Hi, it's been a while since I've posted. Life has been "interesting", but I still lurk now and then. At any rate, I grabbed what I thought was a really nice set of Jennings Auger bits. Box even still had the label. When I checked the shanks, it did not identify them as Jennings. They are stamped " F.C B.&T.Cc" Anybody familiar with them?

TIA!!

I have another thread going “mistake correction…” but decided to go in a different direction and felt it is more clear to start a new thread.

Building a set of drawer boxes as part of a built-in credenza Made  of oak ply with solid oak fronts and edging. I’m going to create an integrated finger pull detail across the  the top of each 30” wide drawer (some of which will be  lateral file drawers).The goal of the pulls is to clean up the look and lines of the drawer fronts and also correct a mistakes I made in sizing the solid oak fronts.

In thinking about the finger pulls, I want to minimize the amount of projection and am also concerned about the strength of the integrated  finger pulls given the weight capacity of the file drawers. 

The finger pull profile will be routed into a piece of oak 1x board attached across the full width of each drawer front. See attached hand-cad.

Questions:

1. Because the pulls will not be easily visable, is a simple round nose profile good enough or is therer a functional advantage to a more “exotic” finger pull profile?

2. Thinking about the dimensions of the profile that would be strong, functional and minimize projection:

• Can the height of the profile (C on the diagram) be as little as 1/2”?
  
  
• Can the depth of the profile (B on diagram) be 1/2” or is 3/4“ the minimum?
  
  
• How how much “meat” should be left on the leading edge (A on the diagram)?
  

Attached Files

Thumbnail(s)
   

Brother came down this past weekend to pick up the table I built for him and his wife. 

This is the table assembled in their dining room. 

   

   

I built that side board in the background several years ago.

Since several folks seemed to enjoy seeing the equipment I use to move logs around, I thought I'd show some more photos, focusing more on the mill.  After bringing a log to the mill with the log arch and ATV, it gets rolled up the ramps using a cable and winch by a technique known as parbuckling.  That simply means that the cable goes over the top of the log, then under it and back to the mill.  Here's another walnut log with the cable over it, ready to roll up the ramps.  The ramps rest on the side rail and index into the bunks; no other attachment.  



The ramps are rated for 4000 lbs, as is the mill, but I see some bow in them and haven't had a log over maybe 3000 lbs on them.  Still, they are pretty strong for their size.  I have a remote for operating the winch, and that's important because with only one cable the log can and does often walk sideways as it goes up the ramps, in which case I have to steer it back on track.  Often, this means using a 2 x 4, etc. to lever one end of the log up, or blocking the low end and then letting out some cable so the high end slips back down to straighten out the log.  With even, round logs, it's an easy process, but with bent logs, or ones with big knobs on them, it can often be quite an ordeal.  Worst case, the log slides off one of the ramps.  I've had that happen a couple of times.  Of course, two winches and two cables would solve that problem, but I haven't done it yet.  



This log was nice a round and went up the ramps w/o issue.  



If the log has a large difference in diameter from one end to the other, I lever up the small end and slide a block of wood underneath so that the centerline of the log is parallel with the bunks.  You'd be surprised how large a log you can handle with just a 4 x 4 lever, easily 800 lbs if you are 6 to 8 ft beyond the fulcrum, with 2 ft going under the log.  To check if the top of the log is parallel with the bunks, I raise the mill head up until the blade is on top and then roll it down the rails to see how large the gap is.  If you want to get the centerline of the log parallel with the bunks, you just measure down from the blade to the center at both ends.  There's a debate as to the best approach.  You will get the greatest lumber yield if you put the centerline parallel with the bunks.  But if the log has defects on one side, for example, but is clear on the other, then you will get the most high-quality lumber by putting that face parallel with the bunks.  

Dirt is the enemy of saw blade life, and logs almost always have some dirt in the bark.  I use a small spud to remove the bulk of the embedded dirt on the front side of the log, where the blade enters the cut.  I don't worry about it much on the back side.  



