Woodworking

Mortising Procedure--Jerry Work

In my experience it is very important to use the same wood for the floating tennon as the pieces which you are putting together. Assuming you are assembling a 90 deg. joint the tennon will be long grain to long grain with one member and long grain to cross grain with the other. You want to minimize differential rates of expansion/contraction with seasonal changes so using the same wood is the best way to insure that. You also want to be careful sizing the mortises. I have found cutting a mortise no more than 50% of the thickness of the wood is a good rule of thumb. That way you have 25% of the thickness on each side which will give good purchase for the mating glue joint. I like to set the depth to 50-75% of the width of the cross grain piece but no more than 2". Cut the tennon length to be 1/16-1/8" less than the sum of the depths in the two mortises. That will allow for a bit of space at the end of the tennon so the glue does not cause a hydraulic lock preventing the pieces from pulling together properly.

I tend to cut the mortise a bit longer than the width of the floating tennon to allow for small adjustment during final glue up. I like to thickness the tennon to be an easy slide fit so inserting it does not scrape all the glue off of the sides. The tennon will swell when surrounded by the wet glue anyway and if it is too tight can telegraph through to the assembled piece. The only time I do a tight fit is when alignment cannot easily be accomplished at glue up. The floating tennon joint is very strong anyway and with modern glues (I like Rooglue but there are several good brands available) I have never had a joint failure.

The other reason for not setting the tennons too tight into the mortise is to ease assembly when multiple parts have to come together during glue up. The ability to slightly spring one joint to assemble others can be a real help. Since we can cut perfect 90 deg edges on our pieces (thanks to the squaring fence on the CU3xx) the resulting joints will be tight and 90 degrees anyway. The tennon just adds the structural strength.

Aligning the mortises is relatively easy if you use a 90 deg. squaring stop clamped to the mortise table. Put one edge up against the registration lip at the front of the table and use the other edge to align your work pieces. You can cut one member with its end pressed against the stop and one with an edge pressed against the stop and the two parts will perfectly align outside edge to end grain. Just be sure to always orient the faces the same relative to the table; ie. I always work with my good side down on the table). That way even if your cutter is not perfectly centered on the piece, or if your pieces are not exactly the same thickness, you still will get flush edges on the good side after glue up.

If you are centering your cutter on the end grain cut then you will need to cut the corresponding long grain cut from the left on the piece on one end and from the right on the piece from the other end. To make that easy, set up the first cut by clamping the 90 deg. stop at the appropriate spot to make the end grain cut. Now press an edge of the work piece up against the stop and clamp it down. Make the end grain cut. Flip the piece around and make the end grain cut on the other end. Do the same for all the end grain pieces. Now cut all the right side cuts by placing the long grain piece with its edge against the registration lip and its end against the squaring stop. Once you have cut all the right side cuts replace one of the end grain cut pieces and clamp it down. Remove the 90 deg squaring stop and place it on the other side of the clamped work piece. Clamp it down and you are ready to make the left side cuts all the while keeping the same "good" face in contact with the table. You can make all eight of the cuts for a rail and stile assembly with just this one set up. Fast, perfectly fitting and no measurement errors to ruin your day

Hope this helps.

Jerry

Electric Drills

I have used up more than a few cordless drills and impact drivers so feel comfortable responding. For normal cabinet/furniture making you don't need more than 12v. What you do need is great low speed high
torque control, small size to get into odd places, a first rate chuck that holds small bits firmly and a reliable clutch with multiple settings that release at the same torque every time. My current favorite is the Festool D handle 12v. It has all these features plus quick change chucks for angle drive or close edge driving, both of which are used several times a week in my studio. This drill is never more than an arms length away and gets used continuously. Since I think of tools in terms of cost per actual use, this is probably the cheapest tool in my studio even though purchase price is well above other 12v drill motors. Well worth the difference in price.

For heavy construction work driving big screws into rough framing lumber my suggestion is to bypass drills and buy a 12v or 14v impact driver. Several cos make them and they all work way better in this use than any battery drill motor. Based on my experience with them I would be indifferent between the blue one (which I used to own) or the yellow one (which I currently have). I have not used the green one. My 18v
Milwaukee sits on the shelf, too heavy for most work, not fine enough control for furniture work and it came with a useless chuck that wouldn't hold anything so I had to replace it with an after market chuck that does work well. One of the two 18v batteries failed after very little use (simply won't take a charge any more) and I am not inclined to spend ~$80 replacing it.

Bottom line from my POV, buy what you need and will use instead of just fixing what you have.

