rash_powder

There are a great many of these floating around. I am not sure of the years of production, just that there are many. I have my Great Grandma's Singer treadle sewing machine in a cabinet very similar. The bulk of its value is sentimental and only to me. They do tend to sell for more the closer you get to large cities, such as Minneapolis (I am located a short drive West of Grand Forks, ND). If you feel comfortable drilling into it, go ahead. That said, the cover should come off easily and a clamping mechanism could be easily made to secure the saw without causing much/any damage.

If you cut your wheels next to an edge so that the wheel stays round, but the saw breaks through the edge, that will give a natural exit point for the waste. With careful measuring and setup you could also place a relief hole at the outside edge of the saw kerf. A few relief cuts up the side of the hole saw may give waste a place to go. Other options would be to use the hole saw to make a pattern to follow - just cut a few mm's deep, then bandsaw, jigsaw or scrollsaw the part out. The drill press can be converted to a sort-of lathe; and hand drills can be used to power a more traditional looking DIY lathe. Sometimes you have to think well outside of the box to get the solution you want.

The original ShopSmith!!!

I've used oil stain on ornaments I make. I usually put it in a zipper bag, put the part in, and then massage it around everywhere. Parts come out, blot them dry with paper towels and hang to dry the rest of the way. Once dry, wipe them off again with a paper towel and they are good to go. I don't seal ornaments as I feel they don't need to be since they aren't meant to be handled a lot. I imagine them to go from box to christmas tree and back to box; so no need. No one has ever said anything about residue coming off them.

Since I scroll in the house, I have been using draft inducers from furnaces or water heaters for the vac portion of my dust collection. They work adequately and, while louder than a scroll saw, are quite quiet. I will say that they could use a little more CFM, but when trying to do it on the cheap, its what I could find.

A tip for drilling a 'square' hole with a hand drill. Some drills have a bubble on the back for lining up plumb. If your work surface is true, you've got it. If your drill doesn't, a small square will help. You may have to make one at the table saw to get it small enough but its all the same as long as it is true. Start your hole, and use the square at, say, the 3 o'clock position to check plumb, then carefully move the square to, say, 12 o'clock, and check plumb. Drill a wee bit and repeat. This is how it was done back when a brace was the tool of choice to drill. The important thing is to check for plumb at 90° to each other. With practice, you'll get to where you don't need it much. Also, with the wee little drill bits we use, they bend quite easily. You can not rest the weight of the drill on them or they will go where ever they wish.

I find the relative safety of a scrollsaw to be one of the biggest perks of the tool. Aside from the blade breaking and possibly spearing you, I just cant imagine how hard you would have to shove your finger into those tiny teeth that they would actually cut you badly. I've touched the blade while running at full speed just to see what would happen, and I have to say I get worse wounds from our cats when they decide to jump off you while being carried.

So this idea will still require some DIY or at the very least hiring a local. Menard's sells (if you have one local, I'm sure the other box stores have these) a prefab work bench top. master craft work bench top Its a bit narrow though. So you would need two, cut one down to the correct width to fasten to the other and make the correct width. Then its just make a base, and Menard's again can help. Work bench kit This has all the brackets and hardware to build a bench support, only missing 2x4s, which again Menard's has. Obviously this is not an off the shelf plug and play deal. But if you have a circle saw and something about 6' long and straight, you could break the top down and dowl/biscuit/domino them together and be on your way. Clamping might be a bit tricky, but you could stand it on edge with the heavy side up and that should be good enough. Best of luck!

I think I managed to find a pattern! Searched for victorian stencil and that got me where I wanted to be.

My wife wants me to make her a cook book stand for when she is cooking. I've got material rough broken down, a solid plan in my head, and rough dimensions in Inkscape. I'm struggling with an embellishment. She loves Beauty and the Beast, but if I scroll the image I found into the holder you would see the hinge through it and there wouldn't really be anything terribly solid to screw the hinge too. So I'm trying to find some cool flourish (or whatever its called) to cut into the boarder of the holder. I'm thinking about 1-2" in from the edges and top so the mid section is solid for the hinge attachment. I just don't know what to call a negative flourish pattern. Any ideas? I hope I made it clear what I'm after; I often struggle to explain what's in my head. Thanks!

If a plastic part breaks, check at a local high school or university. There may be a shop/engineering class with a 3d printer that could recreate the part for you. In fact, that same school may have an electronics class that may be able to repair your control board.

Look this fella up if you have Facebook. He is in the UK, but very helpful and know Hegner's inside and out. Hegner, A Saw Subject (The Man for Hegner) Some trouble shooting that you may be able to do at home; if your skills allow. Test the capacitor on the electric motor. Its the little can mounted to the side. I haven't looked to see if its a start cap or a run cap. The cap on my Hegner is painted so I cannot see if there is a size printed on it, but if you have a voltmeter that can test caps it should read non-zero for sure. Related to the cap, you could also try turning the saw on and give it a 'kick' to help get it up to speed. If that cap is a start cap and bad it could be struggling to get the motor started, so a bit of help to make it spin quick may get it going. Blow the motor out with air. I'm pretty sure that there is a speed sensor in there to give feed back to the controller. It could have gotten dirty. The speed control on the board isn't terribly hard to replace, and not terribly expensive either. Best of luck to you!

