Something about the sander always bugged me, and I spent some time looking at old catalogs and postings by other people and it finally struck me.

The belt portion of this sander is 6” wide, but takes a 36” belt. On top of that the outboard bearing support that connects to the body casting through the table support hole did not exist on any recorded 4” sander or any 6” sander that uses the same body casting style. It has been seen 1 one 6” sander with the flat body casting. it takes a longer shaft to accommodate this extra bearing so it needed to be supported from the factory.

The belt size iis not only unusual, it is unheard of. Working with someone familiar with this model sander and comparing casting numbers I found that it uses early casting numbers, and that the platen (the weird part that causes it to only use a 36” belt) is unmarked. The standard platens have a casting number on the back, this one is blank.

The current theory is that this is an escaped prototype, there is no record of this configuration ever being offered through the Sears power tool catalog. The V shaped corrugation on the platen labels it as an early model as that went away after only a few years.

I find it a very interesting piece. I’m currently finishing a Delta 6×48” belt sander that is going to replace it for day to day use, so this will more than likely go on a shelf for display.

I can’t bring myself to getting rid of it as it is the only known example.

I’m an old woodworking machine guy, but I have a newish little Craftsman grinder. I don’t have any fancy white wheels a nice stand with a cup for quenching or a super deluxe tool rest. I just plugged it in and got to work. This is the first time I ever ground an edge on a power tool of any kind. So if I can do it, anyone can do it.

First off, you set the angle and depth of the tool rest. I used a good chisel to do that quickly and easily Just put the angle on the wheel and made the tool rest line up with the rest of the chisel. Once thats done you leave it, i now understand why some guys I talk to have 6 grinders.

I used the fine side to blunt the edge prior to using the coarse side to grind the bevel. This made sure that I could tell how close I was, and gave me a couple test shots prior to getting thin (and being easy to burn)

Last hint is to use one of those star dressers to make sure the wheel is flat.

When grinding the bevel push the edge towards the wheel, don’t try to set it down near the wheel.

Grind for only a few seconds, then pull the tool away. I set the metal on my drill press table to act as a heat sink instead of quenching (I didn’t go into the shop expecting to do this, so I didn’t bring water). This worked really well and I didn’t have much in the way of burning issues (except the time that I did, and learned from that, 3 seconds or so max each push into the grinder.)

Now look at the edge. I also kept a little machinist square near by to check to make sure the edge was square to the sides, If not I lead in a little differently and just grind away what is too much. I managed to get my chisels nice and square so its doable, just think then act.

Keep evaluating the edge, as you get closer and closer to grinding a sharp edge you need to be more and more cautious about the amount of time spent on the wheel. This is where you can loose temper and need to start over.

Once a full bevel is created, and the edge is very thin you will move onto the actual sharpening steps. Do not move on until you create a wire burr across the entire cutting edge. If you do it will take a LOT longer at the stones or whatever you use.

It is really that easy, you don’t need special guides or anything to get a clean square cutting face ground to a good angle. I was personally amazed that I did it, and have done it more than a few times since. Each chisel I’ve done this too have been honed to a razors edge that take end grain shavings with little effort.

Have fun, and stop worrying.

So I need a new bench, and I ran into an issue of ShopNotes that I had picked up, skimmed and promptly never saw it again. It’s last Decembers Issue.

It has a pretty nice looking bench on the cover and I start reading it to check it out. Its a “traditional” cabinet makers bench.

A simple face vice and a really nice shoulder vise are part of the design. I’ve seen shoulder vises like this in action on Roubo benches, they hold things very well in a number of interesting ways. Lee Valley sells the hardware for about 40 bucks shipped. A video of a Roubo in action can be found here. His has a 350 dollar shoulder vise on it, but that’s not in the cards for me.

At the same time I finally found some Douglas Fir locally for a decent price. All this added together along with my Wilton 7” vice adds up to under 100 for this bench (minus some of the niceties that they show.)

A Google Sketchup model can be found here http://www.shopnotes.com/issues/102/extras/cabinetmakers-workbench-model/ – If you follow that link there is a link to a little animation of it as well in case you want to see it without the bother of downloading a model.

I’ll be skipping the drawers and car siding for now. I will probably use some plywood instead of the car siding, maybe a nice oak veneer (unless I find some pre made siding on sale). Seems like it will help keep racking to a minimum.

