ThinkPads and Vinegar

Sometimes, all manner of otherwise unrelated items cross each others' paths, stars align just right and fortune smiles on us mere mortals (or Frugal Propellerheads). 

Some of you might remember that a few weeks ago, I posted about my "other" hobby, that of woodworking. As you might imagine, I approach all my hobbies the same way..... with a plan to upgrade over time and to be ready to use opportunities as they present themselves. A few years ago, I got to the point in my woodworking where my wife bought me a little table saw for Christmas. It was one of those $100 Christmas specials that you see stacked in the aisles of Walmarts all over the nation as we approach the holiday season. It was a little Black and Decker and over the course of the next couple of years, it did it's share of work. But as you can imagine, they aren't really a serious tool. The fence never would align correctly, and it was severely underpowered. They're really a $40 circular saw mounted upside-down on an aluminum table with a plastic base. I'm not even going to bother to depict it here. So, after a few items constructed, I was ready to graduate to a more substantial machine. Where-upon, I fell for the Ryobi BT3000 that you see above. Let's just say that it's a gadgeteer's table saw. If you want to look it up, you'll see that it can be set up to do lots of things, ranging from being a router table to having an on-board sliding miter table. My issue with it was that, I never used any of those features and it turned out to not hold settings very well! 

So, here we go..... I had sold the Black and Decker for around $60, then added money earned for computer work etc. to buy the Ryobi for about $250. I did add a kit to it which cost me about $80, so I had $330 invested in it. A few weeks ago, I sold it for $300 and started looking for table saws on Craigslist. 

I learned that among others brands and models, various versions of the venerable Craftsman 113.xxxx table saw could be had for anywhere from $75 to $200 depending on age, general condition and of course; seller's situation. Let me go ahead and explain my plan here. These are the next level up in table saws. The main feature that separates them from ones like mine is the cast iron top. These lend stability and tend to be very hard wearing, so they last forever. There's virtually no difference between a 60's version from an 80's version. Of course, there are other table saws out there of this style, but these are legendary. 

...... then there were these. The Delta 36-725, "10" Contractor's Saw" selling at your local Lowe's for $599. I kept finding reasons to go by there and then swing by hardware and stare at it.... trying hard to dream up scenarios where I could come up with the $300 difference between what I had and what I needed to buy it. It was like something out of the movie "Christmas Story"! And just when I had resigned myself to refurbishing an old Craftsman, it came up in conversation with my buddy the science teacher, that he had one of these and it was just a magical as I had envisioned...... drat.....double drat!!! And throw in a dang-nabbit for good measure! To make it worse; various needs arose around that time and I spent about $140 of what I had for a number of unexpected eventualities (which I expected to get back). Let's all say DRAT again! Oh, it actually gets worse, so bear with me on this....!

In the meantime; I found a CL ad for a Rigid TS3650 for $325 in Dallas. A similar saw to the aforementioned Delta, but had an inferior fence, plus it was older. I managed to talk the guy down to $300, however, he had very tight time restrictions and I was going to be out of town that Saturday for an academic competition. So I arranged to get it from him between 2:30 and 3:30 that Sunday, not knowing that my son's swim meet wasn't just Saturday....... it was going to be that Sunday as well from 1:30 to 3:30. Yup.... no saw. The guy wouldn't budge on a meet time. It was just as well, since I was going to have to ask my wife for a loan from our actual bank account anyway to make up the difference.

Then, magic happened.... 

..... or more specifically, ThinkPad magic. After having my son's old ThinkPad X220 on Craigslist for several weeks without much interest, a buyer appeared out of nowhere and wanted to buy it rather quickly...... for the $165 asking price. Which as it turns out came to $325 total of cash in hand. But wait: there's more magic. A week or so before that, I had found one of these Delta Table saws list for $500 literally "in my backyard", or in Poetry, Texas which is a few miles up the road. Then, about the middle of the week before Thanksgiving, the guy dropped the price to the magical $325. So, I texted and found that he did indeed have that saw still and yes, he was selling at $325, AND yes he would be happy to meet me at my house with the saw since I was leaving town that day to go to Eastern Oklahoma! Oh yeah; and all this was happening while the other guy who wanted the ThinkPad was driving down from about an hour away to buy it.... Whew! 

