patches

We went to Roto-Vegas for the weekend and decided to rent eBikes to ride the Forest Loop (approx 33km). Dare I say I rather enjoyed cycling in "easy mode" 😅 I can recommend for anyone looking for a nice outdoor activity in the redwoods, and perfectly suitable to non-cyclist types.

Yesterday while tinkering away to make more tool holders for the french cleat wall, and while pondering my next move, I took 2min to cobble-together this drills-and-things hanger for the side of my workbench It's so simple that I cannot post it under the woodwork thread. Just a pine cornice off-cut with 2 holes drilled on either and for T-slot bolts and a handful of StealthMount brackets screwed on. As the whole perimeter of my workbench as T-track I can simply slot-in and fasten anywhere along the edge, to hang tools in an accessible location (BTW, forgive my cluttered workbench. I piled a bunch of stuff onto it to see what I need to build tool holders for, and as I build them it slowly de-clutters.)

The real question is "can you even think of a reason NOT to have one?" 😅 Do it! You won't regret it! I use my track saw way more often than I use my table saw. Add a few rail sizes (I have a 1m, 1.4m and a 3m) and some accessories (Benchdogs.co.uk have some awesome ones) and you have a pretty versatile setup. Plus if you need extra justification, they're safer than table saws and have better dust collection (when hooked up to a vac) Also check out Peter Millard on Youtube. he does 95% of his work with a track saw and has some great portable MFT (Multi Function Table) builds for track-saw stations. Based on the thickness of that slab, I'm guessing your friend has a Festool TS 75? I run the Makita 36V cordless (2x18V) with bluetooth dust extraction, which I may upgrade to the 40V just to number of batteries required and lower the centre of gravity to make bevelled cuts easier. My recommendation, go Festool or Makita, as they use the same rail system and have the widest range of aftermarket goodies. Dewalt, Bosch, Mafell etc seem to lag behind what Festool and Makita.

Local council campaigning is heating up in my neighbourhood.

Very seldom. Volcanoes are the natural disaster of choice for Auckland. French Cleats wouldn’t work as well in Christchurch.

Another little weekend project was the start on a French Cleat wall. I didn't feel like replacing all the pegboard ply so I just spaced the clears at 200mm centres to cover every 2nd row of peg holes and create a hybridised cleat/peg setup. Next was some simple clamp racks. Scraps, mitre saw, brad nails and wood glue. Easy as! Then there was my work-in-progress square & level holder. Needs a few more pieces attached to take a 600mm carpenters square and some steel rulers. Overall it's a pretty fun and easy project (especially with a brad nailer). Also a great way to use up random scraps. Loads more holders to come!

Not full depth, but I did test it a little deeper than previously pictured. The old Festool doesn't break a sweat.

I gave that router bit a whirl on an 18mm ply scrap. I tried the simplest method, a piece of clamped down wood as a fence, moving it 10mm in for each of the 3 passes. Results weren't bad

Recently finished this one and rather enjoyed it.

Yeah, unfortunately none of my at hand options are ideal, so a few things to test. Option/Issue 1: That pic I posted was a bad example of the fence position (it was just a random picture I had of my bargain 2nd hand Festool router after I'd given it a clean up). I'd run the fence on the cut side (similar to pic below), but that will depend if the gap in the fence is wide enough to accommodate the router bit. Option 2: Like you suggest, probably the best option in this case, and the benefit of a sacrificial fence is I can cut out enough of a relief to accommodate the diameter of the bit Issue/Option 3: I probably should have mentioned that I don't plan on cutting the profile across the full width of the door/drawer. Just a short section which I will control with stops to have an effect similar to this In this case the pins may work, but wont offer as much stability as an entire fence. So considering all the above, and the fact that i have about 6 of these door/drawer fronts to cut, I may go with something in-between/custom as suggested by Cap below My thought are a giant sacrificial fence mounted to the router base (which is 5mm think alu, so as you estimated, pretty sturdy). Flip it all upside down and table mount it. The fence will be longer than the door width (approx. 600mm) and have the stops built in. Like a ghetto version of this Or I could just clamp a straight edge down and wing it like this guy

