June 2004 Newsletter

Volume 11, Issue 6
June 2004
THE CHARLOTTE
SAWDUST
The Official Journal of
The Charlotte Woodworker’s Association
www.charlottewoodworkers.org
Small Talk
During the month of May, I am usually enjoying the water and other out-of-doors activities and spending very
little time in the workshop, however, this May my wife and I had a month-long houseguest who happens to be
my wife’s sister who has recently suffered from a massive stroke. This event kept me home, continuing my
winter activities in addition to building a handicapped ramp.
This wasn’t so bad except that we had large number of visiting relatives during the month that discovered my
shop. I now have a whole corner of the shop filled with repairs and projects that they would like some help on:
A pedestal sink that need a storage cabinet built around it (they brought me the sink); a broken birdhouse;
damaged jewelry; broken drawer glides; etc. etc. Most are not difficult but what am I going to do with a 4 x 8
sheet of ¼” plastic that a brother-in-law wants me to ruin a sawblade (with melting plastic while cutting).
With the arrival of June, another sister-in-law gets to keep the sister-in-law that had the stoke and my wife and
get freedom again. So I am writing this newsletter in haste so we can get out of town.
See you at next month’s meeting.
Sincerely.
Mike Dyer
mdyer@adwarchitects.com
(704) 379-1919 days
(704) 814-9580 evenings
June Program
June's meeting presentation will be by Russ Brenner, who works for Freud. He will be discussing saw blades,
and particularly such things as:
Overview of the industry's manufacturing processes.
The anatomy of a saw blade.
Tooth configurations.
Tooth grinds.
Hook angles.
Carbide.
Saw blade applications.
We all use these things pretty constantly, and just building additional information in our brains about them can
be a big plus in picking the right type of blade to do our particular kind of work. I think everyone can gain
some useful information from this presentation.
Meeting Time
Meetings of the Charlotte Woodworker’s Association are held the third Monday of each month, except for
December. Meetings are typically held at THE WOODWORKING SHOP of Charlotte, 116M Freeland Lane,
Charlotte, NC. Exceptions will be announced well in advance. If you need directions to the shop, visit their
web site at http://www.woodworkingshop.com and click on the link to “Store Locations”.
Following a social and refreshment time that starts at 5:30pm, our meetings start at 6:00pm. Get to the meeting
early and get to know your fellow woodworking enthusiasts. Please refrain from placing food, drinks and trash
on worktables and shelves around The Woodworking Shop.
$$$ Save Money at the Woodworking Shop $$$
As a member of the Charlotte Woodworkers Association you can save 10% off all your purchases from The
Woodworking Shop, excluding wood and power tools. Thanks to our hosts at the Woodworking Shop for
allowing us to have our monthly meetings and extending 10% off to CWA members.
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Write an article for Sawdust (thanks for all the help from those that have)
Please consider writing an article for The Sawdust, this is your newsletter what do you want from it? What do
you want to share with your fellow woodworkers? Everyone likes to share, share your successes, failures,
mistakes, have fun with it and share with others at the same time!. Contact Mike Dyer @
secretary@charlottewoodworkers.org or call (704) 379-1919 days or (704) 814-9580 evenings.
CWA Mentor Program
The following members have offered their help to anyone interested in learning skills or new techniques in their
area of interest. Contact each person to arrange times to get together if interested.
Name
Wayne Cooper
Bill Golden
Dwight Hartsell
Jeff Jacobs
Wayne Manahan
Gil Milsaps
Alvin Tench
Area of Interest
***
Shopsmith & Accessories
Woodturning
any woodworking
Sharpening
Windsor chairs
any woodworking
Phone
704.409.1417
704.525.9691
704.598.6029
704.309.1263
704.786.0768
704.875.0758
704.824.7717
Email
cooper@arconmfg.com
popstoyshop@juno.com
woodwight@aol.com
jacobj@meckco.com
wmanahan@vnet.net
gad32about@aol.com
alvintench@netzero.com
*** Wayne Cooper has a fairly complete shop and would actually like an experienced woodworker to use it and
teach him how to use it properly in exchange for use of the shop. If you are interested in helping Mr. Cooper
please contact him directly to make appropriate arrangements.
Classified Section
$$ For Sale $$
Approximately 1000 board feet of 1 inch thick Oak – various widths from 6” to 10”, the boards are about 12
feet long. Asking $1/bf with a 100 bf minimum, would like to sell all 1000 bf for $900. Contact Mike
Patterson @ 1-704-435-5179.
8” Inca Tilt Table Saw ($295), Makita 9820-2 Electric Sharpener ($150) and a Makita 9045N ½ Sheet
finish sander ($50) are available from George Fryling at 704-752-0121 or George@fryling.com.
A Quicker Way to Apply Solid-Wood Edgebanding
A common way to cover the exposed edges of plywood in a woodworking project is with solid-wood
edgebanding. The problem with this technique, however, is that it always requires some fussing around. You
have to rip all the strips to a consistent thickness (which isn't as easy as it sounds). Then, you have to use a lot
of clamps to glue the edgebanding in place properly. Even then, if the clamping pressure isn't distributed
evenly, the edgebanding can end up with a slightly wavy surface.
