CutNRun's Blog at LumberJocks.com

DeWalt Radial Arm Saw #3: Making Sawdust

CutNRun — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:10:59 GMT

The saw is on its cabinet. The cabinet is mounted on an HTC mobile base, and all alignments have been completed. I was amazed at being able to hold within 0.001” on nearly all of the saw alignments and adjustments. As the old saying goes, they don’t make them like this any more.

The cabinet is made of poplar plywood with cherry border trim. I wasn’t able to locate baltic birch. The trays are simple design that ride in slots cut into a hardboard skin. Simple but functional.

The table was made according to the Mr. Sawdust book – some will know what I am talking about. It is very stiff, with steel reinforcement in a double layer of 3/4” MDF. The edging is ash. A 1/4” sacrificial table top is attached to the base table.

Currently, I am finishing a dust collector chute that will mount on the back of the cabinet and allow me to connect to my dust collection system. I will break it in making a potting bench for my wife. Need some bonus points at home.

DeWalt Radial Arm Saw #2: The clean-up continues

CutNRun — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:34:07 GMT

I’ve been splitting time between making a storage cabinet to mount the saw on and cleaning up the saw. This weekend I made a bit of progress in between yard work and my youngest daughter’s belated birthday party. Previously, I had pulled the motor apart and cleaned it up prior to replacing the power cords.

The mounting rails were removed and cleaned. The photo shows one done and one to go.

I also removed the arm and motor from the base and cleaned and repainted the base. Between my random orbit sander and a drill with some different wire wheels, I was able to pretty much get down to bare metal.

I then primed and painted the saw base with a hammered appearance spray paint. I think the results look pretty good.

DeWalt Radial Arm Saw #1: The clean up begins.

CutNRun — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:21:09 GMT

I have made a little progress on the saw. I initially thought I would need to replace the carriage bearings and perhaps the motor bearings. At this point, I don’t believe either will be needed. The following photo shows the carriage bearings prior to clean-up.

These bearings are not supposed to be greased. After cleaning both the bearings and the inside of the ways, the carriage movement is nice and smooth.

I pulled the motor apart and 50+ years of sawdust fell out. Cleaned up the bearings and put it all back together while replacing the electrical cord. Amazingly, it all still works. More photos to follow.

Craig's List Bargain

CutNRun — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:32:10 GMT

Last Friday I picked up what I believe to be a steal. I located a DeWalt model MBC release 25 radial arm saw. I’m not sure of the date of manufacture, but it must be before 1955. The saw runs reasonably well. The carriage bearings will need to be replaced, as will the electrical cords and the table top. For $25.00, I don’t see how I can go wrong on this classic. I know some people don’t care much for radial arm saws, but I have always thought they were a good tool, when properly set up and operated. Progress on refurbishing the saw will likely be slow, as I will have to shoe-horn it in between other wood projects.

Tool cabinet #8: All done and loaded

CutNRun — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:37:00 GMT

Just wanted to follow-up and finish this project/blog. The top cabinet is now finished and loaded with tools. I do actually have a drawer or two available for more “stuff”. I’m pleased with how the cabinet turned out. My wife thinks it is too nice for the garage/shop, but I know better.

Wood Scrap Box #3: One more slight adjustment

CutNRun — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 00:39:51 GMT

Well, the jewelry box is assembled and now complete. I assembled everything and did one final trial assembly, including mounting the doors. The hinges were neatly mortised and the doors were perfectly aligned – 1/16” space on all sides. I opened the doors and discovered the drawings behind the doors lacked a shy 1/16” of clearing the hinges. Rats. So… I filled the mortises on the back of the doors and doubled the depth of the mortises in the casing. The doors are not quite as nicely centered anymore, but the drawers now clear the hinges.

My wife is very pleased with the jewelry box and my daughters are wondering when they get their own.

Wood Scrap Box #2: Measure twice, cut once

CutNRun — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:44:17 GMT

I actually measured very carefully three times; the bottom of the dado would be precisely 3 15/16” from the end of the board. I carefully routed all four dadoes, stopping at the right spot. Then I looked as the spacing, relative to the other grooves. What happened? I measured from the end of the board – exactly 3 15/16”. I looked again at my full scale plans and the measurements I had calculated – 3 5/16”! Dooh! Exact comments are deleted to maintain a family friendly environment. What to do. I only have so many scrap pieces. Well, it is on the inside of the box and the drawers will rarely be removed, so….

Using trim ends from the boards I made filler strips, glued them in place, and then cut them flush to the surface and sanded them smooth. Thought I would share the goof in the interest of full disclosure.