Oh yeah, routers scare the crap outta me. Especially my full size router. Oh yeah, definitely going to run it on a scrap first. I don't feel like remaking my the cupboard doors, because of a router slip up, haha The router has a pretty decent fence for the router so it should be able to maintain a consistent "depth" Alternately, the aftermarket base can have a make-shift fence attached or some guide pins Yeah, I was thinking as the "depth" is in the horizontal plane I could use the fence to adjust for each pass. The router is question is rated at 2000W so no slouch but I still don't want to push it too hard. I'll run a test piece this weekend and see how it goes. Hopefully it ends up something like this...

Router Noob Question: I recently purchased a drawer-pull router bit router bit which says for router table or CNC use, not for use in hand routers. As I do not have a router table or CNC, is it totally irresponsible and potentially catastrophic to use this in a hand router with a really side base? The bit looks like this: My router looks like this: I can flip the router upside down and clamp to a workbench as a makeshift router table (as shown below), but not sure if that's better or worse than using it upright with this particular bit:

Looks awesome! Definitely my favourite island! A few years back I went on a horse trek around those hills and trail guides were pointing out that there was a development coming (which may have been this one). They were of course anti, but you can't deny that it's a pretty awesome place to live.

Was going to say, big Filipino families are also massive fans of the Alphard. The status thing is always amuses me. In Auckland it almost seems to be postcode based. In Grey Lynn and Ponsonby it's all about the Audi RS4 and RS6 wagons. On the south side of the Shore it's about the BMW's and Merc SUV's.

That should be criminal! For over $100k I'd expect way better finishes than those. Yes it has some reclining seats, but the centre console looks cheap & nasty. Definitely not how I'd spend $100k (not that I have it) to get 7 seats.

Toyota Alphards are also pretty ugly and popular. But hell are they pricey! If I recall correctly they were over $70k new. Kia Carnival is way better looking in my opinion.

hahaha! I already need a bigger garage. At the moment moving around in the garage is like one of those tile games Move the bench to shift the mitre saw to get to the drill bits. That said, I have some garage organisation projects on the cards, which if success will be posted in the woodwork thread. And if not successful, they'll probably end up on there anyway, haha!

New compact recip saw. Tested it on a 2x4 and it's pretty potent, even with an average blade.

So much to unpack here... What is meant by MTB rider? Freeride, Downhill, Slopestyle, XCO, XCM... What is meant by greatest? Most wins/medals, longest career, biggest kahunas, technical skill... I guess the very nature of a poll means it's subjective and in my opinion Freeride trumps XCM and technical skill combined with big kahunas trumps medals and wins. So considering the above I'm gonna have to say the GOAT MTB rider is... *drum roll* Just kidding, I'd say Brandon Semenuk. Insane technical skill, big kahuna's (think Rampage), creative, pretty lengthy pro career already (and he's only 31 and still going). That said, he's probably not my favourite rider. Sure I like him, and think he's great, but "favourite" brings even more subjective elements into the mix like personality, likeability, flair etc.

I'm guessing fibre hasn't rolled out to Boesmans yet. Afrihost and Telkom have some LTE options. MTN also seems to have a decent deal through the Mweb website:

howbownow?

New bikes... no... bike racks... no... So what then?! Hooks! Yup, recent purchase was 2 orange hooks to hold the bike carriers when not installed on the car.

Not a bad view from the train on our way to airport on Monday. If this photo doesn't scream "Sydney", I don't know what does!

I use this one for my pBike. pBikes are faster than eBikes, so I'm guessing this would be the best for regular bikes!

Some small goodies I picked for the toolbox... StealthMounts Handy little plastic clips for mounting various power tools and their associated batteries, as seen in the example below. Now just to figure out where to install it all