patches

I'm looking at end Jan/early Feb. Prices drop significantly in those first 2 weeks of Feb. The catch... I've entered the Dusty Butt Rally and and as I'll likely have to ride my bike down, I'll be travelling from about 13 Feb to 22 Feb. Maybe my Mom wouldn't mind being my support vehicle/pit crew 😅

Finally took the plunge and added block plane to the arsenal. I decided not to go all out on a Veritas or Lie-Nielsen, but went with a trusty Stanley low angle. I tried out out of the box and it wasn't great... but with a little elbow grease tuning it up, it was planing some whisper-thin shavings on pine. The sole and the iron needed quite a bit of work I started flattening the sole (as you can see from the shinier spots), but there's a LOT of work to do here, so I did some, got bored, and moved on to the iron. The back of the iron lapped easily as it was pretty flat. The bevel had these terrible grind marks on (left side) which you can see I'm trying to hone out (right side). After about 1hr+ with the honing guide, I eventually cleaned up the primary bevel, then added a secondary (sorry no pics), but it made all the difference. So yeah, I could have paid 4x as much for a Veritas or Lie-Nielsen and saved myself a few hours of work, but where's the fun in that, right!?

Stumbled across a bargain on a second hand table saw (the little Dewalt DW745). As far as jobsite table saws go, Dewalt probably has the best fence (apart from the big money ones like Sawstop and Festool). Although rack-n-pinion fences are not unique to Dewalt, they are definitely the smoothest with the least play, of any that I have tested. Gave it a clean and tuning Put a new 10" 40T Diablo General Purpose blade on, and ripped some hard maple and walnut, no sweat, with pretty smooth results Here you can see it dwarfed next to my Makita jobsite saw (which I have never really loved) Threw the Makita up on a $1 reserve auction, and with any luck I'll even make money for upgrading 😅

So turns out my Mom's visa was approved nearly 3 weeks ago, but she missed the email 😅🙈 Frustrating that the INZ portal doesn't have an accurate status, but a relief that she has the visa. Now to find a time when flights don't cost a small fortune.

Was cutting some walnut and maple on the little mitre saw the other day. Super clean cuts, even when taking off millimetre thin slices. The Makita Efficut blades are awesome, which is surprising for an OEM blade. Often manufacturers put their cheap and nasty blades on new tools to save money. Makita seems to understand that good blades (out the box) help their tool shine from day 1

Nope, but I'll try that. She did get an email from the Aus government agency that processes the medicals on behalf of INZ, saying that INZ had been sent the medicals, but no harm in reminding INZ that they have it. Thanks for the tip!

Yup! She went to PTA for passport viewing and had her medical at the one-and-only Dr Cobb (who nearly every JHB Saffer immigrant has been to, haha). So yeah, seems she was just unlucky enough to get mixed in with the backlog.

Dammit INZ! My Mom applied Aug 26 and still sitting on that "Lapsed" status.

Nice! Did they apply before 1 August? My Mom applied right in the middle of that period 😒

Those look great! What did you use for finish?

I'm almost completely cordless. Just the table saw and my big Festool router left. Very convenient, but at times also not. The 36V track saw coupled with the cordless dust extractor meant 4 batteries were in use at any given time (I only have 5). If 2 go flat, I'm snookered. As for sliding mitre saws, I really like the Makita's with forward facing rails. The only other options (off the top of my head) with that system are Festool's Kapex and certain Hikoki models. (Bosch glide system is also great if you want a mitre saw that doesn't require space for sliding rails). I nearly went the Makita 36V route (think I was looking at the 260mm), but I decided to go for the small 40V (216mm, LS002G), as it was more compact and the 40V saws use shadow lines in stead of laser. For what I do the 70 x 312mm cut capacity is sufficient. For it's compact size and weight (16.4kg), the saw is dynamite in a small package. I possibly should have waited and saved for the 260mm or 305mm version, but the 260mm version is less convenient for what I do (deeper but shorter cut capacity @91 x 279mm) and the 305mm was about R5000 (equiv) more expensive. Very happy with my little 216mm 40V, so if the cut capacity will suit your needs, I'd go with that. Otherwise go big (305mm), either 36V (DLS211) or 40V (LS003G) as the differences are mostly the laser and some other minor things.

