Sunday, February 8, 2009

two things down, ten million to go...



i finished the sofa last night, and it feels pretty good. the glue ups went together very well with no obvious problem, except for one. i don't know how i'm going to take pictures of this beast. i usually just hang a king sized sheet up in the shop, but i fear that this is slightly larger then a king. it's going to be photoshop madness to get this thing onto a grey background. and then i'll need some more photos once the cushions are all done. i'll be hitting the road this week to deliver both this and the stereo cabinet. and while the glue was drying, i dug out my drill press.


i picked this up in gibsons while i was at IP, i paid 85$ for it with no motor. i spent my spare time from school fixing it up. a fresh coat of paint and some bearings, and all i needed was a motor. well, time ran out in roberts creek, and still no motor. so i drug it home and there it sat for a while. when i got it, it had a weird chain drive setup, so i hunted down a pulley for it. the chain drive was setup for a really slow speed, and i wanted to be able to choose different speeds. i got the pulley in the mail, and it didn't quite work. it had the correct splines for the quill setup, but it was for a bigger walker-turner machine, so i had to cut off the bigger part of the pulley. oh well. so now i have a three step pulley, but i can only get the belt on the upper two. two speeds are better then one. my pops had a motor for me, so i slapped that on and gave it a try. to my surprise, it had next to no runout. that made me a happy camper. so now, i just got to find a pulley for the motor and i'm off to the races.


and if i really want to add more speed options, i can always add a third pulley in between. i got all the parts for that with the chain drive setup. it's a pretty nice press. it's got a quill lock, no runout, and it weights a ton. now all i need is a shop.

next up is getting the arbor flange on the table saw trued up, and finishing the cabinet i started at klager's house.

9 comments:

Nick Brygidyr said...

I'm usually against the whole staining thing...but dude that couch looks awesome! I love that detailing on the panels, adds so much!

That is one badass drill press..

LORD GODFREY said...

Hey are those plugs for screws by the front stretcher? They look good if they are!

Nice work guy. That is going to be fun to move

We should cross breed our drill presses.

jbreau said...

yeah, we could start a new line, walklas.

no there not screws. i peged each joint with a hard wood dowel and then turned some caps out of the oak and epoxyd them in. the two small ones are just for show and the larger one in the middle is driven through the joint, but not the leg. i did however put a screw in where the back intersects the arm, and i capped it the same way. one big couch, two screws.

now i'm off to deliver. a nice little road trip to fredericton and halifax, with a pit stop at princess auto to see if i can get a two step pulley for the motor... and of course, i'm going to go wood shopping.

Cody said...

I just noticed something in the background of one of your photos. You guys are using PVC for dust collection? I just recently read that because PVC can't ground your machines it can cause excess static and possibly an explosion from the wood dust. That being said however, I know that ABS pipe has been banned in some areas of the states because of its flammable nature, but it's still used here for 95% of plumbing. Maybe the 'PVC dust collection causes fires' is just someone being overly afraid of the worst possible scenario.

jbreau said...

it's interesting that you mention that. i've noticed on several occassions excessive static in the pipe. i can hear it sometimes, so i go over and ground it through my finger.
i've raised the point with my pops and he says that anything he has read says that static is not a problem in dust collection. i don't know... seems to me that the accepted notion is that static can be problematic for fire. where did you read that?

Cody said...

Well, I've read it in a few places. When I bought my dust collector (which I still haven't set up) I did some research on the topic. I did however read some people who had used PVC for years with no problems. I also never read an actual story of a fire caused by PVC duct work, just theories. Good luck!

LORD GODFREY said...

I saw on Myth Busters they tried to create a sawdust fire and couldn't do it. They even tried igniting an open flame in a dust chamber and it would not catch.

Cody said...

Oh yeah? I saw on mythbusters that asprin DOES bring dead hookers back to life. Thank goodness.

Yeah, like I said, I've never actually read a true account of PVC dust collection burning a shop down. It's like how everyone knows somebody who knows somebody, yada yada, It might just be a big scare.

Cody said...

Here's a page I found, on the topic:

http://home.comcast.net/~rodec/woodworking/articles/DC_myths.html