Coolest thread on the cellar right now

You're just saying that because your bike is done. :)

and because i couldn't just hit the like button

oh.. and it's not quite done. I got the White Walls. They go on Weds. My birthday pressie to me.

Just say NO.

I already built a spindle sander for the drill press. Besides, blenders are way too fast.

CANNIBAL!

This.
And maybe that.

I'm realizing that a city boy with a bike cart would never have to go to the lumber yard. That is cool.

It's amazing how regularly furniture gets thrown away around here. It's rare for it to be in good enough shape to use as furniture, but 50% of the time it's made of good enough material to be useful. Ikea is the exception of course. I don't even really count their stuff as furniture, even though I own some of it myself.

I'm tempted to try that. Totally pointless, but would be amusing.

8/16 Tuesday evening
Over the previous weekend, I spied a nasty looking table in the trash. It was a small card table sized table, and had been used as a craft table. The top was a scratched up formica top, covered in spilled paint and wood underneath was swollen and nasty looking from variuos spills. But the apron and legs looked to be in sound condition, and solid wood. So I took it home, threw out the table top, and saved the rest. The hidden parts of the aprons had a dark stain but no finish. I lightly scraped them to make them flat and glued them up. These are going to be for the trunnion supports for the table top.
Attachment 57676

I stuck them in the vise and clamped them up to dry.

Attachment 57677

8/17 Wednesday - another hour or so this evening.

I ripped my glued up table aprons to width and cut them to length

Attachment 57678

The top and bottom arc of the trunnion supports are described by different radiuses (radii?) from a point that would be floating in space. So I clamped a cutoff from the same stock next to my work piece and measured to find that point.
Attachment 57679

My layout lines are hard to see. I was being lazy before by not sanding the finish off, and now I regret it. But with the work I went through to draw those lines, I'm not about to go back now and clean this up. Also, I'm realizing that having a functioning band saw would be extremely helpful right now to cut this out.
Attachment 57680

8/20 Saturday - I can work for a couple hours because it's the weekend.

First I cut the corner of each work piece off on the table saw. That's easy enough.
Attachment 57681

Then I use a saber saw to cut about an eight of an inch away from the line. Saber saws suck. They struggle through thick maple, and the blade kept pulling out so I would have to put it in again. If I tighten it too much to keep it from falling out, then I will break the brittle metal. So I cut for 30 seconds at a time and then replace the blade that fell out. The cut is crap.
Attachment 57682

I say fuck it when it comes to cutting the arc on the bottom of these parts. It's just there for aesthetic reasons, and I cut a notch instead to do the same thing.
Attachment 57683

A year or so ago, I posted about making a drum sander to go in the drill press. It comes in handy here cleaning up the ugly saber saw cut. I had left an eigth of an inch or so, and now I sand down to the line. It was hard to see the line and slow going, but I persevered.
Attachment 57684

And I'm pleased with how they came out.
Attachment 57685

8/21 Sunday. Another couple hours

I let an hour or so get away from me without taking any pictures.
To get to this point in making the lower blade guide assembly support block, I started by cutting a block to size. Drilled the two slots on the drill press. Cut the corner miter off on the table saw by tilting the blade and doing a rip cut. (edit: actually, now that I think about it, I used a hand plane, an old bedrock #605, to plane that bevel on that corner.) Drilled the large hole that accepts the ball bearing using a forstner bit in the drill press. Then I cut away the two notches at the end of the piece on the table saw so that that tongue would be sticking out. In this picture I have it clamped in a vise to get two pilot holes drilled at those points on the right.
Attachment 57686

One of the slots is ugly because the drill bit wandered a little in the grain. But I tested it out and a bolt still slides back and forth in that slot without too much trouble.
Attachment 57687

I tested the fit of the screws by attaching the support block for the side blade guides.
Attachment 57688

I'm focused on the ball bearing mount now. It's held by a bolt screwed into a t-nut, but the t-nut needs to slide back and forth in a slot so you can adjust the bearing location. Being able to slide, it will also spin as you try to tighten it. You don't want it to spin, so I found a little bolt from some electronics or something I had taken apart and drove it into one of the t-nut mounting holes.
Attachment 57689

This is the bearing bolted into place. I had filed down a couple washers a bit to go on either side of the bearing. This bearing can be adjusted forward or back to accommodate different blades.
Attachment 57690

Here's the whole lower blade guide assembly attached to the table support beam. (I haven't attached the trunion supports I made a few days ago, but they will go on the ends of this beam.) The wrench is there to weigh it down in place until I bolt the thing to the frame.
Attachment 57691

That's all for now. I'm caught up.

Can you take a pic of the whole thing so I can get an idea of scale?

Here
Attachment 57692

It's sitting on a bedside table that the same neighbors who thew the bed out also threw out. I plan to try to turn that table into an actual base. Put wheels on it and cut a hole in the top to let sawdust fall down into the drawer. Something like that. Maybe attach legs to the existing legs splayed out a little more so it's very stable.

