Although my shop might indicate otherwise I don't really see myself as a tool junky. If I'm going to purchase a tool it's because I need it for a project I'm working on. For a little while in the middle of my woodworking career I got caught up in 'gadgets'. Seemingly miracle jigs that would do one thing really well but had few other uses. Now I try to only by quality tools and make every effort not to get caught up in those 'miracle tools'. Now to explain my latest purchase. It only really does one thing. Drill square holes. I've had a small bench top one for about 10 years but it recently ran into some trouble with some white oak and part of the casting broke. Too expensive to bother fixing and I desperately needed it for my current project so I decided to shell out for the top-o-the-line model. A hollow-chisel mortising machine with a tilting head and sliding table. Traditional woodworking tends to use a lot of mortise and tenon joinery and I know I'll use this a lot. (The thing ways a ton. Two of us could barely lift it onto the stand)
Now on to what my next project is. Book shelves are on hold again since that was the project I was working on when the old machine broke and it missed it's window for completion. I've got to get an English garden bench finished for my wife's school. It's a memorial bench for a former student of the school who died of cancer before she finished high-school. No set deadline though I'd like to get it done by April.
The most challenging part so far has been the back rest. It involves making an angled cut on some rather thick stock. Not overly complicated but working for BC Hydro, we have safety drilled into our brains and I wasn't comfortable doing a stopped cut in such thick, hard to cut stock. I arrived at the simple solution of a sled that would give me a better grip on the wood and keep my hands well away from the blade. Took longer to create the jig then to make the four cuts I needed but now I'm ready for a production run.
No comments:
Post a Comment