http://ifitshipitshere.blogspot.com/2007/09/judson-beaumonts-cartoon-furniture.html

I invested in the Delta mortiser which did a great job and saved me a bunch of time doing the mortises.

But I found the fence adjustment wheel to be pretty much useless, a micro adjust would have been great though, perhaps I can hook a digital rule to it.

and here it is so far…

Slowly slowly catchy monkey :)

Kumiko latticework is a traditional architectural fixture used in sliding shoji screens.

A quick read of the manual will tell you that all you need to do is remove the cover, lock the cutterhead in place by rotating it and then remove the screws with the included hex key. Sounds simple right…

Well here I shall demonstrate the actual process.

Step One, strip the included hex key on any screw you choose, grind it down with a grinder, try again, strip it again.

Curse. Throw tool in trash.

Step Two.

Find a higher quality hex key (metric 4mm).
Repeat step one.
Curse.

Step Three

Grind a slot in the top of the hex screw.

Destroy the the biggest screwdriver you own trying to unseat the hex nut.
Ponder whether or not the hex nuts have been welded by a prankster..
Curse.

Step Four

Purchase a Bosch PS40 Impact Driver
Smile

Step Five

Shatter the flat head screw bit that comes with your brand new PS40.
Curse.

Step Six

Grind the bit down and try again…

Quick and Easy Blade Changing Ryobi AP1300 Planer from damian penney on Vimeo.

Smile a little at how awesome the PS40 actually is :-)
Curse for old times sake.

Step Seven

Grind and remove the other nine screws and you can be done in as little as two days depending on your Amazon shipping choices.

I hope this little guide has been informative, I’m in talks with Ryobi to update their manual.

I’m using a 9’ straight edge to joint the boards for the top. I usually use this for cutting sheet goods to size as I have a jig that locks a circular saw to it but it’s come in real handy for handling these long pieces.

Here you can see how big and unwieldly the straight edge is, as well as my super high end Taiwanese saw…

The blade is a new 12” Freud combo blade, doesn’t leave an edge like my Woodworker II that usually lives on the saw but it gets it smooth enough whereby I can finish off on the jointer.

Slowly but surely…. :)

Initially I got hung up trying to flatten the faces of the top; I’d been using my jointer to do this but the bed simply isn’t long enough to joint 7′ long boards. However I came to the realization (with help from some fellow jocks) that I didn’t need it perfectly flat along it’s length, I just needed it flat enough whereby I could clamp it flat during the glue up.

So my new tack is to just plane it so that both faces are flat-ish, and parallel to one another, then ‘joint’ it with a rip cut on my tablesaw. I’m using the tablesaw with a 9′ straight edge attached to the fence. Using this technique I’m slowly but surely getting the top built.

I do have the parts for the base milled though but I’d really like to get the top out of the way before doing any more work there.

Turns out it all goes into that big sack! So after getting that working I face and edge jointed all the parts for the base. Once that was done it was time to glue the two pieces that comprise the legs together. I’m not a man of many clamps so figured I’d crack open my vacuum press to do the job all in one shot.

This is my trusty vacuum press, built per joewoodworkers plans.

Here it is in action..

I could really do with some proper breather mesh for the top but I’ve found it works just as well if I throw some rags in there which is what you can see on top of the legs.

The vacuum pressing worked really well, producing a ton (literally) of nice even pressure on the legs. Which you can see at the bottom of this pile.

So now I have all the bits for the base pretty much ready (and I’ve rough cut most of the pieces for the top too). I’m going to drum sand them to final thickness next week (I think) because my initial plan to use the planer was causing too much chip out in this crazy grained maple. After that I can get down to some joinery.

Once I got the blades back to the workshop I set about reinstalling them. My usual method is to use my dial indicator and twiddle with them for hours on end getting them just right but this time I tried a new approach which worked really well.

After I’d dropped the blades off to be sharpened I swung by Ace Hardware and picked up six small rare earth magnets. The plan was to stick them to something flat and use the magnets to align the blades to the outfeed table. Here is my alignment setup.

It’s pretty low tech but it worked really well, so much easier than all the messing about with the dial indicator. The process was as follows.

First I used my dial gauge to make sure all the magnets were the same width, they were all exactly the same which was nice. I then attached them to something nice and flat. On the far side by the fence I’m using the bottom of my combination square, and at the front I’m using a big allen key.

I found top dead center of the jointer head using the dial indicator and then moved the blades to that position. Then it was a simple matter of sliding the magnets over the blade which attached itself to the underside of the magnets. Tighten the screws to keep the blade in place et voila! Perfectly aligned with no messing about.

So that worked really well until I was tightening the final screw, on the final blade when…. I slipped…

A nice deep, clean cut ensued. Luckily the blades were razor sharp so it didn’t really hurt and it hit my nail which prevented the blade from going too deep, still a tad scary, as all shop accidents are though :)

Anyway the final result was worth it.