What about the "Vinegar" part? The saw came looking about like this. It had gotten rained on which you can imagine wasn't great for cast iron. Plus, it was missing some bolts for the fence rails. After a trip to Ace Hardware for bolts and Google/Youtube for info, I bought some 3m Green pads and went to work on it with, first some WD40, then the vinegar. Apparently, vinegar reacts with rust and gets turned into this kind of slurry that can then be scrubbed loose and wiped away. After that an application of old fashion Johnson paste wax to combat the moist air of East Texas, and it looks pretty much like the ad picture above! Sure, it's scratched up a bit, but most importantly, it cost me the $325 that I had and that's a good thing.

Fall Is In The Air!

Without a doubt, this is my favorite time of year. From right about now to January, it's almost perfect here in North Texas. It's no longer HOT, and let me tell ya....it gets hot down here! Kinda' like Alaska gets COLD. The days are generally in the 70's and the nights in the '40s. It's the time of year that neither the air conditioner OR the heater runs. You can wear pretty much whatever you want. Anything ranging from shorts to sweats, and be comfortable. 

Psychologically, the holidays are on the horizon, but you don't yet have the hub-bub of it actually being here with the crush of last minute shopping and lots of people in the house. The kids are excited, about the season, but not completely focused on what they are going to get yet. I'll be 2/3rds of the way through the school year next week and the classes are rolling along. 

Football season is in the last few weeks (at least for college) before the bowl season begins and the excitement is building. As a bonus, our high school season came to a close Thursday night in a loss that knocked us out of the playoffs. Let me tell ya....I'm just not a fan of the format where the top 4 teams get into the state playoffs. The "old school" in me just won't accept those bottom teams being there, and that's us this year. 99.9% of the time, you get steamrolled and finish the season in a really ugly way. So, now, my Friday nights are back! If you don't think that's a big deal, I'm here to tell you that it is; in my life at least! What it means is that Saturday is completely yours. Yeah, Saturdays! What our family routinely does is that we get our grocery shopping done that night which gets rid of the cloud hanging over our heads for the rest of the weekend. That's huge, when you consider that I often spend the majority of Sunday afternoons grade essays for my AP World History classes.

Speaking of football and history! Look what I came across today! In my classes, the students will often ask me things about sports and sports as related to history since around town, I'm known as "coach" and I've always taught history. Anyway, the discussion will quite often turn to mascots and teams/schools changing mascots for reasons of "political correctness" (which I've always hated). What I've routinely told the kids has been that I might very well feel differently about the issue if some school in San Francisco or LA (for instance) was called the "Chinks". Lo and Behold, look at that! A flag from the Pekin Community High School (Illinois of all places) who's mascot was the "CHINKS" from 1930's to 1980 at which time it was changed to the Dragons! The mascots would dress like Chinese people.....traditional costume of course. Is that cool or what! 

Obviously, this Frugal Propellerhead post isn't all about fall and football. It's about the fact that the time available and temperature makes it the perfect combination for me to get stuff done. In some ways, it's reminds me of living in New Orleans with it's inverted seasons where people spent May to November running from A/C to A/C and the winter, doing outside activities or sitting at sidewalk cafes.

The first order of business is this. I need to put into action, my plan to turn the garage space into a functional shop. This will in all probability BE this years project. 

The first order of business will be this, or something like it. A lumber cart is needed so that I can not only store my wood away neatly, but actually be able to find what I have.

....Which will then leads to this.....an extended base cabinet for my new table saw. My "shop" such as it is, will be built around this piece which will incorporate, the table saw, the router table and an extended surface to one side that will function as my assembly area. The cabinet itself will then house the majority of my growing power tool collection...... Which will then clear space all around the shop area for things that I don't have yet like a drill press and a band saw.

