sutton073

Browsing the LumberJocks forum, I have found that Hitachi sells reconditioned tools for pretty good deals compared to buying brand new. Reconditioned tools are pretty much new tools, they are tools that have been returned by customers to the retailer. They are all tools that could have had defects, been returned by an unsatisfied customer, returned after a weekend project, some returned brand new just because. When a tools is returned to a retailer, they cannot just put it back on the shelf, instead they have return it to the company. When this happens the company, in my case Hitachi, fixes whatever was wrong with the tools and sells them at discounted prices. I think this is a great way to buy like new tools for great prices. The tools come with the full factory warranty. I ordered two tools from Hitachi, both of which have great reviews on different websites like Amazon and LumberJocks. I bought the Hitachi DS18DFL 18V 1.5Ah Lithium Ion Driver Drill for $109 and the Hitachi NT50AE2 2...

This past Tuesday when I arrived at my shop I realized it had been broken into in the night. The burglar broke a set of aluminum double doors on the side of my shop and stole about $600 worth of tools out of my shop. They stole -Senco Framing Nailer -Senco Brad Nailer -Bostitch Roofing Gun -Dewalt RO Sander -Dewalt 14.4v Cordless Drill -Case of Kreg Pockethole Screws -Face mask Respirator I was so disapointed when I realized what was stolen. I hadn't gotten my insurance finalized yet so none of the items stolen where re-inbursed. Not much I can do about it now except hope that the police find my tools or that I find them in a local pawn shop. Now I am getting insurance as soon as I can!

There is a small church next door to my shop and the pastor asked me if I could make them a simple offering table with a couple of drawers in it. I said sure! My first paying job, although it didn't really pay anything just materials since I am pretty new at this stuff. Anyways, here is how it turned out, this is the first time I have ever really built drawers into a piece and I think they came out great. They are just on some wooden slides that I fabricated since the chuch didn't want to spend much money at all. The poplar was great to work with and so is my kreg pockethole jig system. It was used to joint pretty much every piece on this table, although you would never know just looking at the table normally.

Alot of my Friends enjoy the occasional game of beer pong. It's basically a game played with Solo cups, Ping Pong balls and beer. You put beer in the cups and put them in a pyramid shape on either side of an eight foot table. Then two teams alternate turn throwing a ping pong ball into the opponents cups of beers and any cups they miss the other team has to drink them. The game keeps going until one team has run out of cups and they loose and have to drink whatever beer is left in the winner's cups. Anyways, people always seem to be using a flimsy folding table that is either to short, to soft (the balls can't bounce for a special shot), or just not ideal for the game. So my buddy wanted a table made just for beer pong and that is just what I built him. The table is eight foot long and two foot wide. This one is built with select grade pine to be both affordable but good looking. The entire table was coated with polyurethane with about 6 coats on the top of the table and pr...

Firday, my mother and I decided to go to a local salvage house to do some bargain shopping. The place we went to is a large freight companies "scratch and dent" store (AAA Cooper). While there was plenty of interesting things in there I only saw two things that I might could use in my shop. One was a large roll of heavy duty paper that would be perfect to go on the side of my workbench so that I could stretch a sheet of paper across it when I want to paint or finish something, or just draw something really big. It was only $5 so I picked up a roll that should last a long time. I also grabbed a box of 100 latex gloves for one or two dollars that would come in handy some time or another. When we were leaving the salvage house I recieved a call from a friend that was at an estate sale where there were alot of woodworking tools for cheap. I decided to ride over and I found some good tools for a good value. -2 24" clamps $3 each -2 2 1/2" C clamps $.50 eac...

I finally took some pictures of the table today after I finished putting the trim around the edges. It really looks good and I am proud of it. It's a great work surface and is very study and stable. I trimmed the top edge with some Douglas Fir 1x that was ripped down to the width of the table top. I fastened it with some odinary drywall screws and wood glue, countersinking every screw so that I can come back and put some dowels in the holes to clean it up a bit. Be sure not to over tighten the screws when your attaching these and I put on plenty of glue expecting the MDF to soak it right up. I still plan on putting a vice on the right end of the table and I am going to have to order some leveling legs for it because what I had planned for legs just didn't work out (some threaded shafts and a couple nuts).

