Woodworkers of Head Case unite!

[VPI]

Do you guys have any opinions on the Powermatic 54HH Helical long bed jointer?

Thinking about trying to shoe horn one into my garage. 

[dsavitsk]

I own one that is sitting idle that I'll make you a great deal on. Of course, you have to pick it up in CT.

It's fine. Works well. 6" Can be frustrating. I think you can get an 8" from other manufacturers for the same cost.

[naamanf]

18 minutes ago, VPI said:

Do you guys have any opinions on the Powermatic 54HH Helical long bed jointer?

Thinking about trying to shoe horn one into my garage. 

Pass. Get the Format Dual 20. 

[VPI]

6” is required for 120v or I have to add $4k plus the inevitable cost of upgrading the SawStop to 3.0 HP to the cost. 

[swt61]

14 hours ago, dsavitsk said:

Because I feel it's my job to be a Christmas downer, over time, wenge will lighten to a medium brown, purple heart will lose its purple and turn medium brown, and padauk will turn a kind of medium brown. So in a year, it will look more or less like a walnut cutting board.

I have a gameboard I made for my Mother. The Purple Heart is still Purple after almost 15 years now. And the Wenge stand that I made for Sennheiser is now owned by Al, and is still as dark as ever. That has to be 10 years old, if not older.

56 minutes ago, dsavitsk said:

6" Can be frustrating. 

Too easy.

[Voltron]

I thought the joke was that the owner of the cutting board will be dead from the poison woods long before the colors fade...

[naamanf]

8 minutes ago, Voltron said:

I thought the joke was that the owner of the cutting board will be dead from the poison woods long before the colors fade...

Faded Murder Boards. FMB FOTM FTW. 

[Voltron]

On 12/20/2021 at 2:04 PM, VPI said:

This purple will not be this bright very long, it will be a darker purple for probably longer than the shitty work will hold up as I am sure the boards will split in half before too long due to faulty glue up.

Also an exaggeration, I know, but did you use any dominoes in your boards? I did on mine and I think it worked well. For the thin strips, I clamped them to a larger piece and cut the mortise through them. I used glue on each layer and longer dominoes to pass through sometimes multiple layers. You have to be careful on placement because the chamfer or cove could possibly cut through the ends of the dominoes if too close to the edge. Just a thought for future reference.

[HiWire]

This random stropping video came up... seemed relevant for keeping woodworking tools (and other edges) sharp:

 

[VPI]

3 hours ago, Voltron said:

Also an exaggeration, I know, but did you use any dominoes in your boards? I did on mine and I think it worked well. For the thin strips, I clamped them to a larger piece and cut the mortise through them. I used glue on each layer and longer dominoes to pass through sometimes multiple layers. You have to be careful on placement because the chamfer or cove could possibly cut through the ends of the dominoes if too close to the edge. Just a thought for future reference.

Everything I have seen says the dominoes add zero strength to the joint, they are just for alignment. I really throw these together in a matter of minutes and I have to spend 10 minutes to remember how to use the domino every time I pull it out so not really worth it to me. 

[naamanf]

Just glue here as well.  

[Craig Sawyers]

Here too. Plane the boards true and do a trial assembly, apply glue (I tend to use Titebond Extend), clamp up. Job done.

I use homemade clamping jigs, pieces of chopped up bike tire (minus the steel beading) to protect the board edges, and ratchet straps. The clamping jigs hold the board flat.

I'll see if I can find a picture of this arrangement.

[swt61]

On 12/21/2021 at 4:32 PM, VPI said:

Everything I have seen says the dominoes add zero strength to the joint, they are just for alignment. I really throw these together in a matter of minutes and I have to spend 10 minutes to remember how to use the domino every time I pull it out so not really worth it to me. 

I've read the same thing, and the same for biscuits. But in reality how can it not help? The biscuits and dominoes are made of Beach, because it swells quite a lot when wet. So the glue not only bonds the woods together, but it also swells the Beach enough to tighten the bond further.

Some 20 years back, when my Mother first moved from Alaska to Texas, to take over managing a storage business from her Aunt, I built a bunch of furniture for her apartment. Some of that was a coffee table and two end tables. I used biscuits in the joinery. After a few years she had a dog that chewed on one of the legs and she was a bit heartbroken. She loved those tables. Anyway, I decided to replace the chewed leg. The lengths I had to go through to remove that leg were incredible. I had to turn the table over, clamp the table to my work bench and beat the hell out of that leg to get it to come loose. It took some real muscle and a big dead blow hammer. 

So when people tell me that they don't provide any strength to a joint, I take that with a grain of salt.

Edited December 23, 2021 by swt61

[Voltron]

I was going to say that it was some typically anti-festool internet bullshit but I hoped Steve would chime in first. Modern wood glues are amazing, but the physical support of the swollen tenon across the narrow stripes, and wider ones too, has to provide more strength in my opinion. Not suggesting anyone needs to do it, but it like to.

[Craig Sawyers]

OK - I'm a great fan of simple glued joints for long grain. But I have used other forms of joinery. My speakers (Linkwitz LX521.4) have the bass unit dipole assembled with biscuits (into marine ply, right angle joints), and I have a de-Walt biscuit jointer.

And on my bench (a Klausz), the underframe is wedged tenons (sapele) and the top boards and apron are a mixture of glued floating tenon and dowel (I didn't have a biscuit jointer then).

One of my cabinet making heroes is James Krenov. He used dowels in his exceptionally superb cabinets, usually on end grain to long grain joints. But in his later years he was clear that if biscuits had been available when he was making he would have used them in a heartbeat.

I have to say that with biscuits you have to work fast. They swell once glued, so you have to assemble and cramp fast.

[dsavitsk]

They definitely, unequivocally, provide mechanical strength. Dominoes more than biscuits. That said, in a table top, they are surely unnecessary. But they do help with alignment.

5 hours ago, swt61 said:

 because it swells quite a lot when wet. So the glue not only bonds the woods together, but it also swells the Beach enough to tighten the bond further.

One issue, especially when using them on MDF or ply, is that the swelling can work against you. They swell when wet, bond to the cavity, then dry and shrink causing small divots.

[VPI]

Bumbled my way through mounting some Blum BluMotion hinges.
 

Not sure the hammer was the best tool to get them in there, but it worked. 

 

[VPI]

Any guesses on what wood this is?  Pretty heavy, linear grain. I have a ton and I would like to use it or sell it but not sure exactly what it is. 

[dsavitsk]

It looks like rift sawn white oak from here.

[VPI]

I had it in the oak pile but the guy buying all the oak for his cabinets did not think it was oak. I guess he missed out. 
 

Thanks. 

[Voltron]

I was thinking white oak also, but I'm not great at identification. 

[VPI]

19 minutes ago, Voltron said:

I was thinking white oak also, but I'm not great at identification. 

No doubt. I have more massive sticks that I cannot identify than ones I can. I really only know if the type of wood was written on the stick, or it is walnut. 

[swt61]

It's rift sawn White Oak. No doubt about it. 

[naamanf]

Going to have a go at ping ponging my first set of cabinets with Mozaik. Pretty advanced software that I’ll probably never fully learn, but pretty cool knowing once I have a decent grasp of how it operates I should be able to make any type of cabinetry relatively easily. 
 

[Augsburger]

If you pull that off it will be impressive. I have no doubt you will pull it off.