The mill itself is from Woodland Mills, a Canadian company, bought before we suddenly got the notion to treat them like something other than a friend.  It's a kit with literally 1000 nuts and bolts to assemble, but the well written assembly manual is easy to follow, and the mill has given me essentially no trouble in the 5 or 6 years I've owned it.  I've cut 10's of thousands of BF with it.  It is a horizontal bandsaw that rides on a vertical carriage, and the carriage rolls along the rails on wheels.  



You can see the water tank on top, which provides lubricant for cutting.  I never use it while cutting because it will leave black streaks in the wood, especially oak.  But I do use it to clean the blade after a cut if I see junk sticking to the blade.  Because the blade on my mill rides on rubber tires, and one is the drive belt, you can only use water with dish soap in it for lubricant.  On some mills, the blade rides on the metal wheel directly, and they can use petroleum based lubricant, often diesel fuel.  You also see a torque wrench hanging on the end of the blade tension mechanism.  With my mill, you set the tension to 25 lb-ft of torque.  I measured what that means in actual blade tension, and found it was 24 ksi.  That's the same as I run on my large shop bandsaw for resawing.  The blade on the mill is a 1-1/4" x 144" x 0.042" blade with 7/8 inch/tooth, or about 1.1 teeth/inch.  

 

Here you can see the throttle handle and elevation crank.  You can just see the battery box, too, next to the 14 hp Kohler motor.  I bought the model with an electric start motor; glad I did.  On the green metal plate on the back of the mill you can see a valve.  That controls lubricant flow to the blade.  The lube flows out of a small tube fixed to the right side blade guides, where it falls onto the blade.  It works OK, but only puts lube on the inside of the blade, which is the most important side.  But some other companies have systems that apply lube to both sides of the blade, which takes care of buildup on the outside of the blade, too, which makes cutting more efficient.  The elevation crank turns a screw mechanism that wraps or unwraps the cable you see going up over the pulley, on both sides, to raise or lower the mill head.




Here you can see where the lube hose connects to the back of the right hand guides.  On the left you see my kitty litter bucket, used to catch sawdust.  It's much easier to deal with it straight off the mill, than to shovel buckets of it later.  One large log will easily fill a 40 gal garbage can with sawdust.  On the left side of the mill head you can see four bolts going into a piece of square tubing.  Those are used to adjust the drive wheel to be coplaner with the driven wheel.  If the wheels aren't coplaner the blade will not stay on.  It might be OK on some bandsaws, but not on this one.  Also on the back of the mill, you can see the taillights on the trailer.  The trailer is street legal and, surprisingly, needs no license plate to take down the road in NYS.  

Running a sawmill involves adjustments every time you use it and some sort of maintenance at short intervals.  As such, you need a fairly well-equipped tool bag.  



The business side of the saw head shows the blade running over the 19" cast iron wheels.  The drive belt also serves as the tire for the blade on the drive wheel, which is darned clever.  The engine has a centrifugal clutch and there is an idler wheel to tension the belt.  The driven wheel has a polyurethane tire on it for the blade to ride on.  



When either tire wears too much, the blade will start to contact the cast iron wheel itself and jump off the wheels.  That, as well as when a blade breaks, makes quite a noise and often ends up as a twisted mess inside the blade covers.  You can see the blade guides, too.  They are similar to what's on a cast iron Delta bandsaw.  There are steel blocks on each side of the blade, and a trust bearing behind the blade.  You also can see the lube tube on the left side, on top of the right guides.  

Blades last anywhere for one cut, if you hit metal, to maybe 500 bf of lumber before they get dull.  It's easy to tell when they are getting dull, as it takes more effort to push the sawhead through the cut.  You can feel that a tooth doesn't catch your fingernail anymore either.  I sharpen my own blades; the subject of another post.  

Milling lumber means racking lumber to dry, unless you put it directly into a kiln.  I use simple drying racks made of 4 x 4's on top of cinder blocks or larger blocks of wood.  You want the racks to be high enough so the bottom row of lumber is far enough above the ground so that air can circulate underneath to dry, and you want the cross beams to be in the same plane so the lumber stays flat.  I shim the main beams or cross beams, as needed, to get the cross beams aligned.  



