Woodworking - My Wood Shop
Layout
The first table in my shop is my sanding bench. Sanding machines are among my favorite power tools, since they allow me to shape organic curves easily and quickly. I like adding curves to my work when possible, so these machines see a lot of use. The Ridgid Oscillating Spindle Sander is a great machine, and works wonderfully for cleaning up concave surfaces. The Harbor Freight 1" belts, which I keep configured in different ways, are cheap in more ways than one, but they get the job done. Unfortunately, HF's quality control is so bad that I actually had to borrow some time in a machine shop to finish machining some of the parts in them. The Ryobi combo belt/disk sander is probably my go-to tool of the bunch. I use it a lot for shaping convex curves, but also for shaping the occasional metal part or grinding chisels.
To the right of the sanding bench stands a table that doubles as my hand tool bench. It generally has a huge pile of scrap on it, and on the right side of it sits my Rikon 10" bandsaw, which I keep set up for curve cutting. Behind the Rikon is my Grizzly G0555X 14" bandsaw. With the 6" riser block, it can resaw up to 12", and I keep a Wood Slicer resaw blade on it specifically for this task. Unlike most bandsaws in its class, with its 1.5HP motor and heavy cast iron wheels, this one really does have the power to do that job. I have even used it once in a while to make boards from firewood.
To the right of my Rikon bandsaw is my drilling bench. Ryobi's 12" drill press is a great value and has some nice features, like a continuously variable transmission, digital speed readout, and laser indicators. The Delta mortise machine is well built and solid, but comes with some of the dullest mortise chisels I've ever seen.
Towards the back of the shop, I keep my Bosch 4100 tablesaw. I actually bought
this saw because I liked the guards, and as you can see, they're still properly
installed. I hardly ever have to remove them, and they're easy to put back.
A big rolling mechanics toolchest has proven very useful in my shop. I have no
dust collector, so the chest keeps the dust and the spiders out of my tools.
There isn't really much to say about the jointer, thickness planer, or router table. They work, but they're all pretty marginal. The jointer is too short, the planer suffers from a lot of snipe, and the router table is fussy and hard to adjust.
And of course, you can never have too many clamps.
Finally, there's my homemade lathe. The bed ways are made of hickory,
supported on mounting blocks made of ash. The headstock is made out of hard
maple, with some flange bearings I got at a tractor supply store. I formed the
cone of the headstock center by hand. In the set of cheap lathe tools I picked
up from Harbor Freight, I noticed one that had a profile very similar to a
metal-turning tool (I believe it's called a 'spear' or 'V point'). I clamped
up a temporary toolrest, turned on the lathe, and worked it like any other
turning job. Other than having to resharpen the tool frequently as the cheap
steel wore and chipped away, it was surprisingly easy to turn steel this way.
The spur started as a nut, which I reamed the threads out of and cut flutes
in using a rotary tool. I also drilled and tapped it for a set screw.
I made the tailstock much later, and my increased experience shows. Despite using considerably less wood than the headstock, it's far more rigid. It is built with half-lap jointery, which I cut using hand tools, and the whole assembly is glued up with no fasteners. I ended up using up almost all my clamps for that glueup, since there were so many contact surfaces. Finally, I made the center advance knob out of a scrap of purpleheart.
The motor, pullies and electrical wiring were scavenged from an old 8" drill press. It wasn't in the best shape, but the motor runs fine.
