Sycamore67

The book is by Judy Peterson and has IMHO the best puzzles. She has several books of puzzles and all are great.

Well done....and happy kids

It is quite a bit of work but I enjoyed the challenge. An 18 x 2 one at Stockroom Supply is $465. The parts including the drum and top is about $365 and these do not include motors. I have less than $150 in the one I built.

I have been thinking about building a drum sander for quite awhile and recently built one. It is powered by my Shopsmith Mark 5 which I purchased many years ago for $125. Mine is loosely based upon the StumpyNubs version and the one built by Shipwright on the Lumberjocks forum. The drum is built with a 5/8" steel rod and 4" plywood disks and is about 18" long. The disks were glued together and then turned using the Shopsmith as a lathe. The end of the shaft connects with the Shopsmith and the speed can be varied. The ends of the shafts are also supported with sealed bearings. The top is based upon the StumpyNubs design with the 2" wide aluminum bar set into the baltic birch top. The sand paper is hook and loop. The Velcro on the drum was ordered on Amazon and is the industrial strength velcro and works well. This was not a real easy build. Getting the drum the same diameter along the length and running true took some time. The top also took a lot of time and getting it aligned with the drum was also time consuming. I added a PVC pipe running through the sander to collect the dust and it works pretty well but I am working to improve it. I have been using it to clean up some boards for projects and also for making some boxes with finger joints. I am pleased with it. It is also possible to add a thickness sander to this design by going under the drum. I have not done this yet and will have to decide if I want this added feature.

Very nice and useful. I just finished building one as I am a little cheap plus it was a challenge.

My name is Spartacus.....

Sounds like you are in a hurry, as always. Stains need time to dry... Yes plywood swells and the various layers swell differently depending on the grain direction and species used for layers. Baltic Birch is much better and more expensive.

The best scanning software I have used is Vuescan. It works with almost every scanner made.

I have that saw and love it. I also put the Carter Stabilizer blade guide on it. They make it so you can cut very tight corners.

K & J Magnetics....they have lots of different ones.

I have no problem doing it on my computer. The problem seems to be when I do it on my tablet as it does not display the options that people have referenced above. Not certain why this happens but I just added a link to a post from my computer with no problems.

Here is a link to the Blog I created on Lumberjocks about using a homemade manometer to monitor your dust collector. I have some other blogs on Lumberjocks about testing dust collectors and about my dust collector.

Someone asked me to add a link and I do not know how. On other forums there is a button for adding a link but here I do not see one. I can find the button for adding a file or image but not a link.

The problem with seeing where the dust is going is that you can not see the fine stuff and it is the most hazardous. I tried using a digital fan anemometer and it is extremely difficult to get accurate readings. You can measure static pressure with a homemade water u-tube manometer. If anyone is interested, I documented how I did my tests, using a water manometer, and issues/problems with a fan type anemometer. I posted a series of blogs on the Lumberjocks forum under the name RedOak49

I spent a lot of time when I got a new dust collector and developed the performance curve for it. This is a curve of the cfm versus static pressure. I used a hot wire anemometer to measure velocity and converted it to cubic feet per minute. I also measured the static pressure or the vacuum with a digital gauge. This all takes a bit of time but something I wanted to do. For most people, this is not something that they want to do. For your information, the dust collector is a 5 hp Oneida Super Dust Gorilla. Once I have the performance curve it is easy for me to read the static pressure at any time and then read the flow off my graph. Most of the companies that sell dust collectors really exaggerate the claims of cfm. In my case, Oneida who made mine published a curve that was almost exactly what I measured. There are several relatively good sources for "real" dust collector performance. Wood Magazine has published some good data and even has the Harbor Freight Dust Collector that they tested.

After I saw the other downdraft sanding box, I thought that it would be useful to post mine that I built last year. I think the idea of a downdraft box is really good for reducing the amount of dust. This is especially important as sanding dust is very fine and the most harmful kind of dust. I made the box about 24†square and 6†tall. The sides are 1/2†plywood and the top is 1/4†pegboard which originally had 3/16†holes. I got it together and attached a 4†dust collector port on one side. I tried it out with my dust collector and found that it was not pulling much air and I needed to increase the hole sizes. Around the outside, I drilled the holes to 1/2†diameter and also increased the holes sizes in a couple of other areas. The result was increased air flow and better collection of the dust. There is a noticeable improvement in the air quality in my shop and very little escaping the downdraft box. I am currently using it to sand some small boxes and needed to be able to sand the lid and bottom flat. I glued some old sanding belts to 1/4†MDF using 3M Super 77 spray adhesive. I also glue up a couple of sheets of sand paper the same way. I also will cover part of the top at times to direct more of the suction to where I am sanding something. One note is that I did not put any internal baffles in the box and it works fine in my case without them. I actually measured the amount of air that is being pulled through the holes and it is about 600 cfm at a static pressure of 10.3". I am using a large cyclone dust collector.

