Putter Display

I wanted to build something that challenged me from a design perspective, something that wasn't "square".  For years I have collected putters and I  had been wanting a way to display one of them so I started sketching out a floor display that would hold a single putter, but would also function as a "practice hole".   Overall I was happy with the shape that I drew, now to transfer that to some wood.  This project is made from 6/4 Walnut.

Sketches

Main pieces cut out.

The "trunk" balances nicely on the base.

First time using the Festool Domino...amazing machine!

Multiple coats of Danish Oil followed up by a coat of paste wax.

Completed.

Dining Bench

8/4 Poplar being cross cut on the Kapex (see Miter-Saw Post)

Making the bevel cut on the table saw.

Dry-fit

Dry-fit

Completed

Miter Saw

About 10 years ago I bought a number of Craftsman power tools from Sears, and while they have served me well over the years, I have been slowly upgrading as funds permitted.  The last Craftsman tool that I needed to upgrade was my 10" compound miter saw.  This saw has cut a ton of wood over the years, but I had been wanting to upgrade, primarily for more capacity as it could barely cut a 90° angle on a 2x6.

The saw that I was most excited about was the Festool Kapex.  I own a fair number of Festool tools and all have exceeded my expectations.  The ease of use, accuracy and dust-collection justify the extra expense in my mind.  In reading the glowing reviews of the Kapex I had no doubt that the Kapex would be the perfect saw, and worth the $1,400 price tag.  I purchased the Kapex from my local Woodcraft and two weeks later returned it!  Here are the reasons why:

1.  With every Festool power tool I own I have been blown away by the dust collection, and I think my expectations may have been too high with the Kapex.  The marketing materials state that it will collect 90% of dust, but I only found that to be true in some circumstances.  Cutting a 1x4, sure the dust collection is good, but when I was cutting an 8/4 x 12" piece of poplar, not so much.  While I firmly believe that the Kapex does a better job of dust collection than any other miter saw...I wasn't blown away, especially for a $1,400 saw.

2.  The Kapex was not square out of the box, not even close.  Both the bevel angle and the miter angle were out of square.  Again another expectation that may have been too high, but I spent about half an hour attempting to get the saw to cut square.  In my opinion, a $1,400 saw should be square out of the box.

3.  The table was not level with the wings.  This is a little hard to describe, and I should have taken a picture, but the inner-table that rotates with the saw was about 1/32" lower than the wings.  Evidently this is normal for the Kapex (according to some information I found on the internet), but I hadn't seen the "feature" on any other miter saw I have ever used.  This may or may not cause an issue with making cuts, but I believe that it should be perfectly level, especially for a $1,400 saw!

4.  The blade that came with the Kapex is awesome (see note #6 below).

Thankfully Festool offers a 30-day return opportunity, which I have never had to exercise until now, and I was able to easily return the saw to Woodcraft.

So I ended up purchasing a DeWalt 780 12" sliding miter saw.  Here are a few of my observations about the saw:

1.  The dust collection is ok (not as good as the Kapex), but for $600, I didn't expect great dust collection.

2.  The saw wasn't accurate out of the box and I spent about half an hour getting the saw to cut square (only the miter was out of square, the bevel angle was good), but for $600, I didn't expect it to be square out of the box.

3.  The saw table that rotates IS level with the wings...why isn't the Kapex?

4.  I got the DeWalt mobile cart, a $200 value for FREE when I purchased the saw from my local big-box store (no mail in rebate required)!

5.  The saw has plenty of power and capacity.

6.  As expected, the blade that came with the DeWalt was a few steps above garbage so I did purchase an 80-tooth Freud blade that is much better.

So for me the bottom line is that the Kapex is a very good saw, but not worth $1,400 in my opinion.  The DeWalt is a pretty good saw, and is worth $600, especially with the stand thrown in.  At the end of the day, I was able to get the DeWalt for $600, and now I have enough left over to get the Festool Domino I have been drooling over!

Shop Organization

Over the past month I have focused most of my time on the shop.  When we moved into our new house about a year ago I set up the shop as quickly as I could, placing tools and storage areas in what I thought was the best places.  Since I was coming from a small two car garage (about 400 sq. ft.) to what I thought was an enormous garage (about 1,000 sq. ft.), I spread everything out as much as possible, not utilizing the space very efficiently.  After working on many projects I found that I needed to move some equipment around and build some additional storage.  While I am far from completed, I feel I have made some significant progress. 

In addition to some reorganization, I have installed two additional 20-amp circuits in the shop.  The idea is that one circuit is for dust-collection (either my large dust-collector or a shop-vac) and the other circuit is for the tool.

Tool hanging rack on left and a saw-till on the right are the latest additions to my tool storage.

New out-feed table (Kreg Universal Bench and plywood top).

Moved the dust collector into a different corner so that it is more convenient for all machines.

The cart on the right was built to house my Festool Systainers and the router table and spindle sander.

Timer for cordless tool batteries.

Laguna 1412 Bandsaw Review

Over the past 10 years as a hobbyist woodworker my experience with using a bandsaw has been limited to using my dad’s 14” Rigid bandsaw a few times. I used the bandsaw to cut a couple of curves and one unsuccessful attempt at resawing (which I blame more on the stock blade than anything else). The bottom line is that I have very little experience with bandsaws, so please take that into account with this review.

There have been numerous projects where I knew a bandsaw would be a safer and better way to complete a cut. I also wanted to be able to do some resawing, so I started to look for a bandsaw. After a ton of research I had narrowed down my selection to the Grizzly 513X2 and the Laguna 1412. The Grizzly had good reviews and is established in the bandsaw market, whereas the Laguna 1412 came out last year and there were only a few reviews available. As fate would have it, my local Woodcraft had a bandsaw demo for the Laguna 1412 one weekend and I quickly rearranged my schedule so I could attend.