So it's like 4 ft tall?

Side tangent for the men vs. women (if any of the latter are still coming into this thread...) I get that cool things come out of workshops, for sure. It's like the sausage factory. But am I the only one who sees the typical chaos of a standard workshop and just immediately wants to leave? I don't mean in an "ew, it's dirty" kind of way, but a genuine "oh my god no I have to leave" panic. I can't imagine even hanging out in there, the stuff is so overwhelming.

No offense to your workshop, glatt, you make some very cool stuff with it.

And I've been trying to aim the camera at the less cluttered areas of the shop!

It's actually a little annoying. My shop is a dumping ground for stuff from the house that doesn't have a home. And my son also leaves stuff all over. I really want to get a large shed and need to get around to making that happen. In the interest of transparency, I took some shots of the clutter.
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...de30d540c9.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...34db6cdac8.jpg
Attachment 57718

And
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...9e24dd194c.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...b6c06532d8.jpg

OK my favorite part is the sound system

http://cellar.org/2016/soundsystem.jpg

Like all things in life, it progressed organically over time. The JVC on the bottom I had in college and took to Germany with me. It has a broken tape player but I can't get rid of it because it has an aux input that I can connect to my IPod. The Hello Kitty came next. It plays tapes and CDs but sounds like crap. I should ask my daughter if I can get rid of it. It's hers. Finally, the huge Sony on the top just works and sounds good. I took it off the curb. No aux input though.

At first I thought, "What the hell is she talking about? That's not messy." Then I saw your other photos, and immediately thought, "Oh. That's more like it. I don't feel so bad about my shop."

Yeah, NO.

Don't the various audio things get sawdust in them? Mr. Clod's CD players kept breaking.

I should note, our garage looks just as bad. I just don't go out there.

MY shop has been basically abandoned for the same reason. Kids got access and started dumping shit there as they moved from place to place. Now MY shop is a holding ground for their crap. I think this fall they are all gonna get fair warning that their crap will either be with them or Goodwill. I want MY messy space back.

My garage just doubled in size. That might be the best part of having the whole place. Having Amanda there when I come home might be ok too.

your boldness shames me glatt.

maybe I'll post my shopshit pics too.













maybe not.

Popdigr's shop makes Glatt's look like an operating room.

Clod, you would prolly take one look at Popdigr's shop and drop dead in your tracks.

It's truly remarkable.

That's not trash, it's potential.

QFT.

I can name the potential project for most of the items in my shop.

Let's see. Where are we? Last weekend was a 3 day weekend, and I got a few hours in.

I had been working on the table mount system. The block that supports it all needs to have bolt holes drilled into it to bolt it to the frame. Pretty straight forward stuff.

I mark the hole locations. I'm anal about this, but don't know why. It doesn't matter much exactly where the bolts go, and they will be out of sight.
Attachment 57814

First I use large forstner bit to make room for the bolt heads and washers.
Attachment 57815

Then I drill the center bolt holes in the little divot left in the center by the forstner bits.
Attachment 57816

It will look like this with bolts in place.
Attachment 57817

Instead of grouping related things together, I'll post the pictures in the order I worked on them.

I turned my attention next to the blade guard that gets attached to the blade guide arm that goes up and down. It needs to be made of metal so it has a low enough profile. Wood would be too fat. The enclosure I make later will cover pretty much everything else, but this needs to move up and down with the guides and requires a little more thought. I look around for suitable stock to use and get it in my mind that this old olive oil can I saved would look pretty cool.
Attachment 57818

I cut the can open and bent the corners so it would lie flat on the bench. I didn't want to mark the can up with a sharpie. I liked the design, so I used masking tape to mark my cuts instead. The wide strip of blue tape in the middle is how wide the guard has to be. The blue tape on each side is where I need to cut.
Attachment 57819

I have these old snips that used to belong to my grandfather. They are meant for exactly this kind of work.
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This is the part cut out. I want to bend each side back on itself to stiffen the part and also to give me a nice soft edge instead of a razor sharp edge that would cut me. So I left about twice the length on each side to account for that.
Attachment 57821

There is a tool called a brake. It's for bending sheet metal nice and straight. I don't own one (wouldn't have room for one anyway.) Instead, I can use a couple of hardwood strips clamped together tightly and bend the metal along the edge of those hardwood strips.
Attachment 57823

Once I get those edges folded back on themselves, I hammer them as flat as I can on the floor.
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Now the whole affair is compact enough that I can clamp it in my vise to complete the folding.
Attachment 57825

I drill some holes in the guard to mount to the guide arm.
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Now that it's mounted, you can see the clearance around the saw blade.

Attachment 57827

And this shows the clearance around the wheel.
Attachment 57828

Here it is on the saw.
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Sweet!