The next issue had to do with the desired wooden hinge corner of the doors for the jewelry box. The edges were rounded, the box joint fit very well, and I thought I had a good means of ensuring a true hole into the box joint for the hinge pin.

After drilling both ends of one door and side, this proved not to be the case. The holes drifted out of center as they passed through the fingers and some of the fingers even split. AARGH! More deleted comments. Heavy sigh. Now what? Moment of inspiration – I took both box sides and both doors to the table saw and carefully ripped them; removing all the box joint fingers. I didn’t make a mistake – this was a design enhancement. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I ripped some figured maple and glued a strip on each of the sides. We’re back in business.

All the parts are coming together. All have been dry fit and two coats of finish applied. Final assembly is pending. Surely I can’t mess anything else up – I mean I probably won’t have any more design changes now.

Wood Scrap Box #1: Parts and Pieces

CutNRun — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:19:42 GMT

Two days before Christmas, my wife casually mentions that she would like a jewelry box. Hmmm, don’t think the timing was very good. Having completed the 2×4 project, I decided to try to put together a jewelry box from the small pieces of wood laying around in my shop. I had a decent amount of 1/2” cherry, some figured maple, some oak, and a small amount of paduk. After spending a few days laying out a design and seeing if I had enough wood, I started cutting and gluing.

This picture shows all the drawer parts cut and ready to assemble. The jewelry box will have a total of 12 drawers, all the same size.

So far, I have four of the drawers together. Various other pieces of the box are shown as well.

This close-up shows one of the drawers. The fronts are maple and paduk, the sides and back are oak, and the bottom is cherry plywood. The drawer is roughly 5” x 5” (not exactly, but good enough for general size).

This photo shows the details of the drawer construction. The front is 1/2” thick, with 1/8” front panel, then 1/4” groove, then 1/8” thick pin to lock into the drawer side. The sides are 1/4” thick. The groove for the drawer glide is 1/8” deep by 3/8” wide.

Tool cabinet #7: Top mounted tool chest

CutNRun — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:54:01 GMT

While it isn’t quite done, I’m about 80% complete with the companion chest to my tool cabinet. The carcase is completed and together, the back panel is done and ready to mount, and the drawers are all cut and dry assembled. I need to finish sand the drawers and glue them togther. Some coats of finish and drawer liners and it will be ready for tools. Should add some bonus shallow drawers to what I have already.

The drawer fronts of the chest are figured maple to match the top drawers on the cabinet.

2 x 4 Project #1: A one entry blog

CutNRun — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:56:19 GMT

Yesterday, I posted a taper jig project. The taper jig was used in my entry for the 2×4 Project. Before the taper jig was made, I had to locate a 2×4 to use. This was relatively easy. I knew a local lumber yard carried very high quality Douglas fir dimension lumber for use in finish work. I located a completely clear, tight grained 8’ board. The only downside was it cost substantially more than the typical big box store stud. Oh well, this is for FURNITURE, not being stuck inside a wall. The following photos shows one end of the board used.

I first cross-cut two 22 1/2” lengths from the stud for use as legs. I ripped one side to remove the rounded edge on each length and then ripped four 1 1/2” square lengths. This left me with two ~1/8” thick x 1 1/2” wide x 22 1/2” long slats with half rounded edges. These were saved for later use. I was very pleased with how well the legs turned out. The grain orientation was at ~45 degrees so the grain looks the same from all sides.

The next steps involved re-sawing one 15” length of 2×4 and part of a second at 7/16” to be glued together to form the table top. The remaining length was ripped to 3” and then re-sawn to create the skirting for the table. The skirting boards were cut to length at 94 degrees to create a four-way, splay-legged arrangement. I cut the mortises in the legs on my router table and rabbetted the tenons also on the router table. The joints went together very well.

The table top was trimmed to 13” width to fit through my planer and then surfaced to 3/8” thickness. I added a mitered and rabbetted edging around the periphery of the top to finish it off and add a bit of strength. These pieces were salvaged from the 15” length not re-sawn and used for the table top.

Finally, I added beading below the skirting, using the ~1/8” thick edgings remaining from squaring up the 2×4 initially. One side was already round and I used a round over bit to relieve the other side.

Small off-cuts were glued to the inside of the skirting and then the top of the legs and the mounting blocks were hand planed flat for mounting the table top.

Here are some shots of the table prior to finishing.

I stained the table with an ebony stain and then applied three coats of wipe on poly, using 0000 steel wool between coats. Photos of the finished table are posted with my contest entry. The tables final dimensions are ~22 3/4” tall by 13 1/2” square.