I’ll finally have a good bench.

This is more of a hybrid than a true cabinet saw, however it has one feature that makes up for all of that.

The top when combined with the 2 extensions is a whopping 50 1/2” wide by 32 1/2” deep. The bulk of that extra depth is behind the blade to help stabilize cuts and reduce the need for outfeed support.

This is a lot of thick heavy cast iron, the frame (assembly that holds the height adjustment/arbor/etc) weighs about as much as the top of my Model 10. That’s without the motor.

This is powered by a 2 HP Baldor High Effeciency 3 Phase motor. Wired to a WEG CFW-10 EasyDrive VFD. The VFD is programmed to bring the motor upto speed in about 1/2 second and ramps the speed down in 10 seconds.

For those unfamiliar with a VFD these are programmable features. I could tell it to take 20 seconds to come up to speed, and 1 second to stop (that would undo the nut holding the blade on probably). For rapid breaking of the motor you can install a break resistor so that the unit doesn’t overheat.

You can detect of the 2 bars are out of alignment by attempting to rock them. This is similar to the Delta method but we rock the bars not a flat piece of wood on the bars.

If they are out of alignment clamp down the bars and loosen the 2 nuts on the rear side.

Once the 2 nuts are loosened, make sure no sawdust is jammed behind them, loosen both clamps then reclamp and double check that the arbor is 90 degrees to the flat surface with a small engineers square.

Once everything is lined up, tighten the heck out of both nuts.

Go back the the saw and clean the front trunnion. Both the U shaped area and the worm gear and the guide surfaces next to the worm gear are the main areas of concern. Get them good and clean and spray them down with a dry lube.

Install your good graded bolts with lock washers.

You’ll notice that the grade 8 1 inch are a tad larger than the originals. This should not be a problem with the lock washer added to the mix. Install new cut washers these are thicker than regular washers and shouldn’t distort (trunnion, cut washer, lockwasher, bolt head)

Loosely install the 2 bolts on the front trunnion. Then reinstall the guts, this takes a little jimmying and watch out for the degree pointer getting jammed up.

Once you have the guts installed in the front trunnion use a clamp to hold it in place, then install the rear trunion and clamp that in place as well.

By keeping everything clamped we can tighten down the bolts to the alignment phase and ensure that we are keeping everything in position, nothing should move after we tighten down the bolts.

Reinstall the motor at this point, alignment without the motor and belt installed is worthless.

Align by whatever your usual means is. I don’t own PALS, or a 100 dollar aligning kit. I simply have a 15 dollar dial indicator shoved into a piece of wood. I get it to about .002ish and that’s good enough.

Be careful when you tighten the trunnions down, the alignment can shift based on the force applied to the bolt head, I mix pulling the wrench with pushing the wrench to minimize the disturbance from this action.

Tighten the heck out of these bolts, my saw will move long before I get to the strip out the cast iron area of torque. While I want to caution you to not strip out the bolt holes, this is the area most people skimp on and is the cause of most alignment difficulties after bevel cuts.

Here is a 45 degree test cut I did after doing this procedure. I only had 1 side jointed so it’s not sitting very well on the table top.

Re check your alignment after setting to 45 degrees. If it moved you didn’t tighten it down enough. I cannot find a torque value recommend by anyone on tightening them. I would love a real number to give someone without ruining my saw to see what the max value is.

Due to the number of threads on tuning up old saws that I’ve seen, plus the number of people who think its impossible to keep a contractor saw in alignment I figured I would share my method, which is built up of a couple of different articles and discussions I’ve read/had over the years.

Unfortunately this first chuck I’ve already done and didn’t think to take pictures, but it is fairly easy.

Clean off a workstation on a bench or countertop. I have a couple granite surface plates 12×18 and 1 will come in handy for this. If you don’t have one, a good flat workbench or countertop should suffice.

The 1st steps are to take the “guts” out. Arbor, tie rods, the whole assembly.

Step 1. Remove the blade and splitter.

Step 2. Remove the height adjustment Hand wheel. Just take the locking portion off and pull straight out. I like to have the arbor at 1/2 height to keep it out of the way. At this time make sure the bevel adjustment wheel isn’t locked down.

Step 3. Take off the belt and motor bracket. 2 set screws hold the motor mount to the tie rods.

