Monday, April 09, 2007

General Update

I put a decent blade in my table saw, a Freud LP30M. Cuts straighter, and quieter.

I also got one of these Digital Angle Gauges. Put it on the saw table, zero it, put it on the blade, it's magnetic, and you can set the angle of the blade to 0.1 degrees

I started cutting the last frame peice only to discover that I had board made up entirely of sapwood. See my earlier post on sapwood.

This put an end to the boat work for the day, so I planed a peice of scrap to the thickess of the mitre slots and ripped 8 battens for use as runners when making various table saw jigs.

One thing that I found very useful was a cheap grout float. The sort that you use for grouting tiles. It's basically a handle on a small metal board with a rubber surface. It give you great control as you feed the wood, with the advantage that if anything slips and makes contact with the saw blade you stand a really good chance of ruining a €10 float rather than your hand.
(It's since been pointed out that the metal in the grout float would catch in the blade rather than simply being cut by it - this could be a really bad thing)

1 comment:

Vic. said...

Hey Dave... Howdy
I would recomend against using that grout float for a finger saver. It, being metal, will likely get grabbed very agressively by the saw blade and you (or someone you love) could wind up wearing it... internally.
A piece of scrap wood is a much wiser choice... A saw will cut through this just the same as if it were your workpiece... without sending it flying toward someone.
Cheers to you from the U.S.
Vic