I’m waiting on some material to arrive but I still have plenty to do while I wait.

I’m not selling finished frame saws, so it’s up to the customer to drill the holes in the end of the plate. But…. I like to test my plates before I ship. I needed a way to stiffen the plate and hold it at the same time. A couple clamps and a scrap piece of wood works wonderfully! Can’t cut all the way through but I know the teeth cut and the set is good.

I keep finding small things I need to do or setup in order to do these 4 foot plates. I just moved my setter. Originally on one end I had enough space for a long miter saw, but turned out not enough for one of these plates before I hit the garage wall. So it got moved. Not really a hard thing to do but because my bench top is so thick I had to crawl under and recess a small area.

I’ve also had to wait for larger files to arrive in the mail. They showed up today and I’m officially ready to knock out these plates. Now time to play with making hardware. While I waited on files, I have kept busy with other saw stuff. 9 handle blanks were prepared today. I start with a rough cut out. Mortise and slot them, and then I cut out the rest of the shape as long as the mortise and slot are spot on. Lucky for me, all 9 are good to go on to the next stage.

Lastly, I cleaned up this D-8 this morning. Toothed it to 5 tpi.

I prefer jointing a plate in nice full strokes from one end to the other. On the backside of my bench I added a pivoting piece of wood and with some clamps I can now do just that. 4 foot plate just got jointed! Very happy at how easily and simply this went. Each step i get setup makes future plates easier and faster to do.

I couldn’t help myself, I bought another shopsmith. This is an older 1953 10er. For now it is setup as a drill press. Great thing about these older ones is that there are no secondary way tubes. So it can have a small footprint as a drill press. Everyone needs a big heavy drill press!

As for saws, I planed down some curly maple adding to my stock of ready to cut handle stock. This was my first time planing small pieces in the planer on a sled with double sides tape. Very happy with the results.

Very happy with how my new frame saw plates are coming along. Made a longer carrier and bar for the retoother and officially toothed the first plates today. 4 foot long, 4 inch depth. .042 plate. 3 teeth per inch.

In preparation for a lot of side work in the garage come August, I’ve been sneaking a lot of time here and there to get everything ready to work on saws. I have my newest radial arm saw on the end of the bench. The table is higher by about a 1/2 inch for clearance. From the end of the bench to the end of the RAS table comes out to a crazy, 13.5 feet in length! Talk about a lot of work space.

I lucked out and found a 2nd bandsaw for $20. Motor ran but not the blade and a $7 belt later and I have a running saw. Its a small 10 inch but for what I wanted it for I’m pretty happy. My other bandsaw is setup with a jig for certain repeat cuts. Something I hate having to undo and setup all the time. So when I found this saw I couldn’t resist! Someday I’ll buy a big one but these little saws get the job done.

I’m looking into making the parts for Roubo frame saws. Today I filed a new ratchet bar for my foley belsaw retoother. I need a longer bar and carrier for the 4ft plates. Pretty easy, just takes time. Clamped a 3 tpi saw to the side of the new bar and lined my file up. Quick test and it works great, next up is a longer carrier.

I haven’t gotten much done in the garage lately. It’s been a bit of a mess too, doesn’t take long to fill it up with random stuff when you aren’t using it much. I did a miter saw at the beginning of the summer, had some issues with the set but thankfully me and the customer got it sorted out. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve started cleaning up and setting up a new toy. A medium arm radial arm saw. It’s massive! And today I cleaned up the first saw in weeks. I now have three saws to make and hopefully I’ll get plenty of time in the garage soon.