Time to try out the new-ish XGT track saw On the left, Makita XGT 40V plunge/track saw (although 40V is it's max rating, it's actually 36V nominal). On the right, Makita LXT 36V (2x 18V) plunge/track saw. The 40V is a fair bit narrower than it's 36V counterpart. Might be handy in tight spaces. One battery is more convenient than 2! Especially when it comes to having spares! The single battery and lower centre of gravity should make bevelled cuts a lot more pleasant. Although the Makita track saws have an anti-tip washer in the base, they still have the potential to flip the whole track if not careful. With great power comes... slower top speeds?!?! 🤨. The 40V version has 1400 less rippums than the 36V. I'm interested to see how that translates into performance. I'm guessing the science-people at Makita did it to focus on torque and perhaps lean more towards a tool that can hold a constant speed through tough material, more than outright pace. Whilst I'd love to do a head-to-head shootout between the 2, I'll be selling the 36V ASAP to try recoup some clams.

For sure! One of THE MOST used tools in my garage is a little dust blower. Whether it's to send sawdust from the workbench out the door, dust off a dust off a piece I've just sanded, or even (and often) dust myself off, particularly after the nasty ceiling demolition I was doing.

That's a great deal for a cordless leaf blower! Good buy!

Nothing too exciting for us. The usual (or pre-covid usual) visiting the in-laws in Sydney for Christmas, then back to NZ shortly after to road trip down the east coast to the Wairarapa, across to the Kapati Coast and back up to Jaffaville. I'm having South Island withdrawals. Looking forward to the Dusty Butt in Feb, and a bigger South Island road trip once INZ grants my mom a visa and I can get her over here (she applied for a Parent/Grandparent Visitors Visa during that period that INZ dropped the ball). @Wayne Potgieter, did your in-laws come right with their visas?

No Festool, stop tempting me! Festool has a new portable table saw coming next Feb(ish), and it looks mighty purdy 😍 https://www.festool.co.uk/products/semi-stationary-work/cordless-table-saw/577371---csc-sys-50-ebi-basic-set

Good idea with the light, sandable pass to determine position. The wasteboard I made (albeit with the damn rombus grid on it) has tabs in 3 of the 4 corners so that I can position the laser frame in the same spot each time. Had my grid markings been square, and with 0,0 (home) being 0,0 in Lightburn and the machine's home, it would have made positioning that little bit easier. Once I go to a honeycomb bed, and even next time I do a cut on the cookie tray, I will be sire to try your masking tape trick. 👍

How does one resist the urge to laser engrave every damn tool in the garage? 🙈 (seemed to work pretty well on this titanium hammer head. My positioning could do with some work. It engraved even better on a blue anodised aluminium framing square)

Continuing with my lazyness, some non-traditional woodwork creations from this weekend A dice tower for one of our favourite board games. Can't claim credit for the design, I downloaded it off Thingiverse. I just laser cut (3mm MDF) and assembled. A test of how fine/intricate the laser can cut (on 1.5mm ply). Also downloaded from Thingiverse. Had to do something festive as "I can make Christmas decorations for you" was one of the justifications I gave the wife for my impulsive laser cutter purchase 😅.