Honestly I don't think the brand, age, or cost of the tool(s) really matters. What does is can you use it. You could have a shop with $40,000 of equipment and turn out projects that are crooked and full of gaps. I've seen a lot of maker videos on youtube, from people with every cost of equipment from scavanged to DIY to Laguna and SawStop. The people with the budget/scavenged/diy equipment turn out just as good projects as the high end gear. Cost in no way makes the user's skill. A skilled user can make a poor quality tool sing though.

The quality of Harbor Freight tools is a curious thing. When you get into the tool/maker/mechanic/repair spaces, there is a lot of get this, not that. One of the more common things I've seen and heard is the less moving parts the more likely it is to last; get nothing electrical. HF serves a purpose, some view it as one and done, others as cheap tools (to keep after) for a job, and others look at them as a source for work tools. Their tool boxes are on par or better than anything I've seen at Menards or Lowes. The air hammer I have from them is a beast and the same unit as a Mac Tools. Curiously, I just recently watched a how to video put up by TRQ auto parts. Their shop guy was using an Icon torque wrench. A shop with enough financial backing for Snap On chose the Icon wrench! That says something. HF is moving up in quality, it cannot be denied. You can still get a grinder that is good for 2 uses; but they stock one that is every bit as good as a Dewalt. I think if we sit back and watch, in the next 10 years HF will become something like Craftsman was. Incidently, I have zero affiliation with HF; I just scrape by and fix as much myself as possible and don't want to buy Snap On every time I need a tool for 1 or 2 jobs. Be smart with your money and buy what you feel is right and don't ding someone for what buying what fit their needs if it isn't up to your needs.

I like to use boiled linseed oil thinned about 50% with mineral spirits. I feel it gives the ornaments I make (mostly from Poplar) a vintage look. They darken a little with time and light exposure, but I like that antique appearance.

A drum sander is only going to remove a few thousands of an inch at a time. If you are looking to remove 1/2 inch, or 500 thousandths, you will be pushing a board through that sander for a long time. There will also be a phenomenal amount of dust generated. A planer is what you need for this task.

I'm a bit south of Barb. We've got -16F that feels like -40F. This morning when I left home it was -20F, but I didn't look for a wind chill. February is usually worse than January. Yay!

If you should decide to purchase a printer, my advice would be a Brother inktank model. We had an HP inkjet that would go through ink cartridges at an amazing rate. I think that their business model hinges on putting a minimum of ink in the cartridge and selling it for $70. The Brother we have is inkjet but uses tanks of ink. $100 of ink lasts easily a year. That HP couldn't go that long on 1 cartridge when we didn't use it - the ink would dry out.

I have a magnifier with light, two sewing lights, and a auto accessory light shining on my table. I've found more light helps greatly. There are no shadows, and the light is always even across the work space regardless of season or time of day.

If I was making gun stocks that stuff would be awesome. I want to make one, but a first go would absolutely not be from that stuff.

I have seen a few videos about birch plywood, and the quality that import birch plywood has. Not Baltic Birch, just Import Birch; which makes no sense since both are imported. I guess the import birch is from Asia or somewhere like that. Regardless, its competitively priced and of good quality. Might be something to look into.

A Dremel sanding drum is quite often hard to get good results from due the tiny diameter of the drum and the crazy speed it spins at. With a lot of practice and maybe slow speeds it can be learned. My wife trims dog claws with a dremel successfully, but she was also a cosmotologist and has crazy steady hands. If you choose Dremel, it seems counter intuitive but lower/coarser grits cause less heat build up. Depending on the size of these statues the options mentioned above will work. Homemade sanding sticks and rods come to mind first, then needle files. Someone mentioned carving the bevels on these. If you look at the chicken's breast you'll see a series of small grooves that are too coarse and crisp for sand paper. I think the carving angle may be what was used. A cheap, readily available way to get setup for carving is utility knives. At least in the US, they are available nearly everywhere and very cheap when compared to other quality carving tools. Good Luck!

As JT said, all legs touching the ground firmly; bolted down if possible. 3 legs works far better than 4. Also, be sure there is no flex anywhere in your stand and that it is plenty heavy. I struggled to get my Hegner 22VS to run smooth. Accidentally discovered the trick for my situation this year. I had built a butcher block type table to mount it to and attached that to a 2x4 framed cabinet. I could park a truck on this stand it is so solid and heavy. Then for convenience it sat on a Harbor Freight moving scooter. No matter what I did it would vibrate at the speeds I wanted to run. This fall I set it directly on the floor. Vibrations are gone. No clue why. Keep the arm bushings lubed too. It seemed to help with my fight. Best of luck!

So, why couldn't a person use a quick clamp in the bottom arm? I am pretty sure that I test fit mine and it does fit. They are shaped the same too, its just how the grip the blade.

I make Christmas ornaments from 1/4" poplar and occasionally aspen; both kiln dried. No troubles with warping after the items are cut. Personally, I wouldn't really go thinner than maybe 3/16" with any wood. If I need thinner plywood is available in several sizes down to 1/64". Regardless of species, I would think you will want kiln dried and a piece with as much of the growth rings being perpendicular to the width as possible (I think I said that right - lay your stock on the table and the rings should all run up and down). Avoid the pith as well. I would let the material acclimate to your shop for several days too just to be sure its stabilized to its new environment. You could also use a piece of regular lumber and simulate live edge. I've seen a few wood workers on youtube do this. Cut a wavy edge and sand to an un-even bevel. That may get you a more stable piece.