Moving Along . . .

Got out and did some milling with a buddy yesterday. It was out in Chilliwack, a lot of work for not a huge amount of wood. Some nice maple with a bit of stain on it. It turns out that milling on the beach is a lot easier than milling in the middle of a freshly logged lot covered in mud and hills and slash where you have to carry everything to and from the car!

Also finally got started on a muffler/baffle for the cyclone. I tested it this morning, just with the plywood box, and wow did it ever make a huge difference. It dropped the noise from around 90 dB to 70 dB. I am hopeful that once I get the box properly sealed and insulated with acoustic tile and eggcrate foam that it will drop even further.

Have been working on a small table out of an oak slab. The slab is a bit rustic, but I intend to use it for kneeling on when I am at my comptuer rather than using a chair. We'll see how that goes!

The slab had some cup in it, but I have it flat enough for what I need. I am just making up some legs for it. Ooops, first set was too short. That was quite a bit of time wasted, but a good chance to discuss the old adage 'measure twice and cut once' with my daughter. She found the saying quite amusing, either than or she found my mistake totaly amusing.

My Hammond Glider table saw is rocking now. The conversion of the unit from pica to inches is complete, other than fitting the new ruler. I also decided to buy a new blade for it, and wow did that make a huge diference, even though I had the old blade sharpened locally, it was like night and day.

Things are Starting to Happen

Finally getting a few things done around the shop.

House nearby being torn down and McMansion-ized, I managed to mill up some of the big beech that was in the back yard. This was the biggest tree in the neighbourhood by far, such a shame it was mowed down.

Couple weeks later down to the local log dump, scored some more beech, and some cherry.

Beech is one of the few local woods that I had not seem much of to mill (the other notable one being ash), now I have bucket  loads of it! Well, I will have in a few years after it dries.  Funny how I have gone years with little beech, then twice in a row - beech!

48x48x3" slab of beech

The cyclone silencing project continues slowly. Next step will be to finish insulatng the inside of the shed it is in with acoustic tile, and then to build a muffler for it.

In the shop, I have finally started on a long desired upgrade to my Hammond Glider sliding table saw. Since it was orignally built to be used in the printing industry, it is set up to measure cuts in units called 'pica', which are annoyingly not related to either Imperial or Metric units of measurement! So basically I need to replace an Acme rod, the nut it runs in, and the ruler scale. Seems easy, but of course these things never are.

The picture might be a bit confusing if you are not familiar with a Hammond Glider tablesaw, but basically it only does crosscutting, and the portion of the table to the left of the blade slides. The piece being cut is held against a built in crosscut fence, which contains a threaded Acme rod used to locate a crosscut stop. Picture form the bottom up shows the new threaded rod in place in the crosscut fence, the old ruler, the old rod, and the future new ruler. Note the blade at the top with its unique holding arrangement! The hard part of this project will be making a new Acme nut for the crosscut stop, I am hoping I can simply modify the old one.

Of course while I was at it I thought it would be a good time to address the fact that the blade is not straight to the table, and there is a bit more wobble in it than I would like to see. So, the start of another project while many others are already on the go!

Still Dusting!

A couple photos here showing some of the measures I am taking to try and reduce the noise from my cyclone.

I purchased several large pieces of acoustic foam at a local shop, my plan is to line the enclsoure with it to try and absorb some of the sound. You can see it in the photos, it has an egg crate texture.

I also decided to apply some sound absorbing material directly to the cyclone itself, to try and reduce the noise at its source. I'm using Dynamat, and have it on the upper part of the cylcone. It's nice since it is a peel and stick product, easy to apply.

I bought some acoustic tile, 3/4" thick with a high sound blocking rating, and plan to line the enclosure with it first, the acoustic foam will then go over the acoustic tile.

Lastly, and the thing I think will have the greatest effect, I plan to build an external baffle/muffler, rather just direct exhausting the cylcone.