Here it is: the other project. $10 at a garage sale. I stopped because I spotted a bike that was the correct size for my daughter to start training-wheel-less riding on. Then I spotted this (pun intended). It was the typical, looks like was never used, but been sitting around for so long that there were missing parts telescope. I bought it anyway. It's a lot better than my son's old "garage sale" telescope, so we'll figure it out. 

What I'd really like to do with it, is this. Yes, I know that this Meade is a lot more expensive telescope, but you gotta start somewhere. If we can get to where we are seeing the moon and take a few digital pictures from that, the kids'll be ecstatic! So will I. Something to do in the winter time when it's cold and now that my father-in-law has moved out to this area and more importantly, away from the city....... That's the perfect opportunity for us to take it out there and do a little star gazing. New hobby to learn. Cool!

Now, if I can get myself to do more of this, and less of that, then it'll have been a successful fall/winter season this year.

"Boys With Toys": Woodworking Edition

In one of the James Bond episodes (don't remember which), the Bond-girl du Jur, famously spits out, in disgust...."Boys and Their Toys"! I've always thought that to be pretty much right on the mark with the males of the species. I can completely envision, Ug and Og sitting around in the cave discussing the relative merits of the rock vs. the club. As for myself; maybe it's that I didn't get enough Legos to play with as a child... who knows? I've always like things that were modular, that could be added on to, and even better, adapted and changed to become something else. Not Transformers per se, but things that could grow, part of a system.

I very specifically remember the gun that Napoleon Solo used, that could be transformed from essentially a Walther P-38K into a telescopically-sited, carbine, with sub-machine gun capabilities!

 

 

 At the time, this was the toy that I wanted in the worse way! I suppose you could say that I never fully got over the concept.

On Saturday morning, I sold my little Black and Decker table saw, and that evening bought one of these. It's a Ryobi BT3000 "Precision Cutting System". What does this power tool have to do with a 60's spy TV show have to do with each other? For those of you familiar with the typical table saw, you can probably already see it. To the left of where the blade rises up, is a "Miter" extension that is mounted on a slide. This allows the user to push the wood over the work surface without the need to buy/build another device (called a sled). 

 

To the right of the blade area is another extension that you can see an orange dot. That's not a dot. It's a hole which along with those 4 holes around it allows for a router to be attached to this table-top, thus making use of it AND the fence for use as a router table. These two extensions can be moved from side to side or back and forth as necessary for easy use. There are also a number of other add-ons as well as other built-in innovations that eases use such as the completely shrouded blade with a bag/shop-vac port to keep sawdust largely contained. It's all mounted on a cart with wheels to allow it to be easily moved and stored.

I think this original Ryobi ad will help you relate this power tool with the Man From U.N.C.L.E. toy gun above! But that's just the beginning. Apparently, this saw has a bit of a cult following among the wood-working community and all manner of add-on have been created for it.

Here's one that the owner has built a storage cabinet inside the cart, along with miscellaneous adaptations to make it easier to use. 

These are two different types of what's called "out-feed tables" which are just a fancy way of saying a flat surface to support your wood so it doesn't droop or fall in the floor as you cut it. The top one as you can see is attached to an already extensively modified table which is quite large.

Here's a CAD type image that someone has made most probably so that they can use it in designing add-ons to work with this saw. I'm sure you get the concept. In short, I've been seduced by the modularity of this tool! I can completely see myself, spending the next year or two adding on to and adapting it in all manner of ways to customize the new toy to fit my woodworking needs. Is it the best table saw ever? Not even close. It did cost $175 making it a "zero sum" upgrade, my favorite kind ($125 birthday gifts, $50 sale of old saw). At some point, I can completely see myself out-growing the rather gimmicky "sliding miter table". But until that point, this will be a great big-boy toy to play with!