I cleaned these up on my son's disc sander to get the curves nice and smooth.
Attachment 57927

For the center parts, a slat from that bed frame is the perfect thickness. So I grab one and sand the finish off on the belt sander.
Attachment 57928

Then I glued the templates down on that slat.
Attachment 57929

And cut them out on the band saw! I love saying that.
Attachment 57930

I arranged them in order and started to glue them up.
Attachment 57931

Clamped them to dry.
Attachment 57932

That evening, I cleaned up the dried glue squeeze out and tested the fit on the saw. They moved smoothly and clamped down tight. Nice.
Attachment 57933

Late Sunday morning, with the trunnions finished, I turned my attention to the table itself. The table is supported by a sub-table that is attached to the trunnions. So I dug around for a scrap of plywood I could use for a sub table. Towards the bottom of my pile of scraps, I found a beautiful piece of furniture grade 3/4 inch plywood. I don't remember where this came from, but I've got two of them, and they are gorgeous. So I cut it to size and laid out the dimensions on the work piece.
Attachment 57946

Again, I find this is most easily cut out on the band saw. I have to be careful not to get cocky about having a band saw now. The uncovered spinning wheel of death is right next to my face as I use it.
Attachment 57935

With the sub table cut out, I screw through the trunnions and into the edge of the sub table to support it. This is testing the fit on the frame.
Attachment 57936

The finished table top is attached with screws through the sub table and also screws driven diagonally through the trunnions. So I draw an angled line on the trunnions that will miss the existing screws and, while keeping an eyeball on the bubble in the level of my drill, I drill an angled hole through the trunnion. I do this 4 times.
Attachment 57937

Two weeks ago, while I was driving through the neighborhood, I saw a large, dishwasher-sized, chest of plastic drawers by the side of the road. It was on caster wheels, and the wheels looked really nice. So after driving by it a few times, I stopped to wrestle it into the back seat of my car. It was smelly. It had been in a flooded basement or something. But the wheels were nice, and I noticed that the top was in really nice shape. It was about an inch and a half thick particle board covered with melamine on both the top and bottom, and all the edges were finished with a nice plastic or rubber molding. And most importantly, it looked like it was the exact same size as a band saw table. So I took it all apart. Saved the wheels. And saved the top, and pitched the rest of the smelly mess away. The top cleaned up very nicely and had no odor. When I got the top into my shop with the plans in front of me, I could see it was 2 cm wider than the plans called for. Close enough. I'll keep the 2 cm, and save that finished edge. The length though is about 6 inches too long. So that's the only thing I have to cut to make it the finished size.
Attachment 57938

While I had it on the table saw to cut that edge, I cut a notch for feeding a band saw blade into the hole in the center as I change blades in the band saw. And I use a router in the center to form the lip that a blade insert will rest on.
Attachment 57939

Then I moved it to the band saw to cut the hole for the blade in the center.
Attachment 57940

I squared the corners with a chisel.
Attachment 57947

I placed the sub table assembly upside down on the bottom of the finished table top and got it all lined up with the measurements in the plans, while accounting for those 2 extra centimeters in width. As I was doing this, I almost forgot to put the clamp down bolts in place in the trunnions. But I remembered. Then I screwed everything down.
Attachment 57943

I moved the table to the band saw, and fed the blade through the saw kerf in the table top to get it onto the frame. I tested setting it at an angle and clamped it down. It worked great. Nice and solid.
Attachment 57944

But most of my work will be done with the table set in the level position, so I set the table square to the blade and drew a line across the joint between the trunnion and trunnion support to mark the 90 degree line up.
Attachment 57945


There is still a fair amount left to do. I have to make the enclosures. And I need to bolt the motor to the frame, instead of using temporary clamps, and I need to do the electrical stuff. Right now I plug it in to start it and unplug it to stop it

very cool

Awesome!

This is making me a little hot...

Don't bother.

I did about an hour of electrical work last night. And for a change, my daughter came down into the shop to see what I was doing, and she helped me a bit. It was nice. (Although I got a little distracted when she was helping me, and forgot to take pictures as we were going along.)