Getting a Bit Less Dusty

It was a long and excellent summer, which unfortunately did not include any woodworking.

However, I have been back at it in recent weeks, and have managed to make some progress on the  dust collection system upgrades I started in the spring. I ran all the 6" PVC tubing from outside into the house and routed it to each of the four machines.

I built an insulated box around the cyclone, but I still have to install either a muffler or the dust filter as the noise of the exhaust blasting straight out the impeller is way too loud. Before I built the box/shed the noise was 84 dB at the property line. With the shed it is 80 dB. I was pretty disappointed in the minimal reduction, and there is no way the new neighbours are going to stand for that! Plus the box is extremely ugly. Too late to paint it now though, it'll have to wait for spring.

I do not have a filter on the cyclone though, it just exhausts straight out. I will build a muffler for it with some baffles and hope that takes it down to an acceptable level.

As part of the upgrade from the 4" system to a 6" systerm I had to upgrade the shrouds on most of my tools. This turned into more work than installing the cyclone and PVC ducting!

Only the jointer already had a 6" input on it. I had a 6"-4" reducer on it for the old 4" system, so it was a simple matter to remove that and connect up the 6" hose.

For the planer I just constructed a new shroud out of 1/8" plywood and a repurposed 6" furnace duct. It is ugly and not well sealed but does the job. I may take it to the sheet metal shop and get them to make a nicer one for me.

For the bandsaw, I had to perform some major surgery to get it done. The original 4" pickup was was impossible to modify to 6", instead I had to close it off and cut a corner off the door to install a slighlty modified 6" furnace duct. I was able to mount it such that the saw blade actually runs right through it so the collection is pretty good.

The tablesaw was the biggest headache, my Hammond Glider. It is a design from the 30's or so and was never designed for dust collection. The opening where the blade fits is fairly tight and it would not support the volume of air required by a 6" port. So I decided to utilize a 4" lower collection port under the table in this opening, and a 4" upper collection port over the blade. I had to get a custom pickup for under the table made at a sheet metal shop, then modified it extensively as I installed it.

Not much to see in the photo below, the custom duct is temporarily taped into place on the Glider.

 I did a couple test cuts and discovered that the slot the blade comes up through table in the normal cutting position (below) is way too small to allow any significant airflow, so the dust/chips on top of the saw are not effectively collected. If I lift up the part of the table to the right (as shown in the above picture) the dust collection is fantastic. I was hoping that the undertable collection would be enough, but it looks like I will need to add upper collection as well.

The 6" system moves a lot more air than the older 4" system did. The first thing I noticed when I fired it up on the jointer (same thing happens on the planer too) is that since there is so much air moving over the blades, it actually creates a noise similar to when you were a kid and you clothes pinned a baseball card to your bike frame so it would make a noise as the spokes hit it!

Knocking Down the Dust

Work continued apace on the installation of the 6" dust collection system for the basement shop. Despite being out of commission for the better part of a week due to a trip to Seattle followed by a cold bug, I managed to get the main lines run to all the machines. I used 6" PVC. Only my jointer has a 6" dust port on it, unfortunately the rest of the machines will require some kind of custom dust hoods/ports on them. I did fire it up and run a test board through the jointer, it worked really well!

Also managed to do a bit more milling a couple weeks ago. I have milled up most of hte bigger logs that were available and am now down to kind of dreggy stuff.

Small Stuff

Two More Cherry Logs

Some Crappy Cherry

This time of year there can be some pretty nice scenery in the milling area!

More, more, more!

The new Oneida 6" dust collection cyclone system arrived for the basement shop. I spent the weekend tearing the old 4" system out and getting the new cyclone in place beside the house. Next week I need to buy all the 6" pipe and start to route that.

