BadBob

Just a few things that came to mind while reading through these posts. Gluing end grain to long grain is bad. Wood expands and contracts with the humidity across the grain and very little with the grain. If I build it in Florida and ship it to Arizona the joint is going to fail. Dowels are not always round. In fact, they usually are not. A 1/2-inch dowel may be larger or smaller then 1/2-inch. You should always measure the dowel and drill the appropriate size hole. A 1/2 inch dowel will be a very tight fit for a 1/2 inch hole. It may not fit at all one the glue is applied. The glue makes it swell. Screws in end grain is a weak joint and may spit the wood if it is used without the proper size pilot hole. Expansion and contraction of the wood may cause the screw to loosen after a few seasons. A properly made mortise and tenon joint is probably the strongest wood joint you can make. It has been in use for centuries and was designed to use in cross-grain situations. There are plenty of videos that show test on the strength of wood joints. If I were going to make something that I wanted to be able to take apart and reassemble I would use a connector bolt. This is what Ikea uses for butt joints in their knock down furniture.

Not as busy as I would like. With my wife working at home and trying to keep my grandson out of her way as much as possible, there isn't much time left.

What is trustone? I googled it and all I found was financial stuff.

I have glued up many bits and pieces to make blocks for these Steve Good 3D Bird Houses. I got lots of practice with my plane and bench hook. These are all wood reclaimed from discarded furniture. Poplar and mystery wood from Indonesia. I discovered than my smoother plane does a great job of removing paint.

I found 1-1/2x1-1/2 inch poplar and oak at Lowe's. Home Depot didn't have any square stock. I bought all the straight poplar pieces. That should do me for a while.

I love Evapo-Rust. It works great, especilly for small parts. What I like best is that I can keep using it until it stops working, and when I'm finished I can pour it on my lawn as an iron supplement. There are no chemical burns or hazardous waste to dispose of. You can probably get molasses in 55 Gallon drums. I seent rust removed with all sorts of things. Potatoes and water being the strangest. It smells terrible. Lye solution will remove rust and seems to work better if you add a piece of zinc. I used to hunt civil war relics and used this method to clean heavy rust off of cast iron. It takes a long time, but it works.

I cut a lot of 1.5-inch stock, mostly pine, poplar, and oak, with a bit of mystery wood from time to time. I use a #5 skip tooth most of the time. Slow is the name of the game. It took me a while to get this under control and only put enough pressure on the blade to keep it in contact with the wood and let the blade cut and clear out the sawdust. When I come to a corner, I stop for a second or two before making the turn to let the blade catch up.

I like the wooden pegs better than the metal hooks, but it will depend on what your customers want. I have made and used a lot of pegs over the years. They need to fit snugly in the holes or the glue joint will fail. If they go all the way through adding a wedge to the back of the peg will help keep them in place. I would not consider turning them myself unless I needed something special. They are cheap in quantity and I know from my past experience the I would have a pile of different size pegs to deal with.

Beautiful and each is unique. I had not considered mixing them up like that. Thanks.

I have both laser and inkjet. I rarely use the inkjet printer. it's slow and it sits a long time there always seems to be an issue with the ink cartridges. It has no network connection. The laser is color, prints faster, has wired and wireless network connections, and costs under $200. Inkjets print better photos, but a few years ago I did the math and it was cheaper per photo to have the photo printed at CVS. Up load, wait for an email, and pick it up when the wife does her milk run. I factored in the cost of ink, photo paper, and the fact that some times I need to print the photo more than once because of operator errors, printer errors, ink cartridges, and the cost of the printer. I don't know why I still keep the inkjet.

That may be the ultimate solution for me. I can mill my wood, but I don't have a local source.

I can't buy much of anything locally. Certainly not rough lumber. The nearest place I can get hardwoods other than the big box stores is 125 miles away. I have never seen 1-1/2-inch lumber in Lowe's or Home depot, perhaps because I wasn't looking for it.

