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Sawmill visit

Our woodturning group, Northern Turners,  was invited to a saw mill in the pleasant rural setting of Mount Torrens in South Australia. Members of other woodturning clubs,  who fall under the umbrella Woodgroup SA  were also there. We were there in part to see the operation of the sawmill and to buy some wood for turning. The mill is a small operation that is based on a dairy farm making the setting quite bucolic. On the day there were slabs and pieces of redgum available for sale and some camphor laurel. Michael the sawmaster has two portable sawmills and had some elm setup to demonstrate both pieces of equipment.  the first on the he demonstrated was a Bushmill - portable saw mill which was made in Victoria for about 15 years. The company is no longer in existence. The machine is essentially a large bandsaw on its side  and is pushed along by the operator. The saw is powered by a petrol engine. The other sawmill is a Lucas mill which sports a large chainsaw blade almost 5 feet across (I guess 1500 mm in the new money) . The saw was set up on a large concrete pad but can be moved onsite if required. Like the other sawmill it is controlled by the operator although it is not as rigid as the Bushmill unit so more attention needs to be paid to tracking the cutting saw square to the log being milled. Michael did mention that he does take the Lucas mill on site as well. The Sawmills The Bushmill saw has an advantage of a fixed base allowing that allows the log being milled to be clamped down.  This means that the log can be milled quite a [...]

By |June 11th, 2016|Categories: Tools and Jigs, Woodturning|Tags: , |0 Comments
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A grinding bench in Sketchup

I keep fiddling about with designing things in Sketchup. Its a steep learning curve to start with particularly as I tend to conceive and design in my head. The attached images are from a grinding that I made for my shed. I have limited space so I try where possible to make things mobile. The idea for this was to keep my bench grinder, wet sharpener and slow speed grinder all in the one place. I set about designing this all in Sketchup. The final design did of course alter as I built it. The main difference is the middle shelf isn't full width. I made a space to accommodate a thickness planer that I own. The Sketchup model  did help me visualise the project and helped with material sizes. I'm currently working on a base for my new table saw which I hoping will be more detailed.  

By |April 29th, 2016|Categories: Tools and Jigs|Tags: |0 Comments
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Bosch GTS10XC

I have this year retired my trust Triton series 2000 workcentre. It has served me well but is getting old is very noisy and has limitations. I have been looking for nearly a year. I don't have space for a cabinet saw as much as I would like one. I started looking as the compact table saws. There were three contenders Bosch, Metabo and Dewalt. I did briefly look at a Makita but didn't like the finish.  All three were comparable in price. I was to some extent aided by an article in Wood Review  an Australian woodworking magazine. There were pros and cons. The Dewalt had a rack and pinion fence system but I didn't like the finish of the machine  overall. I thought long and hard about the Metabo one of its strong point was an integral stand. Simply fold up and roll away. In the end I opted for Bosch GTS10XC. I liked the braking when it shuts down. A mobile base would have been good but it came with a foldable base. The dust extraction works well and I can hook up my shop vac no problems. I can rip up to 650mm wide. It also has a sliding table which holds the mitre gauge. Its simple to use and accurate. It has cut square out of the box. I intend to build  a mobile base for Bosch GTS10XC table saw with storage draws. This will allow me to move it about and roll it away when not in use. I will also try and create a cross cut sled for this machine. So its vale Triton Series 2000 workcentre and welcome to the Bosch GTS10XC.

By |March 15th, 2016|Categories: Tools and Jigs|Tags: |1 Comment
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Hand Drill Restoration

In e recent post I mentioned that I received a hand drill as a gift. There are no identifying marks on the drill so I don't know where it comes from or how old it is. Most likely it is an Australian hand drill although there are a lot of English tools in Australia. What I really enjoyed was taking it apart. Every piece was screwed together which meant that I could completely disassemble it. This is unusual now as most products are made in a way that makes disassembly difficult. A nice feature of the drill is a compartment inside the handle. This would be great to small drill bits. After a thorough clean and oil I put it all back together. The only real damage was the crank handle which had become bent over time. This was easily fixed at the vice. I decided not to paint the drill. The action of the crank and crown wheel is really smooth. The chuck tightens very  nicely and can hold drill smaller than my modern cordless drill. This is useful for drilling small pilot holes. Particularly in the case of small brass screws which break easily without a pilot hole I was too impatient to make a video so I put together this collage on Animoto. The following looks pretty good and gives a great look at all the parts that make up this hand drill.

By |November 22nd, 2015|Categories: Tools and Jigs, Woodworking|Tags: |0 Comments
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