I fired it up once all the electrical was complete, using my trusty Radio Shack sound pressure meter to measure the noise levels. Standing about 3' away registered 84 dB, compared to the 4" dust collector it replaced which registered 72 dB. So quite a bit louder, but the Oneida is still quieter than the larger Clearvue cyclone which I have in the garage I am renting, it is 94 dB. I am hopeful that will a bit of soundproofing and an enclosure the noise level will drop considerably, if I can get it down to 72 dB then I will be happy.

Also got the bandsaw mobile base back from the shop. Bringing the bandsaw over from where it is stored into my garage will be on hold till the dust collection is finished. Too bad this bandsaw is too big for the basement!

Have not had good luck with the weather recently for milling. Got skunked twice in a row last week, planning to go on Tueday but the forecast was calling for 50mm of rain! I think we got most if not all of it that day. Was last out a couple weeks ago. Hopefully again next week, weather forecast looks good right now.

Cherry and Maple

Cherry and Box Elder

Less Milling! But More Other Stuff!

Tuesday's milling did not happen, despite it being one of the most beautiful days of the year so far. I confirmed on Monday that the crew would be at the beach to set up a couple logs for my buddy and I, but Monday night my buddy bows out as he has a bad flu, then Tuesday morning I check with the crew and they were called away, so no milling Tuesday. But they will be there on Thursday.

So Wednesday night my buddy is still sick, Thursday morning I wake up and the rain is hammering down. I call and confirm that the crew is there to set up a log or two for me, so I load up the van, stop at the coffee shop and head for the beach. By this point the rain has stopped and restarted again, but as I get within a kilometer from the beach my cell rings, it's the crew and saying they blew a hydraulic hose on the loader, so no logs can be set up. What a week! Anyways, I drop by to say hello anyways, and notice that there is at least a half dozen more cherry logs there. So there will be some good milling ahead, if the milling horsehoes ever get their act together again! That will bring this "season's" cherry to about 20 logs, a record for any species for me!

On my other projects, I have definitely violated one of my personal cardinal rules, which is to only work on one project at a time. Too many times I have found myself making tiny progress on multiple projects, seemingly never finishing any of them.

I continue to make tiny progress on the Continental 6" jointer. The knobs for adjusting the height of the infeed and outfeed tables were giving me fits recently. I wound up drilling them and using roll pins to secure them to their shafts. next will be getting the tables level, then I will install the gibs and knives. My enthusiasm for this project has diminished quite a bit, this turned out to be such a coarse machine, I doubt that I will ever use it.

Also rough cut the yellow cedar for the lamp project. I resawed all the pieces to be rift sawn, that way all four sides show nice straight grain lines. I cut a few  pieces of alder as well, I'll be using those to start with for practice. I'm letting the wood settle for a while, then I will dimension it once all the movement is done. I am really looking forward to using some of this beautiful old growth material. It is so aromatic in the shop, and the growth rings are incredibly tight, more than 30 per inch. It is a privilige to have such wood.

And I have not given up entirely on my daughter's desk, although it is kind of off again, on again. I did paint it with black milk paint a while ago, and redid a couple pieces that were not right originally. Once I get a topcoat of shellac on I hope to glue it up, and I have a nice slab for the top, I think it is rosewood.

And I am anticipating the arrival of my new Oneida cyclone dust collector in a few weeks.  I would have prefered a Clearvue, but the Oneida is a 3 HP motor and the Clearvue's are 5 HP and so noisey. My power is quite restricted in my basement shop and I can only provide enough current for a 3 HP motor. So there you are. I have started to make some changes in my shop to accomodate the new system, starting with moving my clamp rack to make room for an old-school manual starter. Love the retro look of this!

And I took all the Manitoba Maple / box elder pieces out of the furnace room the other day as they had dried very nicely there. I think I will sell or trade these small pieces, as I have plenty of this type of wood already.

And of course all the various slabs I have cut over the past few weeks are starting to accumulate against the garage. I really need to get them stacked up properly.

The big bandsaw's mobile base should be done next week. I am having a local machine/welding shop make it up based on a design I saw online. I am really looking forward to getting this big old beast up and running!