Jerry

Larger Festool Work Table--Jerry Work

I just finished my large Festool work table today and have to say it exceeds my expectations. I purchased a 1080 table, two additional top perf plates and a pair of 2m side rails. Take off the Festool legs, remove the short side rails and replace them with the 2m rails. You will need to cut about 6" off the third top plate to fit or add pieces of the short side rails to the 2m side rails if you want the length to be all three top plates wide. I dry biscuited the long edges of each top plate to keep them aligned and reinforced those joints from below with 20mm x 50mm oak stringers pocket holed into the bottom of the top plates. For legs I used a cast iron set from Lee Valley Veritas with fir stringers and dual threaded tension rods. I set the top height to the same as my other benches, the MM24 and the CU300S (all just a little under 36"). This gives a roughly 48" by 80" flat top surface with T slots all around, nicely rounded corners and a whole surface full of holes to take the great Festool clamps and other fixtures. I mounted a Festool guide rail running across the width of the table and the squaring fence running the long way to guide wide saw cuts, router-based dados and sliding dovetails. I left the other standard size Festool table at the factory height of about 33" for smaller assemblies. Now the only issue will be moving the Festool dust collector back and forth between the two tables. This new large tables way more useful for how I work than was the large traditional mapletop work bench that it replaces. The 19mm thick top plates won't take the pounding that one could do on the thick maple and it probably is not as rigid for hand planing but I never did that anyway. The side Tslots are great for holding things like doors standing on edge and inthat configuration the work piece adds all the rigidity one could want. For the rare time when length greater than 80" is in order I purchase done of the table extensions that fits into the side T slots to make the effective length over 100". Tomorrow I will assemble the 4' x 9' dining table I am making out of Peruvian walnut for a client. It will be nice to have that lovely finished top fully supported when inverted on the large, flat Festool table to fasten the legs, skirts and sliding mechanism.

All in all this looks like an outstanding and relatively inexpensive way to make a highly functional large work table. It won't win any beauty awards but it sure will earn its keep in my studio. When I gets some time I will experiment with a mobile down draft base that will fit under the table surface drawing dust through the perf holes when connected to the DC system. Should work like a charm. If it works as well as I think it will I may replace the legs with two of these.

Jerry

Bandsaw table tilt adjustment

I can't help with the "Johnson bar" issue as mine fit just fine when I had a MM16 and I don't try to move the MM24.

I can help with the table tilt question. I recommend removing that rear stop bolt all together. First level your table so it is nice and square with the blade all around. Now cut a block the same thickness as the height of the stop bolt, remove the bolt and use the block as a stop instead. Now when you want to tilt the table rearward just loosen the yoke bolt, pull out the block, tilt and cut away. When you are through raise the back edge of the table, replace the block, set the table down on the block (back to level) and clamp it down. Much faster that taking the stop bolt in and out.

Yes, the table does tilt enough for you to band saw cut your dove tails if you wish. The easy part is making those cuts, the hard part is whacking out between the cuts. You can use a coping saw or scroll saw if you have one, or try your patience and eyesight by doing so with a chisel. Either way you will have fun. While you can always just match the pin angles to whatever you cut for tail angles it is easier if you use the same tilt angle forward and backward. A simple block cut to the desired angle will make it easy to set you table to the same tilt each way. Unless you are a genius and have the eye-hand coordination of a Gensu knife demonstrator band saw cut dovetails will not fit as tightly as router cut dovetails so don't obsess over fit quality. Band saw cut dovetails are great for large case goods construction and for a few large dovetails but not for cutting all the parts for a chest full of drawers. Well......that is not quite right, some people still hand cut all the parts for a chest full of drawers, but they seldom do so while trying to make more than $.10 per hour for their time. Have fun.

Jerry Work

Bandsaw Blade Tracking Adjustment

The tracking problem can be fixed like this. Set the blade where you want it on the bottom wheel fist. Teeth slightly hanging off the lower wheel. If it s a 1/2 inch or less blade the teeth dont need to hang off. Try to get the top wheel the same. When tracking the top of the blade is the only part that moves that is why it is inportant to make sure the bottom is where you want it. Next apply full tension. I use an Ittura gauge. Once you have applied full tension you can then begin to adjust the tracking buy spinning the wheel by hand. I have fabricated a block of wood the size off one of the holes in the wheel that has a groove dadoed all the way around it with a handle bolted to it. I can lock the handle in to the wheel and that allows me to spin the wheel very fast and easely. I then track the blade top to match bottom. This is the best way I have found to
adjust tracking correctly Hope this helps

rushnrose

CU 300 Setup

This is a test:

Fellas,

As predicted I de-gooed my saw and was ready to fire it up, but . . . I ran into a problem. After checking all the switches, resetting all the emergency stops, etc, I finally remembered an obscure bit of info. The shaper control switch had to be engaged. This could not be in "neutral." I guess this makes sense only one
facet of the machine can run at a time and I 'm assuming a continual circuit has to be flowing through the machine. Having the shaper in "neutral" kills the circuit.

Anyhow, I am making a great big pile of sawdust and some designer firewood while playing with alll the functions the 300 has to offer. A kid in a candystore has nothing on me.