Any easy/smart hacks for milling lumber without a jointer? I went to the Men's Shed this morning to mill some maple. Their jointer is broken and I didn't have the materials (or patience) to build a sled and shim the lumber to send it through the planer. One of the other guys there suggested hand planing. Again, I lack the patience (and more importantly) the skill for that. So my lazy-guy hack was to cut boards to very-rough dimensions (as is good practice with the jointer anyway) flatten one face on the belt sander (they have a large one with a cast iron bed) flatten the other face on the planer flip over and re-plane the sanded face (as I near the final dimension) square up one edge with the track saw (was not keen on potential kickback from sending a rough side through the table saw) square the other side on the table saw (when I feel like setting it up) Turned out ok. Loads of tear-out on some boards, no matter how I orientated the grain. I've stickered them and will leave to acclimate in the garage for a few days before checking for movement and reworking. (solid maple is beautiful but so much more effort than ply 😅)

Thanks for the tips! I did briefly read the no-no material list that can produce chlorine gas and other nasties. Overall (as a laser noob) I've found the initial learning curve is quite steep with regards to speed, power, passes and materials. I should keep a notebook next to the machine and record what works and what doesn't. I also made a massive assembly/alignment mess up and in my haste to cut something, I didn't square the gantry properly. The result... I engraved a workspace grid in this waste-board and it's a damn rombus! Gantry is square now, and overall working well!

Thanks! There are a few ways to send files to the laser. Simplest is to connect the PC directly via USB and use software like Lightburn. Next is to save the G-code file into a micro SD and insert that into the laser. Then use the touch screen controller to access the file and start the cut. Third is to connect to the laser via it's onboard wifi hotspot, then use the app to control the machine and access files off the the phone's storage. Fourth (and the option I use as the laser is far from my PC and I don't have Lightburn on my laptop) is to connect directly the the onboard laser wifi. Then upload the G-code file to the laser via an IP address landing page. Then go to the laser and start the cut via the toch screen controller. Option 1, the direct PC connection gives one the most control and allows one to use tools like framing and checking laser point locations via Lightburn.

hahaha, yeah, AliExpress can be dangerous! So full disclosure, I'm a noob to lasers. My education is the sum total of watching YouTube vids on my bus commute for the past 10 days. From what I have learnt, there are 3 types of lasers: Diode ~ R500 - R30,000. 5W to 20W (like my little one. Cheapest, easiest to use, but least powerful of the 3 types) CO2 ~ R40,000+ 40W to about 160W - (require water cooling, take up loads of space, more capable for cutting than a diode) Fibre ~ R50,000+ (small work area, fast when used with a galvo head, for metals) Here's a vid with a more detailed explanation A decent CO2 laser is probably what you'd need (depending on the metal. Some metals will require a powerful fibre laser. So yeah, getting close to small CNC router money. Here's my one in action doing some material test pieces (to help me dial in speed and power settings) It cut through this 7mm ply at 80% power, 5mm/s speed, and 3 passes. Also did some 9mm MDF Took 6 passes at 80% power and 5mm/s speed to cut through. Ignore the smudging on the ply (right). I tried to while the char off with isopropyl alcohol and made a mess 🙈

New tool day. This one was a bit of an impulse purchase (suckered in by AliExpress' 11.11 sale) and ultimately it's a nerdy toy. But yeah, I added this little guy to the workshop Atomstack X20 Pro, 20W Diode Laser Engraver & Cutter. This won't be it's permanent home, and I need to do some tidying and proper setup. But in my haste to try it out, I manged to cut out the one of the test files on the supplied test material and was pretty impressed with the quality Some charring is from the beginning when I forgot to turn on the air-assist, and yes, I'm using a cookie cooling tray as a raised cut bed, but don't worry this wasn't stolen from the kitchen (I know my limits). I bought it as a cheap temporary solution while I wait for a proper honeycomb bed. Overall, I'm very impressed with the build quality, ease of assembly (approx 20min and pretty good instructions), accuracy and detail of the cut and delivery time (1 week via DHL). As mentioned, it was a bit of an impulse purchase, but I do have a number of uses and projects in mind (which I'll probably post on the woodwork thread one I figure out the software and settings and make something constructive). I also justify it to myself (and my wife) by saying that it's far cheaper than a CNC router (although I still plan to sneak one of those in someday 😅)

Only about a year overdue, but... I finally cut, varnished (a gazzillion coats of marine stuff) and fitted the cupboard doors for the outdoor kitchen project It's not completely done yet. I still need to dismantle the Weber and figure out how to mount it onto the right side of the benchtop. But one step closer!