I built a downdraft table and tried to match the area of the holes to the area of the dust collector hose which is connected. With the 60 holes that are 3/4" holes, I think the flow and suction is pretty low. You might try covering up some holes that are not near the work you are sanding and see if that improves things. I must have missed what vacuum or dust collector is being used for the down draft table.

Very nice...I think people would be interested in the number and size of the holes and what dust collector you are using.

I have a couple of comments about dust collectors. I had a Jet Vortex Dust collector that was 1.5 HP. Even though Jet rates them at 1200 cfm, that is complete nonsense. If you get 600 cfm, you will be doing very good and through a 10 foot flex hose less. The Dust Right at 3/4 HP says it will do 650 cfm...wrong. I have a much larger system and have tested mine with proper instruments and only get about 700 cfm through a 4" flex hose to my table saw....I have a 5 hp cyclone unit and I have measured up to 1850 cfm. (The reason that I have such a large dust collector is that I have other large equipment in my shop and have piped the shop with 6" PVC Duct.). I also have done a lot of testing on my own system to quantify the system. The vast majority of low end dust collectors are tested in strange conditions and the cfm specs way over rated. It is unfortunate that companies over rate their machines. What they typically do is take off any filter or bag filter and test right at the inlet of the machine. If you do this with some dust collectors, you will burn out the motor. Wood Magazine in March 2008 did some testing and provided good test data. In addition, the Dust Right has a 30 micron bag on it and will not do much to protect you. Remember that we want to collect as much of the fine dust down to under 10 microns. I think the idea of a 6.5 hp shop vac with a HEPA filter and dust deputy is a good idea and works well for many people. The shop vacs only pull maybe 125 cfm but they have a vacuum level up to 10 times a dust collector. They will be very good for a scroll saw and smaller power tools. I am a strong believer in good dust collection and the best you can get. I use a shop vac system on my scroll saw and it does a very good job.

Good luck with the shed as it sounds great. You probably need tell evaluate ventilation and some type of dust collection for the shed. If you are prone to respiratory infections you need to not breath the fine dust. Hope you get better soon.

Kris...you asked a reasonable question and got responses as to what people think. Yes, we are all adults here. I think it is a bit unfair for you to ask a question and then lecture us about our responses. When I look at the projects posted and the number of religious themed ones, I would say the members here are a bit older and conservative in their view of the naked body art.

I also have problems with my hands/wrists. Basically, the wrist joint on both hands wore out with bone on bone. I was really scared about the future. Fortunately, I found a world class hand surgeon at Rush Hospital in Chicago. He had written many papers and one on my exact condition and surgery to correct it. Not only had he written the papers but was the best doctor I have met and explained everything to me. The surgery on a wrist took almost 4 hours. The recovery was really painful but the results are a miracle. I am careful with my hand and wrists now and look for any way to take pressure off them. I have made small push sticks or v-sticks and remind myself to not put so much pressure on the wood. The key to many of my physical problems is to take time to look at how I am doing things and find a way to do it with less pressure off my joints.

I would prefer not to see it on this forum. There are so many great projects that I do not think it is needed. If certain people want to see it, they can send you a message

I have had spinal fusion in the lumbar region . As is typical, I still have chronic back and leg pain. It does limit me at times but it is one reason I started scroll sawing a few years ago. I have a great chair with back support. A few months ago, my pain management doctor helped me to get surgery for implanting a spinal cord stimulator. It injects an electrical signal into my spinal cord and has greatly reduced the pain and allowed longer shop time. The stimulator is a high tech device with a lot of programming options. If someone is interested in it, please pm me.

What companies do is put a saw out there and see if it sells. If you good people buy a cheap saw and have problems, then you got what you paid for. The way to get companies not to make junk, it for you people not to buy it. As long as you are willing to buy cheap machines that do not work real, somebody will sell it to you. Companies design machines that they can sell. Do not blame someone else for buying a cheap machine....look in the mirror. Me, I paid the price and have a Hegner...a fine quality piece of machinery. It may not suit some due to the way you feed blades. But there are other high quality machines you can buy.