Step 4. Remove the rear trunion. Hold onto the mating part while you do this and remove the 2 bolts that hold the rear trunion in place. A little wiggling should get it off the male mating part. Put the bolts and trunion on the table top.

Step 5. Reach around the side to the bevel adjustment wheel and turn it towards 45 degrees to get the worm disengaged from the guts.

Step 6. Pull Straight back and move the guts to your work station.

Step 7. Remove the bolts from the front trunion. The way that the bevel adjustment hooks upto this trunion makes it not worth the effort to remove it fully, however you want to be able to clean the entire thing with a nylon or old tooth brush.

At this time if you have not done so already, goto the hardware store and buy replacement bolts for the trunions. 4 grade 5 or grade 8 bolts and 4 lock washers. The old ones are now junk. The lock washers are the Number 1 reason that my saw holds its alignment.

More to come, hopefully this time with pictures. I have the guts on the bench now.

They where not in great condition, so I was a little scared to actually read them. They ended up on the bookshelf in a protective shield and sat there looking cool.

I finally came up with the idea of scanning them and getting a professional printing done. Best of both worlds. I’ll be able to read them and have the originals in good condition.

I received the fist copy of one of the 2 books Wednesday and showed it off at the meeting of woodworkers. I ended up selling that copy to a member, so now I have to order another one.

That being said, he stated I should use the tools available to me to offer them for sale to others who might want to benefit from the fruits of my labor.

Before you freak out these books are not under copyright and this is completely legal.

I spent a TON of time cleaning up the scans, making them look clean and readable while not ruining the old time feel of the original printing process.

One book is shorter, but packed with really decent information including a list of tools needed to run a large classroom (scale back if you ever wondered what you needed to have a “complete” hand tool shop), the other walks you through how to use the tools to do several basic box projects from nailed to dovetailed.

If you are interested you can find them both here: http://stores.lulu.com/yugami

The books are Tool Processes In Woodworking by A. P. Laughlin and this was published in 1919 in Peoria, IL and the second book is First Lessons In Wood-Working by Alfred Compton and was published in 1888 out of New York and Chicago.

Enjoy.

1) The adjustable toe had an ugly spot on the center bearing area. This caused the toe to ramp upwards as you tightened it up. This caused the exposed blade depth to change as you closed the mouth up, A real hassle if you want to go from fine shavings to something a little beefier.

Solution. Filing. Honing (with sandpaper) and being REALLY careful in general during this. Too easy to take it the other way where instead of pressing out it could sink in. Once level (after about 500 adjustment/check cycles) it was time to move on.

2) The lever cap did not have a consistent bearing area where it pressed against the blade. This means the blade is not fully supported across the width opening up the possibility of chatter.

Solution. More sandpaper honing after a Light filing to create the angle. This created a smooth flat area that presses firmly against the blade.

3) Blade not square. This is a big issue as the 60 1/2 doesn’t have a lateral adjustment which you might be able to compensate with.

Solution. Well you know this one. I personally use sandpaper and the Veritas Mk I jig. It took some time but I ground it down and honed it up. While everything was out I touched up my Craftsman No. 5 and my Ohio No 7 blades as well.

Heres a slice of Hard Maple end grain to show that everything is as it was meant to be.

I also added a picture of the bandsaw I picked up earlier this summer. What a steal, $150 and it works like a top. Delta 14” with the riser block, fence, light, etc. Interestingly enough thats the exact same amount of money I made selling some used Pallet Jacks, which is what forced me to install my air compressor. One sale, two improvements.

I also added a picture of the fully restored Dunlap Combo sander that I restored. A nice piece of history. I already needed it to take a bump off a zero clearance insert I routed out.

Soon I hope to have a real project done ;)

Electolisis removed all the gunk, rust and paint. Followed by hand brushing with brass brushes. Then I applied a hair drier to ensure that it was completely dried, then degreased again (hand gunk) with acetone. Hung and sprayed a couple pieces at a time.

Last touch up shots for thin areas where applied this morning, new fasteners are on order to finish the job. The “originals” are a mix of replacement styles. All the bolt heads are supposed to have full dog points, some where replaced with regular bolts.

I’m thinking I may black oxide them when they come in (plane steel fasteners).

I had to replace the knobs as one broke during disassembly. They where ordered from McMaster Carr. Great service from that company, every time. Simple press fit.