The demo was put on by the owner of the Woodcraft and I appreciated how he went through step-by-step setting up a brand-new saw (which had already been put together). He also did a side-by-side comparison between the Laguna 1412 and a Rikon 10-325. He said that the Rikon is one of his most popular bandsaws and that it is very well made, but there are a few things that made the Laguna , in his opinion, a little bit better. The trunions were clearly bigger on the Laguna, the Laguna table was thicker, and the overall fit-and-finish of the Laguna seemed just a little bit better than the Rikon. Another very noticeable difference is the table height on the Laguna, which is 1 ½” shorter than the Rikon at 38”. 

One of the biggest differences in my opinion between the Laguna and every other model that I looked at is the guide blocks. I have found the ceramic guide blocks on the Laguna to be very easy to set up. Essentially the ceramic guides are intended to touch the blade, so the guides are set by adjusting the guides so that it just touches the blade without applying any pressure. The upper guides are very easy to set, the lower guides are more difficult since they are under the table.

Now because Woodcraft was offering 10% off the saw due to the demo, it was a no-brainer and I bought one on the spot (and the mobile base). Be aware that the Laguna 1412 does not come with a blade, which from what I have read is a good thing since stock blades are all garbage. I also purchased a ½” - 3 TPI Timber Wolf blade (115”). When I measured the size of the box, I was short by 2” to get it to fit in my Land Rover, so I had to drive home, get my wifes Expedition and then go pick up my new toy.

Set-up was relatively straight forward. There is a stand with 4 sides/8 bolts which then bolts to the bottom of the saw. Install the table, blade, fence and you are good-to-go. I will say that the instructions were lacking on detail when it came to installing the mobile base kit, but I did finally figure out how to get everything put together, which took me about 2 hours.

The next day I spent about an hour tuning the saw up, using the step-by-step instructions from the demo. I know that if I hadn’t gone to the demo the tune-up would have taken me much longer. Once everything was set up I did some simple test-cuts just to see how that saw was running. Everything seemed to work great so I figured it was time to try some resawing for the first time and I grabbed the thickest piece of wood I had, a 12” wide x ¾” piece of poplar. I was very pleased with the results, a few passes with the planer and I had a perfect ½” thick piece. I also attempted to resaw a 5” X 8/4” piece of hard-maple that I had and the saw didn’t even break a sweat. The result of the cut on the hard-maple was dead-on 90°.

I have the saw hooked up to a 1hp dust-collector via a 4” hose and I would say that the dust collection is good. Even while re-sawing the 12” wide piece of poplar, I would say that 65-70% of the dust was “collected”, I imagine that more powerful dust collector would be an improvement. The only time I had an issue was when I forgot to open the blast gate for the bandsaw.

Blade changes are straight-forward, especially with the quick-release blade tension lever. The only tool needed to change the blade is a screwdriver to remove the throat-plate. The tracking adjustments are straight-forward and easy to accomplish through the window. There is also another window that displays the blade tension.

The fence on the Laguna is very nice, but be aware that this is my first exposure to a fence on a bandsaw since my Dad’s Rigid doesn’t have one. The fence can be set at either 5 ½” high or ½” high and is easily changed using two knobs. When I first set up the band saw I did need to shim the fence to get it square to the table which was easily done with a single strip of electrical tape. There are two bolts that can be loosened using the supplied allen wrench to square the fence to the blade. The fence slides smoothly side to side and locks down securely.

I didn’t buy the Laguna light kit since I had the have the LED Work-light from Lee Valley (http://www.leevalley...596,43349,71189). In fact, the Woodcraft owner didn’t recommend the light since the light is mounted right at head-level on the front of the saw, not in the best position.

There are a few items that I am less than enthused about, but are not deal breakers. First are the small knobs used to adjust the guide blocks. The plastic looks and feels cheap, to where I don’t know how well they will hold up over time. Maybe I will be surprised, but they just seem out of place on an otherwise high quality saw. Second is the lack of storage in the stand. Now the stand is incredibly well made and is very heavy duty, but it would have been nice to have an open shelf or a door available for storage.

Overall I have no regrets purchasing the Laguna 1412 and I expect that it will last for many years.

Shaker Inspired Bench - Part 3

With the bench all glued up and sanded I was able to now focus on finishing.  Since the customer (my wife) wanted this bench painted I wanted to use Milk Paint since I had used it before on the blanket chest.  

We originally planned on first painting the bench red and then black, sanding through the black to show some of the red, but we ultimately loved the red so we decided to leave it red.  I used General Finishes Brick Red Milk Paint and then a top-coat of General Finishes Polyacrylic.  I am very pleased with the results, and more importantly, so is my wife.

Shaker Inspired Bench - Part 2

With the basic plan in place I was ready to start cutting my joinery.  I started by cutting the dado on the bottom of the top the same width as the legs.  I then used the drill press to drill out the mortises in the top to accept the tenons on the legs.  Then squared up the mortises with a chisel.  I used my table-saw and dado blade to cut the tenons, slowly creeping up on the perfect fit.  

For Christmas I got a new 1/2" up-cut spiral bit, which is perfect for cutting the mortises on the legs.  Using my Festool OF1400 and the edge guide I was able to cut a perfect mortise very quickly.  This is my first spiral router bit, and I love it!

After all the mortises were squared up and multiple times dry-fitting everything I was ready for the final glue up, which went very smoothly.

 View of the through mortises with the split for the wedge.

Bench dry fit (no stretcher yet).

Cutting the mortises in the legs with my new 1/2" up-cut spiral bit, this thing is awesome!

Nice, clean mortise. 

Squared up the mortise with a chisel. 

Final glue up (can't have too many clamps).