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WT264 – Down With Three Quarters

  • 1:17 am
  • 19 Comments

Today’s show is sponsored by SawStop!

On today’s show we’re talking about milling rough stock, attaching hardwood strips to cover the plywood edges, and designing furniture.

What’s on the Bench?

  • Marc has one woven panel done on his hamper project.
  • Matt broke his X-Carve and burnt out the motor.
  • Shannon built a peach crate.

What’s New?

Poll of the Week

Do you have enough clamps?

Kickback

  • Charles, Dean, and Brian all had kickback on our CNC episode. 3 different perspectives, but for more check out the comments on that episode

Email

  • David wants to know if we mill our rough stock to a uniform thickness.
  • Paul has a question about edge banding plywood with solid wood.
  • Josh wants to know how to design furniture when you know it needs to hold a lot of weight.

How You Can Support Us

Use the links in the left column and sign up for a recurring donation, kick it up a notch and wear a Wood Talk T-Shirt, or leave us an iTunes Review

19 replies on “WT264 – Down With Three Quarters”

I’m thinking Matt is probably fed up with the CNC at this point but a better alternative to the x carve would be the shapeoko2. If I’m not mistaken it’s made by inventables and retails about $600. It’s a much more developed design and it’s about 2 feet square so you can make larger parts and caevings

Fed up is close to how I feel. I might give it another try, but not anytime soon. I’ve sunk enough of my limited shop time into it for now.

The Shapeoko 2 is made by Inventables also. I havent heard anyone talk about it, but I think at this point if I need something made with a CNC I’ll look for folks on http://www.100kgarages.com to contract it out.

Agreed Matt. I work in a scenery shop and we use a CNC everyday but I never felt the desire to use it in one of my own projects.
And that one occasion when you want something CNC cut just call someone with a CNC. Just like Marc said, it’s another hobby that you have to devote time to and if that’s your thing then do it. But for myself I like woodworking, not so much fussing with computers.

Please don’t add “a little love” to that recipe!!!! Great show guys, on the topic of how to make something out of wood to hold 1500 pounds… always over build… that being said definately use vertical posts on the corners and in the middle if possible… and the stretchers make sure to make them thick and wide. Wow that was no help… all im saying is OVER BUILD and be safe.

I think some fine mesh wire around the hamster wheel would help add in some safety factor to the table saw. Something to think about.

WIth all of your recent talk of CNC it has got me thinking. Instead of spending $3-3500 on a SawStop this fall. (I need to upgrade my table saw) What if I put that money with a few K extra and purchased one of the larger CNC machines? I know I can get into a 26 x 50 bed from Rockler for 5 grand. I understand this isn’t big enough to do sheet goods. I normally get those cut to a more manageable size at the lumber yard on their panel saw. I am thinking this may be the way to go, it would be safer than a table saw, allow more tasks to be preformed and things would be much more repeatable. How crazy is this line of thinking?

I don’t know that it’s crazy, but it strikes me as impractical. Well, unless you specifically ant to have a CNC shop. The table saw is so fast and easy to use that I couldn’t imagine slowing down to setup and program a CNC for basic straight cuts.
It’s certainly possible though. My buddy Ron has a CNC-based shop but the CNC is the center of the workflow. He’s not doing much with solid stock and his whole workflow revolves around the CNC machine.

Matt,

As we have spoke you are right on with your comments about the X-Carve. Lots of people are having issues with the belts staying tensioned. And if the don’t stay precisely tensioned, you’re f%$%^&&*.

If I could count on it working perfectly 90% of the time I’d use it to make templates. For me the X-Carve doesn’t work right 50% of the time. It’s just one expensive mistake.

A tough lesson learned…
,,,,,,,,,Chet

Listening to you guys talk about ¾ dimensions in your projects just baffles me. In fact the whole 4/4 thing baffles me. 4/4 is not 1 inch, it’s more like 7/8 inch, so you guys are getting very large or 5/4 stock to mill it down to 7/8”? I wish I could find 4/4 stk that could be milled down to 7/8. Love the show!

The key is to get really flat board. If they start at a strong 7/8″ and only require 1/16″ stock removal to flatten, then you’re still proud of 3/4″. Keep in mind I don’t always have this luxury. 🙂

For myself it depends a couple of factors;

1. If the stock is truly rough sawn and the mill hasn’t skip planed them, then certainly i can get them to 7/8″ without an issue most of them time. In fact actual rough sawn stock has almost always been 1 to 1-1/8″ thick for me, and that’s coming from at least two different sources.

2. As Marc mentioned, and I alluded to in the show, if the boards are relatively flat (rough sawn or skip planed) and don’t need extra passes, I can almost leave the final thickness at 7/8″ or there about.

I know a lot of woodworkers will take heavy passes on their jointer or planer or both just to get the job done quickly, but I tend to take no more than 1/16″ at the heaviest.

When it comes to table top CNC machine performance for hobbyists, expectations should be set low. Most will attempt to compare these mini machine tools to what they know or have heard about thier full size industrial family members. My advise: Don’t! You will be disappointed.

Modern day indusrial CNC Machine Tools are built to be robust, accurate and efficient. And for an entry level, full size industrial CNC router you are talking 20 to 30 thousand dollars for a new machine. So if you decide to go down the X Carve or similar path in your woodworking journey, remember that you get what you pay for.

Thoughts from an occasional listener:

Interesting that with SawStop sponsoring somebody chose to include the parody video. Maybe the folks at SawStop have a sense of humor akin to the folks at Arby’s, who good-naturedly tolerated Jon Stewart. Maybe not.

In terms of the video itself, I’m thinking maybe I’m out of step, but I found it to be in rather poor taste. You admittedly have the “R Rated” warning. But honestly I was thinking I would see something like the Saturday Night Live parodies: Dan Aykroyd as Julia Child, cutting his hand and ultimately passing out from blood loss; or perhaps the Bass-O-matic episode.
This was offensive. But, as I said, maybe I’m out of step.

Well honestly, I think we prepared you WELL and adequately for what was in that video. Listen again to our comments in the show and I’d be surprised if you can whole-heartedly say we prepped you for an SNL-level of inappropriateness. 🙂

As for Sawstop, I have no idea how they felt about the parody being in there and if they even care. Sawstop sponsors the episode but they do not dictate the content of the episode.

You made the assumption that i listened to the show. I didn’t. I’m an occasional, and selective, listener. I periodically visit the website, look through the recent program titles, look at the episode descriptors and kickback, and decide whether I’m going to listen or not. Here, I looked at the history of woodworking video, then clicked on the library link, then clicked on the parody video link. I didn’t listen to the show. FWIW.

No, I won’t.

You’re really lucky Marc. You found, by design, or by accident, or by serendipity your place in this world. You’re an excellent teacher. You’re thorough, incisive, and you’ve got an almost perfect presence on video. I have a nephew who’s getting into woodworking, and because you’re such a better teacher than I am I bought a number of your guild projects.

But you and your cohorts have developed, or have let show, a coarseness, or edge, that just isn’t for me. It’s “Trumpian”—I can’t believe he’s become an adjective. It’s like, because of your success you feel like you can adopt the attitude of “Hey, this is me! If I want to show d**k pics, I will. If you don’t like it, FU”. And you know, that’s fine. That attitude hasn’t hurt Trump at all. It’s just not for me. So, I’m out.

Good luck with the new addition to the family, and with the guild, and wood talk and all. No animosity or hard feelings. Just different views.

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