I completed the dust cyclone for my shop vacuum. To finish up, all I needed to do was to secure the pipe through the plywood on the top of the funnel. I did this with some rubber strips, zip-ties, and caulking. It may have been the bost choice so I may go back and do it with some 1 min epoxy (I like that stuff!). Then I glued the plywood into the top of the funnel with a small rubber strip around the plywood to tighten the fit and to help seal it. Then I just used some normal wood glue to hold it in place. We will see how this holds, epoxy would have worked well here also. Then I simply put the two couplings on each pipe and attached my shop vac hose and I was done! Overall, the system really worked great. The only problem was that the 5 gallon bucket wasn't strong enough and would try to collapse if I covered the open end of the hose completely. The bucket I have is thinner than normal buckets so i'll just have to get a thicker one then I should be fine I hope. It really...

My sister is getting married in one month and I have decided to build a pair of Adirondack chairs to give to her and her fiance. I have never built any before but they look easy enough, can't be to hard! I hear of people building and selling the Adirondack chairs. I wouldn't mind selling a few if I could make a decent profit on them but I will have to find somewhere to sell them. This weekend my girlfriend and I went to the local flea market and there were some nice Adirondack chairs there that were selling for $75 for the most basic single design. They were all completely unfinished and would need some sort of finishing before they could be sat outside in the weather. Sounds like if I primed and painted them I could sell them for at least $150 each. It doesn't take alot of materials to build one and shouldn't take to much time, especially when you could get a system going and good pattern. We will see.....

Went to the shop this morning and checked on my cyclone. The caulking wasn't are hard as I was hoping it would be. It was still pretty soft to the touch and I am afraid that it may just suck into the seams when the vacuum is turned on. Maybe it just didn't cure enough, so I am going to let it sit for the weekend and check it on Monday. Today I did work on my workbench a little more though. All I really had left to do was to put the trim around the edges of the table top. I went to Lowe's and bought some 1x3 Douglas Fir and ripped it down to 1 5/8" which is the thickness of the table top. Then I cut the pieces to fit on miters and began countersinking/drilling then glueing and screwing them on. I had a pretty busy day and I wasn't able to spend as much time in the shop as I had hoped. We will see how next week goes, maybe I will start on some of the cabinets for the shop!

I have decided to make my own dust collector for my shop vac, something very similar to the Dust Deputy just cheaper and hopefully just as efficient. I got the idea from a member of Lumberjocks, jcoulam . He built one himself and put a couple of photos on the Internet and basic drawing which gave me inspiration in making my own. I figured I would create basically the same thing and I would provide more photos and descriptions of how it was done. I went to Lowe's and bought a few supplies that I would need. -1 8"x24" piece of galvanized pipe that is split down the length -1 new 5 gallon bucket and a lid that fit securely -1 2' piece of 2" PVC -2 2" plumbing couplings -1 8'x2 1/2" Shop Vac hose -1 syringe of 1 min epoxy -A small amount of self tapping metal screws -1 tube of caulk The first thing that I wanted to accomplish was to get the funnel made. I tried it without cutting the piece of pipe hoping to just trim it when I had the final shape and i...

Currenty in my ever evolving shop I am using a 12 gallon shop vac as my only means of dust collection. It works on some machines pretty well: my sander, miter saw, Kreg Jig, and router table. I can't hook it up to my table saw yet or my skil saw which I have been using to rip panels of MDF the past couple of days (which is working pretty well!). I can't hook it up to my table saw because the dust port is larger than the hose on the vac, probably 4" when the hose is probably 2 1/2"-3". I checked at my local Lowe's but I was unable to find a converter that would work. I haven't really tried to hard to jerry-rig some sort of setup. My Dewalt skill saw just doesn't have anywhere to attatch a vaccuumm hose. A bigger problem is the fact that the filter on the shop vac gets clogged and the vacuum's suction power deminishes. I have been looking online at the Onieda Dust Deputy system. Basically it's a 5 gallon bucket with a funnel on top that r...

