of the 8" bench jointer I exchanged emails with them about last year. Anyone else out there heard anything? I think perhaps a better bet would be to upgrade to a cabinet table saw (keeping the radial Arm saw, of course), something with belt drive and more precise control over blade angle, and use that for jointing. Then concentrate a few bucks into a good helical head planer and a two stage dust collector.

I personally prefer a Norelco. As for sharpening pocket and kitchen knives, it doesn't take much to sharpen one (to the ability of the steel in the blade to take and hold an edge) with a $16 Smith double sided diamond hone. The trick is not to make the kitchen knives so sharp my wife cuts herself.

Okay! You've had your fun now please... tell us what the hell is it?

Hi Ya'll: It's been a while. And, yes! I do agree good quality tools have to be both engineered well and built well to perform well and last long enough to justify their cost especially to the home DIYer. In that regard I think it will be a long time before the names Festool or Harbor Freight cross my threshold. Most Harbor freight tools are simply junk made from junk. Festool may be the Swiss watch of power tools but It's rather difficult to justify their cost compared to either the competitive tools or to the price of the end product I could buy from Ethan Allen for far less than the price of one Festool. In the Dec/Jan issue of WOOD Magazine, on page52, is a comparison of large (3 hp) routers. At MSRP you could buy three routers (the Makita RP2301FC for $320, the DeWalt DW625 for $300, and the Hitachi M12V2 for $230) for the price of the Festool OF2200EB for $850. Imagine - three tools simultaneously set up for three different tasks instead of all the eggs in one basket. Just sayin'. And with a bit of TLC my grandchildren can argue over three tools instead of one.

If you really want to investigate the fine edge of sharpening & honing I highly recommend the web site of a guy in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Whether its a knife blade, a chisel, or a plane iron, Brent Beach can show you how to put a fine edge on a fine edge. http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/Sharpen/index.html http://www.youtube.com/user/Brentssharpening

It looks like something I certainly don't want to see anywhere near my private tools!

I was forever cussing the feeble tip on my tape measures. Damned things wouldn't catch and hold on anything. Then I found the Grip Tip. It's about 1-3/8 inches (35mm) in diameter and snaps onto the existing tips of most tape measures. It slides on and twists off (but you'll probably never want to remove it. It is make of die formed steel and has it's outer edge curled back like a shallow bottle cap with teeth all the way around the edge. You can google "Grip Tip" online and probably still buy them 2 for $3.

Haven't heard any comments on either of those two brands. Both are clearly better quality than HF but their prices won't make it so difficult to then buy the materials for your next project. Shop Fox makes a rather large benchtop drill press well suited for working wood and light metals plus it comes with a built in reciprocating drum sander function. The speeds range from those well attuned to drilling larger holes in wood (and some phenolics) to those usually best for metalworking. Steel City also makes some rather competitively priced power tools. I have yet to own or use one personally but have been in touch with one of their factory reps who tells me they are currently working on an 8" version of their current 6" benchtop jointers. would be interested in hearing from anyone who has used any of their tools or any tools from ShopFox as well.

When I was in my early teens (back in the late 50's) my grandfather made me a foot powered scroll saw. He built the parallel arms mechanism of hardwood and mounted it to an old treadle sewing machine table and frame. A belt driven shaft turned an eccentric shaft that engaged a slot in the lower arm. Variable speed and room galore! Man did I ever spend hours cutting up plywood on that thing until one day, in the process of moving it, the cast iron frame got broken.

I have an old 4 HP ShopVac I bought from Lowes around the turn of the century. My next step in using it with power tools is to create a two stage system by making a separator to go ahead of the vacuum (saves the filter & bags). The problem is the old ShopVac has a top vented exhaust so I can't use it as the core of a system that can be exhausted externally. Oh well, I probably work with hand tools more than with power tools anyway, so its not yet high on my priority list.

It's been a while since I've been here. And, My but don't you have a view! From both your comments and your pics - it appears you certainly do have yourself a fun little project. Hey, with all the pink stuff going on, maybe one of the former owners was a Mary Kay distributor.

I have in mind that the fixed bench, which will be around 16' in overall length and run along the wall, will be at several heights. My Radial arm saw will be roughly in the center at its optimal height. The section to the left of the RAS will not be home to any permanently mounted equipment but will be multifunctional. At this point the plan is to make it slightly lower than the RAS table and designed to be either fitted with an extension fence & table for the RAS, used as a place to set up temporary operations like soldering, grinding & honing, Dremel operation, and other small scale non sawdust producing tasks, or cleared off and used as a place to set up a drawing board and yes an adjustable height stool to draw up project plans, etc. The space below will probably become drawer and cabinet storage for small power tools, etc. The wall above will likely be multi door peg board storage above a row of small parts drawers/bins, etc. The section to the right of the RAS will probably be lower than the left table and may even be of two more individual heights. The part to the immediate right of the RAS will normally be home to an easily moveable 10" band saw (wish it were a bit bigger) so it may serve double duty from time to time, and the far right end will be a bit lower yet as it will be home to a pretty heavy bench drill press. The area beneath this section is currently slated for storage space for a 13" planer, a 6" bench grinder, and (hopefully) that 8" bench jointer we discussed in another thread. The wall above will probably be cabinet/shelf storage for drill bits, router bits, power saw blades, & related jigs and accessories. The freestanding bench will be a split top design, of the appropriate height for manual woodworking (hopefully doubling as a table saw outfeed surface), with nothing permanently attached. One long side will have flush legs and normally be fitted with a removable Moxon style vise and a removable deadman. The other long side and one end will have a overhung edges for attaching a Zyliss vise. The remaining end will have a built-in tail vise. I do plan to build a small add-on bench top bench for elevating any extended duration hand held power tool work (such as hand routing, drilling, saber sawing, etc.) up 8 or 10 inches above the relatively low manual woodworking height for greater comfort and improved accuracy. I'll probably want to be able to use the stool for some of this as well. That's probably far more information than you wanted but, for now, everything is on hold until I can confidently proceed with established right-for-me height dimensions for at least the RAS and the rest of the tools/operations planned for the 16' along the wall benches. Looking for some well thought out starting point concepts to start with and fine tune from there.

Most of that is possibly due to set up. Google & watch the You Tube video "Bandsaw Clinic with Alex Snodgrass" and you'll see what I mean. He really crams a lot into this 35 min. demo.