It’s hard to believe it’s been over 3 weeks since my last post, but there it is. With the weather changing, the holidays coming, and other interesting changes happening in my life, I haven’t spent a lot of time in the shop over the last month. I have however, found enough time to design and build some prototype Christmas presents. In stead of giving gift cards this year (my family is impossible to buy gifts for), I wanted to give something I made.
What I came up with were tea candle holders. They are simple to make, all you need are holes 5/8″ deep and 1-9/16″ in diameter. The best way to make the holes is with a Forstner bit on a drill press. How many candles per holder, and the shape of the holder can be anything you want. The following holders are ones I made from off cuts I had laying around the shop.
Whats a new bandsaw good for you ask? Well its good for a lot of things, but one is making feather boards. I made the feather boards bellow out of some leftover willow I had laying around. They work on the router table, the tablesaw, and the bandsaw. O the joys of simple projects.
A miter track Insert
Ready to make some cuts
Like all my other project wrap-up entries, this one is anti-climactic. Gluing all the little pieces together was tedious , but not difficult. The hardest thing about the glue up was trying to apply enough clamping pressure to all the curved pieces, with out denting them. After some post glue-up sanding with 220 grit, I was ready to apply the finish. For this project, I applied two coats of WATCO Danish Oil, followed by a coat of clear Black Bison Wax.
Ready for final sanding and finishing.
Finished with Danish Oil, & paste wax.
Not a lot to report today, All the parts have been shaped and given a rough sanding. The only things I have left to do, is the glue-up and applying a finish. For the finish, I’m going to use Danish oil. It really pops the grain of the Hard Maple, and It gives the Peruvian Walnut a lovely Mocha Hue.
The bandsaw looked so lonely in the shop, I decided to but it a friend. Ok, not really, while a bandsaw is perfect for making curved cuts, it’s usually leaves a semi rough surface. Convex cuts are east to clean up with a sanding stick. Large concave curves can easily be tackled with a sanding stick. Small ones on the other hand, can be a real pain in my opinion, I only know of two ways to smooth them out, with an oss, or by hand. I’ve done it by hand for years, and to be honest, it kind of sucks, It’s fine for one or two curves, but for several it’s really annoying.
I’ve been wanting an OSS for years, and I had always planed to get the Jet JBOS-5, but when it came time, my local woodworking store only had the General 15-220, so Thats what I brought home. I also picked up the 3″ accessory drum. I’ve been using it for a few days now, and i’m more than happy with it’s performance. The top has been ground very flat, and smooth. The dust collection is excellent, and it’s also very quiet. So far I only have to minor dislikes. The insert hole had a slight bur that I easily cleaned up with sandpaper. A little less trivial is the fact that inserts are thinner than the depth of the dado they sit in, this a minor annoyance that can probably be addressed with the careful application of masking tape.
General 15-220
