Bits and More Bits
My last post left you at the above picture of a lot of router bits and a pile of scrap wood. The mornings were a bit brisk this past week forcing me to put on a jacket and wait until late morning to get any gluing done but there is still time to do something productive out in the garage so I started in.
Most of the scraps were cut from undesirable sections of the lumber, most containing large defects. Back in the day, these would have been thrown into a burn pile and torched but in modern times, things like epoxy render even these boards salvagable. So I taped up the back sides of the defects, mixed up a batch of deep pour epoxy, tinted it black and poured it into the defects. The epoxy was left over from a project my oldest had done years ago after finding a skeletonized mouse in in the garage. We suspended the skeleton into a silicone cube mold and poured epoxy around it to turn it into an interesting paper weight which she still keeps on her desk. Anyway, I had leftover epoxy and decided to use some of it up.
I wish I hadn't. It took two days to set up and was extremely liquid, so it kept seeping around my "dams of tape" and leaking all over everywhere. Finally after a day and a half, it became more like a paste so I smeared some into the defects and waited overnight for it to harden the rest of the way. What I was left with after sanding the next day was terrible looking. So I got out the quick cure epoxy that I had used on a few of the defects on the boards used in the hand tool cabinet which is much more viscous and sets a lot faster and spent yet another day touching up the spots. That time after sanding they looked a lot better.
I spent an hour on the table saw cutting some simple rabbet joints and dadoes and along with two scrap pieces of plywood, glued up a box that I will eventually screw to a wall somewhere. You can see some of the defects that I had to repair on the lower and right boards of the box below. Next, I'll start making some holders for all my various bits, 1/4" ones on the left and 1/2" ones on the right. I'm not sure I'll be able to fit all the 1/2" bits on the right so some may have to go over to the left side anyway.
The size of the bits is determined by the shaft diameter. The bigger 1/2" shafts are used in my bigger routers with more horsepower and can remove a lot of wood. the smaller 1/4" shaft bits are mainly used in my small "palm" sized routers for smaller tasks like rounding over edges and such.
Usually I tell people not to be BITter, but in your case, I’ll wish you well with it.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dad! Your wit always makes me chuckle!
DeleteYour orderliness is as impressive as your craftsmanship which is as impressive as your ability to handle power tools effectively which is as impressive as your fathering of two girls which is as impressive as your ability to sing The Iowa State Song while accompanying yourself on the banjo...
ReplyDeleteGo read the story of thy past. Iowa, O! Iowa
What glorious deeds, what fame thou hast! Iowa, O! Iowa
So long as time's great cycle runs,
Or nations weep their fallen ones,
Thou'lt not forget thy patriot sons, Iowa, O! Iowa
You have obviously not heard me singing YP!
DeleteMy experience has been the wood expanding around the shaft which makes the bit hard to remove. Seal the wood with a finish (to keep the moisture content from changing) or use an insert. Rockler woodworking makes one that can hold either 1/4 or 1/2. Not cheap but they work well. Otherwise, your recent storage update with the tool cabinet looks great!
ReplyDeleteI am worried about that. I drilled the 1/4" holes oversize so they should be all right but didn't have a 9/16" forstner bit for the 1/2" bits and a 5/8" forstner bit was just too loose for bits with the working end narrower than the shank and had to have dead end holes. So those I drilled with the 1/2" forstner bit and just tried to ream them out slightly. If it seizes up on me, I'll probably just buy a 9/16" forstner bit and remake the one tray for 1/2" bits where I couldn't drill through holes.
DeleteI can't compete with John's dad joke, so I'll just say way to repair!
ReplyDeleteJohn/AC is always good for a Dad joke!
DeleteThe mouse skeleton paperweight sounds neat! Photo, please (and I notice you ignored my suggestion about the chess sets)
ReplyDeleteI did see it and you are probably right that some of them might work for that purpose but currently only myself and my youngest know how to play chess and we maybe play a few games each winter. I have a laundry list of furniture that I would like to build for our house and so any chess boards are likely to wait until I have nothing to build but want to rid the garage of scraps.
DeleteThe mouse skeleton paperweight is on her college desk at the moment but if it comes home again, I'll try to remember to take a picture and create a post for it.
You will be so organized you won't be able to find stuff!
ReplyDeleteThat sometimes happens, stashing something someplace where I know to find it only to not be able to find it when the time come. In a way, that is what happened with my "good" router bit drawer. It became so full of my good bits, that I was getting duplicates because I couldn't find the one I had in the very same drawer!
DeleteOh my. You are just too resourceful. And you have the "can't throw it away" disease that I have with my junk.
ReplyDeleteI am good at throwing away some things but not others. Tools are hard to throw away as they last forever if cared for and at least for small router bits, don't take up a lot of room. I more easily throw away things we are likely to never use again and are bigger and bulkier, like my wife's flower vase collection from all her saved vases from gifted flowers. I would trim that down tomorrow to maybe six of the best ones in a variety of sizes and ditch the other three dozen vases. But I like sleeping in bed at night so I leave them alone!
DeleteNice collection of router bits. Do you use a router table?
ReplyDeleteI use it a fair bit, especially since I embedded it into the far end of my table saw bed. Before I had a separate small table and it was a pain to dig out, set up and use it. Putting it on a normal workbench made it too high to comfortably use and sitting the small table on the floor meant I had to use it kneeling. With it at waist height on my table saw and always available, I can have a bit in it and be using it within a couple minutes so it gets used quite a bit.
DeleteNice that most of the scraps can be put to good use. It will be so nice to have everything organized and put in its own place.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me want to spend more time out there building things when I'm not spending time wondering where something is at.
Delete