I shrink wrap puzzles, or if they are simple enough, use stretch wrap and wrap them tightly. I cut heavy box pieces to fit (two-layer corrugated paper) and wrap an tape it tight. Next, the whole thing goes into a bubble padded envelope. To date, I have never had one damaged. These get shipped first class 99% of the time with no insurance. It's cheaper for me to send them another puzzle if it gets damaged. If I were shipping something more substantial and more expensive, I would add more layers and a box made to fit. I feel it is essential to make sure nothing moves around. I tape everything in place, including the bubble wrap. The only time I buy the insurance is for international shipping. I let my customers choose the shipping that they want to use. They rarely choose priority shipping. I have packages coming in all the time, and I save a lot of packing material to reuse. Boxes under 12-inches long and all of the padded envelopes, air pillows, and bubble wrap. I cut the sides off the padded envelopes and roll my toys in it and tape it tightly. I had one of my packages get dropped and run over without breaking the contents. I wish I had enough sales that I needed to buy my packing materials.

For those who make the little 3d bird house ornaments. Do you make your own stock or purchase something like turning blanks? I'm cutting up 2x4s and gluing up cutoffs now but I would like to do this faster and use something other than pine 2x4s.

I make mostly toys. I resaw when I need to. I have a Shopsmith bandsaw, and it does an excellent job for me. Good blades and guides combined with and a properly aligned saw are key to getting a good resaw. I never use my resaw blade to cut curves. Once you twist the blade it will never track straight. I learned about this from paperwork included with my Wolf saw blades. Lately, I have been resawing parts after I cut them out. It the parts are very small I can resaw them on the scroll saw. I figured out how to do this after I cut a large number of parts for wood that was 1/4-inch to thick for my project. it worked like a charm.

The air switch is too complicated and expensive. I control my dust collector. With a remote control switch, I purchased at Lowe's in an after Christmas sale several years ago. It controls three outlets. There are a lot of these for sale on amazon.

Mineral oil will not soak in. Why mot just wax the bowl?

Bandsaw blades sizes are not an issue. You can buy any size you need for Timberwolf. I believe they will make them any length you need. I highly recommend them. I have two Shopsmith band saws with different guides on each saw—one for resawing and the other for curves. It took me years to understand that if you buy a high-quality blade for resawing and use it for cutting curves, it will never track straight again. I have never bought what I would call a quality blade from a store. https://www.timberwolfblades.com/

This stuff is useless. I got some by accident once. I could not use it for anything. I wonder what the people who are coming up with rules think happens to all the mineral spirits that are not being sold.

I can cut 1/8-inch thick without a backer. I don't like to do it because cleaning up the fuzzies and tear out on the back of the piece is a pain. For Baltic birch, I need to slow the saw sown a bit until the blade gets dulled a little. I think some of it depends on the wood you are cutting. I make some toys that have some weak parts. I make oak plywood for these parts. It's about 3/16-inch thick and very strong. I can dut this at full saw speed without issues.

I have several Veritas/Lee Valley tools. Planes, marking knives, awls, marking gauges, and saws. Probably some others they are first-class tools. I like the router base because experience with there tools tells me that this one will be first class. I also have some Stew Mac tools because I have guitars. They are not in the same category as Veritas; I have sent things back to them for a refund. When I pay premium prices for a tool, I expect to get a premium tool. I have had Dremel tools for years. They work, but their accessories leave a lot to be desired. I have one in their drill press stand. I will not use it unless I need to drill a hole that is so small I can't mount it in a chuck. The slop in the stand annoys me, but it will drill the holes.

I just read a rather lengthy topic about using a plunge router base for Dremel tools. A rotary tool base that no one mentioned was the Veritas Plunge Base for Rotary Tools. This one has been on my wish list for a while. Not only is it a precision made tool, but it is more versatile. It's a bit pricey, and if all you do is scrollwork, it is probably massive overkill. Video Veritas Plunge Base for Rotary Tools Veritas Plunge Base for Rotary Tools Set

I cut an entire project once with the blade in upside down. The saw sounded different but other than that I didn't notice anything different.

If you have time I would watch a the used market in your area for awhile. High end band saws show up on craigs list from time to time that are very lightly used. As a company I like Grizzly, if there is a problem their customer service is top notch. I would go there first and unless there was a compelling reason to go somewhere else I would buy from them. If I'm going to spend my money for something that expensive customer service, parts availability, and support are at the top of my list of must haves.

Yes, just put glue in the appropriate waste area. It only takes a tiny dot of glue. Remember that glue spreads when you squeeze it.