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To streamline things a bit, I began to take a different approach when applying edgebanding. The idea is to glue
a wide piece of hardwood to the edge of the plywood (Fig. 1). Then rip the edgebanding to final width, as
shown in Figs. 2 and 2a.
As for the cutoff, it's glued to the next piece that needs to be edgebanded and ripped to width as before. Simply
repeat the process as many times as necessary.
One advantage of this technique is the wide boards acts as a caul that helps distribute clamping pressure evenly.
As a result, you don't need as many clamps. Also, ripping the edgebanding to final thickness after it's glued on
ensures a straight, flat surface.
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 2a
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Incra TS-LS – An investment in an old saw
By John Cahill
So it’s March 2004 and my birthday falls on the same weekend as The Woodworking Show. My wife really
wants to buy me a new table saw, a 10” Delta cabinet saw with 50” fence. Now keep in mind my current table
saw is a used 10” Rockwell contractor saw, 20+ years old. Rather than just get a new saw I decided to go with
an Incra precision fence system for my Rockwell as well as a router table extension wing and an Incra cross-cut
sled. I got a ½” precision Triton 3 HP plunge router for my new router table. This will be the first of what I
hope will be several articles talking about the Incra fence system, cross-cut sled, the Triton router and the
Tormek sharpener I just got. I hope you find them interesting or helpful.
I got the TS-LS package #2 (with additional show deal accessories) from Woodpecker at The Woodworking
Show (www.woodpeck.com/tspk2.html). The instructions as they come from Incra are very good. There were
a few places where I modified the instructions a bit to make it easier. Here is the victim before ripping off the
old fence and rails. And right next to that the start of the installation, the universal rail mounting brackets.
In the above picture you see the gold pieces; they are the universal rail mounts. They are installed where the old
rail tubes were mounted. For the front holes I was able to use two threaded bolts provided in the kit. The back
holes where not threaded so nuts, bolts, and lock washers were used. The initial setting was ¼” from the top.
The installation of the rails came next, these rails are 72” long and can pretty much be placed from any distance
you want, I chose to get at least 30” of cut from the right of the blade and tightened the rail bolts just a bit.
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Next I had to install the fence base support plate to the fence base clamps, use some clamps to hold the plates in
place while aligning and installing the screws. The LS Positioner Base is installed next on the base support
plate, using a square made sure the Positioner was positioned in the middle and square to the base support plate.
I installed the completed assembly on the rails and performed the first of several alignment steps. Measuring
from the table to the base plate 16”, I squared up the base plate and secured all the screws attached to the base
plate mounting plates.
The slide carriage was then placed into the LS Positioner followed by the TS-LS fence itself and the rail guides.
All these parts work together to complete the fence assembly. Below is the completed fence system.
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Final calibration steps were to align the fence with my miter slot, lock the fence down and move the fence
assembly until the fence is completely parallel with the miter slot, finally tight all the screws on the LS
Positioner. My very last step was the zero out the scale, this is so simple a child can do it. Move the fence to
within 1/32” of the blade, put the LS Positioner into micro adjust mode and using the micro adjust knob, turn
until the fence ‘kisses’ the blade, lock the carrier in place and move the scale 0 under the pointer. That’s it.
The advertised accuracy of the Incra TS-LS fence system is 0.002”. I took a piece of ¾” MDF and adjusted the
fence to cut 3”, cut two sides and took out my dial calipers. The reading was 3.02” square, not bad for a 20+
year old saw. From start to finish it took me a little over 2.5 hours to get to this point.
The picture above doesn’t show my other options; router table wings, router split fence and other accessories, I
hope to cover that in a future article.
John
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H & S Lumber
Mr. Robert Boland, Manager
4115 Monroe Road
Charlotte, NC 28205
704.333.3130 (sponsor)
Woodcraft
Mr. David Boyuka
1725 Windsor Square Drive
Matthews, NC 28105
704.847.8300 (contributing)
Harbor Freight USA
Mr. Martin Treadwell, Manager
3852 E. Independence Blvd.
Charlotte, NC 28205
704.569.0182 (contributor)
Show your CWA membership card at any of the listed
places and receive benefits (except for Woodcraft and
Harbor Freight USA, which are not able to provide
sponsorship in the form of discounts).
The Woodworking Shop of Charlotte
Mr. Tony Collums, Manager
116M Freeland Lane
Charlotte, NC 28217
704.521.8886 (contributing/sponsor – except power tools
and wood)
2004 CWA Officers
President
Wayne L. Manahan
pres@charlottewoodworkers.org
(704) 786-0768
Vice President
Dick Thomas
vp@charlottewoodworkers.org
(704) 332-3418
Treasurer
Jaye Peterman
(704) 527-8768
treasurer@charlottewoodworkers.org
Secretary
Michael L. Dyer
(704) 379-1919
secretary@charlottewoodworkers.org
The Charlotte Woodworking Association
Mike Dyer, Editor
11342 Colonial Country Lane
Charlotte, NC 28277
secretary@charlottewoodworkers.org
Next Meeting:
June 21, 2004
At the Woodworking Shop
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