An aside,

Q: Where does virgin olive oil come from?

A: Ugly olives.


Q: Where does extra virgin olive oil come from?

A: Fat and ugly olives.

[/olive shaming]

I turn my attention back to the table support stuff. I need to glue the trunnion supports to the end of the long block. They will be held in place with these dowels and glue.
Attachment 57830

It's a difficult fit. It needs a little persuasion with a mallet.
Attachment 57831

Still can't get the pieces tight against one another, and it turns out I made my dowels too long. I can't pull them together with a clamp because the dowels are in the way. So while the glue is drying, I frantically drill out some oversized holes in a clamping block that will fit over those dowels that are sticking out. Then I can clamp them together. Glue-ups can be stressful some times.
Attachment 57832

But it all comes out nicely, and I bolt the whole thing down on the table.
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And this is kind of a final picture of the work for the weekend. Both the table support and blade guard on. With the table support block in place and the guide on, you can really see some progress. I can't decide if the oil can guard is really cool or trashy. I'm thinking it's cool. It's right in your face that this is a home made band saw.
Attachment 57834
In more of a miscellaneous category is this motor. I got this at a flea market on Saturday morning. It's a much better motor for this saw. It has 0.625 HP instead of the 0.5HP the other motor had. Not a huge deal, but it's twice the speed. That's a big improvement because the other motor was giving me a blade speed that was about a third of what I wanted. Also, the mounting bracket is lower profile than the one I made. All this for $5. Only $5.
Attachment 57835
And finally, I needed to make a couple wooden shims for the lower wheel to keep it from rubbing against the frame.
Attachment 57836

I like the oil can. Can you use the lid as a knob somewhere?

Oh, it doesn't have the kind of lid I was thinking of. Nevermind

O lives matter.

This is brilliant!

You know, it would be a lot quicker to cut those out with a bandsa... Umm, never mind.

http://cellar.org/attachment.php?att...6&d=1473438952

Think of all the band saws you could make once you have a band saw.

Lately, it's been just about every piece I have made that I wish I had a bandsaw.

https://vimeo.com/182253583

I set it up with the new motor. Works well.

I really need a table though and a safety enclosure.

That's impressive. That's slower than you want it though? Seemed a little slow to me. That's probably because the only one I ever used was in school. Industrial grade machines there.

Looks like it will absolutely serve though. Nice work. Again.

RE: speed

What size are your pulleys? The picture of the pulley on the motor seems tiny. Use your pulley sizes to set your speed.

Building a bandsaw on the cheap from mostly scrap wood
 

I think I could have fed the wood into the blade faster. I was going slow because I was honestly terrified of the saw without an enclosure around those huge spinning wheels. So I put almost no pressure on the blade with my feed rate. I didn't want to upset the saw and have it tear my face off.

And as for the pulleys, I didn't have the right size for the speed I wanted, but it was going to have to be something like 6 inches diameter and pulleys that large were a bit more expensive on Ebay. I still needed to buy a pulley to go with my new $5 motor, but it was only $10 instead of like $25 for a giant pulley to go on the old motor. All that being said, I agree you want to adjust pulley size to get the speed you want.

Looking good man.

Totally with you on this one!
Looks really good so far. I am loving this whole thing.

Speeds:
http://web.mit.edu/machineshop/Bandsaw/speeds.html

Calculate band saw SFPM:
http://vintagemachinery.org/math/sfpm.aspx

So after all this time i read the thread title as: Building a bandsaw on the cheap from mostly sacred wood

Seems appropriate.

Glatt, this guy is a man after your own heart. You should check out his channel

Thanks. I'll check it out.

My wife was out of town for the weekend, and the kids were away for most of Saturday at a band competition. I had time to get some work done. And I am getting close, so I'm motivated.

I wanted to get the table done this weekend, and the first step Saturday is to make these little flying saucer bolt heads to clamp the trunnions down. They need to be the same thickness as the trunnion supports, so I grab some of the leftover boards I had glued up to make those. They are an awkward shape. I could really use a band saw to cut these out. Funny thing about that, I think I now have a band saw I can use.
Attachment 57919

I cut out and glued down the paper templates to the stock. Then I clamped a scrap piece of quarter inch thick plywood to the band saw frame.
Attachment 57920


I cut them out on the band saw and they look great! I have a band saw!
Attachment 57921

I cleaned them up and smoothed them out on my son's disc sander.
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The trunnion plans call for multiple layers glued up in a sandwich to leave an open slot that the locking bolts can move around in.
Attachment 57923

I used the table saw to cut up some more of that maple bed frame I dug out of the trash last month. I cut it to the proper thickness and took some off each side so I can remove the finish as I get down to the proper dimension.
Attachment 57924

I marked out the upper and lower curves of the trunnions using a compass set to a different radius for each curve.
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And then I cut each one out on the band saw! This saw is working great!
Attachment 57926