The lumber sits on narrow stickers.  I used to use wooden ones that I made, but then I found a guy who makes all things PVC, and he made me a bunch of stickers for $0.50 each from his off cuts.  It seemed like a lot of money at the time, I think I bought at least 1000 of them, but they can sit outside in the weather year-round w/o a problem.  With wooden ones you have to keep them dry between uses. 





You place a sticker close to the ends to help prevent splitting, and every 18 to 24" in between, depending upon how thick the boards are.  Once you have a stack built up as high as you care to lift the boards, you cover it to keep the rain off.  I use 12 ft long corrugated metal roofing, as you can see on the stacks in the background.  When I have gaps between the boards, like in the photo above, the red squirrels will get in there and build a nest.  Last year in the Spring, I opened up a stack to find a family of babies in one of those gaps.  I had to wait a couple of weeks until they had grown up enough to leave the nest before dismantling the stack.  

John

https://forums.woodnet.net/showthread.php?tid=7378513

Hope you accept

https://forums.woodnet.net/showthread.php?tid=7378513

Hope you accept

https://forums.woodnet.net/showthread.php?tid=7378513

Hope you accept

I need to replace the receptacle under the kitchen sink. The outlet there has been divided into a switch section for a disposal and a non switched section for whatever. I see code now requires a GFCI in that location. Before I buy one, I’d like to know if there’s a special type, or can regular one be used where one section is switched and the other is continuous? With a regular outlet all you have to do is break the hot connection on the out and keep the neutral tied.

Looks like the plastic fan inside the housing shredded itself.  I stopped using it the moment the 15 little plastic blades appeared.  I have questions:
...how vital is the fan to the life of the router?
...even though I've had it 20+ yrs, it's had light usage, and it appears to have been made in USA, is it worth having it repaired?
...what router would you buy to replace it?  (I have 3 1/4 hp PC in router table, DW611PK, Makita 18V, PC 690 single speed Made in Mexico, and a 50 y/o Craftsman 1 3/4 hp)  I seldom use a router but two weeks ago, I had four of them set up and in use every day for a week.

I know a lot of you guys enjoy repairing your own tools, I have done some, but I'm not comfortable.

I do have great respect for the WoodNet community, so I eagerly await your suggestions.

I"m waiting to see if anyone responds to my siding question, so I thought I'd share something a little more humorous.

My wife has been asking for the hood to be put on the dryer vent. I said I'd do it, there's no reason to remind me every six months. So the new hood went on last weekend, after I cleared out the half built birds nest just inside.
"The dryer isn't venting right, the little door only opens halfway. I think it's still blocked up."
Reminded again this weekend; "Can you fix the dryer vent please? I can feel the humidity in the basement."

O.k., I've got some long lengths of 2" hose in the shop. Doesn't fit the Shop-vac, but I've got 3 lengths of vac hose and 6 of these wands. That should reach. There's about 20' of 4" sched. 20 pipe to an elbow aimed down to the dryer elbow. Should be easy now! (No. Not usually.)

Somehow between last week and this, the brushes on the Shop vac wore down enough to warrant getting another Shop vac. O.k., now we're ready to go. Went well. Too well? Something must be wrong, that was too easy. I checked the previously empty vac to find some, but not as much debris as I would expect, so I proceeded to replace the infamous vent hood. All was well. However; as I was packing up the two shop vacs I realized there were two wands missing. Find a flashlight, bright enough to shine 20' into the pipe. There they are. Next come the semi-rigid fiberglass snakes (the 3' sections screw together) with a hook fashioned to the end. Caught the wands on the second try. Gently pulling them out they're stuck on something. A little harder. A little more. Something moved a few inches then stopped again. Ahhh, that was... No please not.... Yep. I pulled the pipes apart in the ceiling. When I opened up the ceiling the pipes were separated by about 2" and the end of the wand was right there too. After some re-assembly, that vent hood went on for the third time.

So, in summary, that dryer vent has been there for over 20 years and it hasn't been cleaned before. If the vent hood wasn't off for almost a year, a bird wouldn't have thought it was a good place to raise its family and it still wouldn't have needed a cleaning.

What can I say? "I'm a guy. I fix things and I know stuff. You shouldn't have waited so long to remind me?" 
Yea, that'll go well!