I have what I consider a fairly large shop and I am very thankful to have access to it. The building is owned by my mother's truss manufacturing company which is located in a small industrial park in Dothan, Al. The building I am using is one of the smaller buildings in the park but it is turning out to be a good workshop. I have actually had tools in the shop for over a year now, I first put them in there when I was making furniture out of some reclaimed heart pine that I had easy access too and was able to get it at a good price. The economy was falling out when I started that so it seemed that no one wanted to buy furniture made out of the expensive wood. Anyways, that little venture opened my eyes up to the world of furniture making. In the past few months I have gotten serious bout fixing the shop up and getting some quality tools inside. I have fixed a few leaks in the flat tar roof but there are still a few which I am hoping to spend some time on this week. Here are some pho...

With a new table saw I of course wanted to start cutting with it right away, what better way to do that then to make an outfeed table for it? I decided to make a hybrid outfeed table/workbench to save on some room in the shop, although I am not cramped yet I think I will be satisfied with the bench. Every woodworker wants something different that fits their needs. I knew that I wanted a good outfeed table and I also needed a workbench I started looking online for different ideas. I found a good video done by the Wood Whisperer about an outfeed table built from 3/4" plywood. I really liked the table and I was going to build that at first before I decided to make it a multifunctional table. I wanted a good heavy table with a vice and maybe some bench dogs, I wanted to be able to clamp things to it, and I wanted it to be stout, sturdy and flat. So I changed the WW's outfeed table design a bit and added a 4" overhang on three sides of the table and about a 9" overhang on...

Saturday I was unable to get away to the shop but I made it Sunday morning with high hopes about getting my new table saw put together. Overall the assembly was pretty easy and straight forward, and I have it all together except for the blade guard witch I may or may not put on later. Although, I didn't have the resources or the time to get power to the saw so I never got the chance to cut anything with it. That will be my assignment first thing in the morning though. The saw is 220v so I can't just plug it up to a regular socket. Luckily I do have 220 in my shop but the plug isn't really close to the saw and it looks like I will need to purchase about 16' of the appropriate cord to get it ran. I also have to buy a plug because the saw doesn't come with one since there are various 220 plug arrangements. This shouldn't be a problem but it just means another trip to Lowe's. Can't complain about that because when you are setting up a shop it seems like ther...

Well, I called UPS Freight the next morning and I was notified that the saw should be delivered that day sometime between 2-4pm. So, I wait around another day in anticipation and at 4:30 I receive a phone call from the truck driver asking how much longer I was planning on waiting. I told him that I didn't want to stay past 5 so he came right over before his other stops. About 15 minutes later I was unloading the saw with the forklift from my mother's truss plant right next door (this saw isn't something you can just lift). With only a few minutes till I had to head home to get ready to go out to dinner with some friends and slid the pallet through the door of my shop and took off the box and there she sat. Luckily the box wasn't in horrible shape so the saw looked pretty much untouched and in great condition. Sadly, I didn't have time to put it together and get it running so I had to leave my new toy until Sunday.

I wake up this morning early without an alarm clock excited about my new saw. According to the tracking information the saw should be delivered sometime today because it is already in town so it just needs to be trucked over to my shop. I even called UPS Frieght yestarday afternoon to ask for an approximate time that should be expecting the delivery, they told me that were no sure but would call back withing 30 minutes. Well of course I never heard back from them, until today.... This afternoon at 3pm I recieve a call from UPS saying that my saw will delivered the following day......... So that means that I wasted an entire day waiting for nothing! Nothing was accomplished! We will see how tomorrow goes.................

Great news! I have ordered a new table saw and it should be arriving some time tomorrow, I can't wait, its like Christmas..... I ordered a professional grade cabinet saw, the Grizzly 1023SL . I have been wanting a new table saw for quite some time now but I have been putting it off due to a couple reasons (the leaking roof which isn't perfectly fixed but it is much better than it was, and lack of funds for a new toy), but I decided that it was time to jump. Deciding what table saw to purchase was definitely a tough decision, but it was fun researching and learning so much about different table saw on the market. When I first looked at table saws I was looking at something in the $600-$900 range. I was liking the contractor saws that I was finding on the Rockler website, they were the only ones that fit in my budget and that was the only place I really knew to look for saws. So I decided on a saw but then I couldn't decide which fence I wanted with it since there were three ...