Recent content by dwasifar

Thanks for the tip, I'll give that a try.

Power washed the front of the garage where the lights attract bugs, and the bugs attract spiders; and the front porch, ditto. Also the gutters, which always get grubby looking in that area. While I had it out, I also power washed the undersides of the lawn mowers. Lopped off a couple of scrub...

I made a cutting jig for Soma cube blocks: It fastens to the saw by removing two of the cutting insert screws and using those screw holes. Adjustable stop block held by recessed T-nuts. Tried it out successfully by making a Soma set: This one is a commission from the same lady who got the...

Garage-adjacent: the reclaimed paving bricks I used as edging around the little planting area between the garage and the front stoop look nice but keep shifting around. So today I dug them up and set them in concrete: I'll put some pea gravel in the little trench on the driveway side.

How is it dangerous? Those blanks are about 18" long. The planer manual says minimum length of stock is 10". I'm well within the machine's operating specifications.

Yours may have been, but mine weren't. They were both a tiny bit out of true on a couple of pieces. You got lucky. But my frustration with that imprecision is what drove me to try to make mine better. Here's one still in its original packaging: Hard to be 100% sure, but it looks like Made...

For the Soma sets specifically, I only use the square for checking if my workpiece is cut square. For other work, I will occasionally use one for layout, or a 7" rafter square, depending on what I'm doing and what's at hand. For making a bird feeder, say, or cutting bench slats, the rafter...

To remove the cut marks from the saw. The blanks come out of the planer flat, square, and level. There's no way you could sand these blanks that flat and level, either by hand or with a handheld orbital. It would inevitably introduce minute variations in flatness, thickness and square, and...

Yes, of course. I check them periodically, or after a drop.

The process is: I true up the table saw and cut the blanks, long bars with square cross section that will eventually be chopped into cubes on the miter saw. Usually my table saw cuts are true, but I check the pieces for square at that point just the same. Next step is the planer to smooth them...

For those interested in the scale of the Soma cube, here are some pieces I'm cutting for the next one, with the Empire square for scale:

Yeah. If I drop a square or knock it off the bench, I always check it before using it again.

Yeah, I had one red and one blue. Really wanted the rosewood one they mentioned in the back of the booklet, but that was out of reach for a child in the late 60s. But that's why I make wood sets now.

It seems fine. Basically I'm just wondering what makes the Starrett and Kapro worth their money. Nicer to use, maybe. The ledge flip-out and 60 degree line on the Kapro look interesting. Just curious really.

I make these Soma puzzles: Obviously, precision is important to make the puzzles fit together well. I use a try square to check square on the pieces as I'm working. Currently I'm using this: Interested in opinions. Amazon has the Kapro 353: And also Starrett K53-8N: Is it...