I started off by spreading out all the stuff I thought I would need. I had dug a power strip out of the trash at work. We have been undergoing renovations in phases at work, and each floor is tasked with cleaning out their stuff before they move to another floor temporarily as their original floor gets worked on. Anyway, people are freaking lazy, and throw away lots of perfectly good stuff instead of packing it up. So I dug a power strip with a long cord out of a trash bin outside somebody's office one day. That's the gray power strip. The black power strip belonged to my FIL, and it's too ugly to make it into use in our house, so I'm going to cannibalize its cord. All these cords are 14 gauge. They should be enough to run the saw with its 9 amp motor.
Attachment 57971

The power strip from work has 3 philips head screws and 3 tamper proof screws. I find that the tamper proof screws can be removed if I tighten them a hair to break the grip of the threads, and then press down really hard as I slowly back them out.
Attachment 57972

I had to break apart the little circuit board inside to cut the wires neatly. This shot is for tw, not that he comes to this thread. It looks like the only electronic components in this power strip is a 5A fuse and maybe that's a capacitor.
Attachment 57973

Back to the band saw, I need to use my bit and brace to drill a clean hole deep enough to get through the frame. A spade bit in a power drill also would have worked, but they aren't as clean.
Attachment 57974

I'm going to put a switched outlet on the rear of the frame and switch it with a switch mounted on the front of the frame. Here I am about to put a cable clamp on the side of the outlet's metal box. The power cord will exit out of this side hole and get plugged into the house.
Attachment 57975

I stripped a segment of cable from my FIL's power strip to pass through the frame and into each box on either side of the frame.
Attachment 57976

The box is centered over the hole in the wood. So this wooden hole will act as a bushing to keep the cable from getting cut rubbing against the sharp edge of the box. If this was a box mounted in the wall of a home, I am supposed to have a clamp here to keep the cable from being tugged on, but on this saw, it will be completely encased in the frame and can't be tugged on. I ground the box with the green wire because it's there.
Attachment 57977

And then my daughter joined me, and I stopped taking detailed pictures.
This shot shows the outlet on the rear of the saw and the switch on the front of the saw. The motor is plugged into the outlet, and so is a goose necked lamp.
Attachment 57979

I attached the goose neck lap by screwing through the plastic of the spring clamp on the thing.
Attachment 57978

Video of the switch in action.

Excellent.

Lamp envy.

I love lamp

Excellent work, bro. And very clean and tidy too. The hand drill choice is indicative of your thoughtful approach to this project.

I am a huge fan of glatt.
And not just this thread. You are truly admirable. I'm sure reading that embarrasses you, but that's just too bad.

I'm hoping you have chronic halitosis or something. Fucking boy scout. ;)

Thanks, Jim!

Like

glatt - this is ridiculously cool. Outstanding work.

Thank you!

I can almost taste it, I'm so close. It feels like it anyway. I think in reality the enclosure is going to be a lot of work.

The skills you learned and honed along the way... priceless! :notworthy

Remember to start a new project before this is finished so you have something to move right into, that way you can avoid the post project let-down. That's what my teacher told me.

Here's your next DIY: Thickness sander

http://lumberjocks.com/projects/7641

Oh the dust! I thought the planer was bad. :p:

I'm considering a dust collector as my next project.

I'm quite a fan myself. He had me at homemade wooden kayak. I was kinda holding out hope that maybe he beat his kids or something, but, halitosis is prolly better. Less beaty.

For a while I was substituting hummus as a spread on my sandwiches instead of mayo, and after a while my wife complained of my bad breath. So I switched back to mayo and she said my breath was ok again.

Pretty sure my breath doesn't smell.

Drat!

3 nipples?

Webbed feet?

Close talker?

That must be code for he beats his kids.

Close talker...:lol2:

I remember that episode of Seinfeld.

When you're done, you could pick up a few bucks on the side...

That's just a little terrifying. So my saw will take my arm off in less than a second if I shove my arm in there.

They aren't kidding when they tell you to adjust the blade guide to only a quarter inch above the work piece so you can't cut an appendage off.

No way could I do that for eight hours.

I got bored about thirty seconds in.

He'd be several cuts past the mistake before he missed that thumb.

His thumb would be wrapped and shipped by then.

Alton Brown would be doing a special on cooking the thumb by then.

Thumb removal would have become popular with everyone's parents by then, while all the kids would have already moved on to the latest trend of waxed butt moustaches.

Salvation Armys across the nation would be full up with thumbs by then, waiting for a surge from ironic hipsters.

You'll be able to buy over the counter thumb removal CRISPR technology at gas stations and mini marts next to the no-doz, butt mustache wax, and condoms.

:lol2:

Sorry glatt, didn't mean to derail your build thread, just add a little levity.
Now back to the fantastic build.

Derailments like this one are one of my favorite things about the Cellar.

I mean, who woulda thunk we coulda got this much levity out of a simple thumb comment.

You guys rock.

Nah. No worries. Have fun in the thread. I'll get it back on the track when I am ready. I enjoyed showing the meat video to my kids.

Fuck that shit, it's thumb jokes until he gets his lazy ass down to the shop and starts building that cover that he is avoiding.


I'm half tempted to start a thread, "Building a bandsaw on the cheap from mostly detached thumbs" but I'm too busy procrastinating.