Jeff Timmers

Bandsaw Blade Adjustment --Jerry Work

The guide wheels guide but do not deflect the blade side to side or front to back. The tires are not crowned, so blades run on the front half of the blade. Blades with a wide set teeth run with the teeth just off of the front edge so as not to tear up the tires. Tension the blade with the guides well off the blade and then bring one side guide up to just touch but not deflect the blade. Then bring the other guide up to snug and then back off a bit to produce a dollar bill width on either side. The guides should run just aft of the blade gullets. Bring the rear guide forward until it is about a folded dollar bill away. Do the same with the lower
guides and cut away. I have a MM24 which has double belt drive so don't know about the MM20 with its single belt, but a start up squeak sounds to me like a loose belt or some protective grease still on the
belt. Enjoy!

Jerry Work

Dressing the bandsaw blade

Rounding the back edges of the blade with a stone to reduce drag, (especially when cutting curves) and also to eliminate cracks that develop in the back edges due to work hardening of that surface of the blade due to it's being pressed against the thrust bearing, (similar to what happens when you run a hard rod along a scraper edge to form the slight curl on the edge that does the scraping).

Norm

Uncrating the 300

I went the flat bed route [called a roll back around here]. He backed right up to the studio and was able to slide it off so it was about a third of the way into the opening. My pallet was not in great shape, so I laid 6x6's along side the machine and was able to work a small rolling auto jack under the point for the lift bar and jacked it up and slid 2x8's under each end bridging the 6x6's and then just slid the broken pallet out from under. Then carefully jacked it down. It didn't take much time

Matthew Yates
Martinsville, VA

I had the exact same situation- SC4 w/8-1/2' slider. What might work a little better and is less expensive than a flatbed tow truck is to rent a tilting equipment trailer (you may have meant a trailer, I wasn't sure). The reason is that the tilt angle is reduced substantially with a trailer (I was a tow truck driver for 5 years).
Also rent a pallet jack with narrow fork spacing, which are usually available at the trailer rental yards. You just need a pick up truck or SUV, preferably 3/4 ton, to pull it behind.

This is how it went for me:

1. I called the freight yard to see if they wouldn't mind forklifting the machine off of the pallet and onto the trailer (they were very coorperative and helpful, but you may want to call to make sure- it just depends on the trucking yard).

2. Go to the freight yard and pull off the heavy cardboard that is attached to the pallet (I used a pry bar and knife- pretty easy)

3. Have the yard forklift it off the pallet and onto your trailer

4. Strap it down and head on home

5. Once home, jack up the machine on the pallet jack.

6. With some friends and maybe a rope, steady the machine as you tilt the trailer

7. I used some heavy plywood with wood bracing underneath to lie on top of the trailer ramps, to give a smooth surface to roll off the trailer.

8. Roll it off with the pallet jack and into your shop, and you're done.

If you have the mobility kit, you might not need the pallet jack, I don't know. The SC4 didn't have the mobility kit, and the pallet jack is more heavy duty and gives you more ground clearance anyhow.

It was quite easy and uneventful for me, hopefully this'll work for you. I have other friends who've done the same with good success.

Enjoy your new toy!

-Todd Solomon

Five-Side Cut Revisited--Sam Blasco

Hey all,

I think i may have stumbled onto a system to tweak the crosscut fence even squarer than the beloved five cutter. see what you think. this one requires two panels, though.

1) get your fence close with a known and trusted framing square. (or in my case, the already performed 5 cuts.)

2) cut two equal panels (30x30 in my case) with the normal 4 cuts.

3) stack the panels as they came off the saw (they should match perfectly, otherwise something is wrong that will require attention before you attempt this again). then rotate or flip one of the panels 180 degrees. if they don't match perfectly, then the fence is not square.

4) if needed, adjust the fence position one way or the other and cut the panels again until they are perfect. this is the trial and error part, similar to the 5 cutter as to which way to move the fence to adjust.

It took me three series of cuts, (1/2" smaller each time) but it is dead nuts now. i mean, Altendorf on. don't know if that kind of accuracy is necessary, but i'm just nutty that way.

let the experimentation begin, and post results. all good scientific research results need to be repeated and verified.

sam blasco

That's what I've done for some time now when starting a cutting session--I'll cut a pair of cabinet sides, or doors a bit oversize, stack them and feel that they are the same size, then flip the top one upside down to check again. That way if they are either trapezoidal or parallelogram(al) it'll show up. Rotating the top panel won't show a parallelogram (that isn't square). It's faster for me than doing the 5 side cut. But it's easier to figure out which way to tweak the fence with the 5 side approach. I mark the last offcut for front and back, break it in two and check the ends against each other. That way I'll remember whether I'm narrow in the front or the back. Anything to keep from relying on fading memory cells is a good thing for me.

jim eddy