There is a saying about procrastination. One day I'll look it up.

I heard a rumor that foot3 is super clumsy. He's all thumbs.

ALSO DID YOU KNOW... in the movie Spy Kids, the bad guy's henchmen were called Thumb-Thumbs.

Well, that's thumbthing.

Sawdust?

He's a god

I did a little work a few weeks ago and need to update this thread. It's slow going though, because I'm running in to problems again where the plans don't match my saw as built. And I have trouble visualizing the piece I'm making and how it fits with the saw until after I have made the piece and it doesn't fit. Then I can see what needed to be wider or longer, or whatever.

Back at the beginning of the month on October 2nd, I dug around for a nice scrap of quarter inch plywood to serve as the most visible part of the saw. The upper wheel cover. It will feel good to have this cover in place because that big spinning wheel of death is just a couple of inches from my nose as I use the saw.

Attachment 58191

I cut it to shape on the table saw except for the very last inch or two of the inside corner. For that, I went over to my BANDSAW to cut it out.

Attachment 58192

I cut the first simple edge board to length and glued it in place

Attachment 58193

The next edge board has a little notch cut out of it to make space for the blade guide, which slides up and down.

Attachment 58194

More edges glued up.

Attachment 58195

This is a complicated piece to fit around the different layers of the frame.

Attachment 58196

Glue up

Attachment 58197

These diagonal pieces need to have a bird's mouth joint cut into them to help hold the corners together. A band saw is the perfect tool to cut those, and I just happen to have one.

Attachment 58198

Gluing up some more

Attachment 58199

Laying out the lines for the rear plywood piece. This has to fit over the wheel and axle, so has notches cut out of it. I cut it out on the band saw.

Attachment 58200

The motor was hanging off the end of the shelf. I guess the plans were designed for a different motor shape. I needed to extend the length of the shelf.

Attachment 58201

and here you can see that I have changed the pulley to slow the blade speed down to the speed I want. So you can add $10 to the cost. I still need to actually bolt the motor down, but first I want to finish any tuning I need to do of the saw.

Attachment 58202

The next weekend, I clamped the cover in place to test the fit. It doesn't fit. It rubs in at least two places. Sigh. At least it looks good.

Attachment 58203

The oil can blade guard is too close to the cover. I think this is because I made the wheels slightly larger than the plans called for so this would be a true 16 inch band saw.

Attachment 58204

So I take the cover to the drill press to hog out some material. I need to remove enough material while still leaving enough to provide strength.

Attachment 58205

The material is removed. The blade guard doesn't rub now.

Attachment 58206

You should have been a documentarian.

The cover is held in place with little tabs that fit into holes drilled in the frame. I tapered the dowel part of these tabs, and then located the correct placement for them.

Attachment 58207

The tabs glued in place.

Attachment 58208

And checking the fit, they are too close together to fit around the leaf springs.

Attachment 58209

So I trim them both with a hand saw and remove the waste with a chisel.

Attachment 58210

And I test the fit again. I can get the thing around the wheel without obstructions. Nothing is rubbing! But the tabs don't reach deep enough in the frame. I think it's a metric vs. inch thing. My frame is made of 3/4 inch boards. Who knows what Matthias used in Canada? I don't. But I need to get about 3/16th of an inch closer and I can't.

Attachment 58211

I need to cut these notches in the cover sides deeper. But then it won't fit over the wheel any more. The front of the cover will hit the front of the wheel. It won't be deep enough. So I think I'll need to cut some strips to glue to the edge of the cover to give me the depth I need, and then cut the notches deeper.

So that's where I am. I haven't touched this project in 8 days.

It's almost to the point that I'm considering just building the cover over from scratch again instead of trying to shim my way to a good fit. But I used my best scrap of plywood, and it looks so nice.

If it were me I'd cob it and slap a coat of paint on the offending area, but it wouldn't bug me every time I used it.

is it that the plywood needs to move to the left in your photo, or the peg needs to move to the left, or both?
In either case I'd just rip a few strips of 3/16" thick material off a 1x and glue that to either the ply or the frame.

Probably a metric/standard issue. Metric ply is a shade larger than 1/4, 3/8. or 1/2 and standard ply is a shade under 1/4, 3/8, 1/2" etc. Not sure it would add up to 3/16" though. Probably it's the nut behind the wrench...

Mostly the peg needs to move to the left. I'm gonna make new thicker peg things that reach further over so they have some meat to dig into.

Tempted to go down there tonight, but that glass of wine I had earlier makes power tools a bad idea. I may just catch up on Stranger Things.

My dad is coming to visit in early December and I'd like a basically finished saw then. Time's ticking.