Author: tim
-
Shapeoko Troubles
I recently encountered an issue when generating a grid of holes for workbench. I had recently planed down an old workbench from our house in New Jersey. I was planning on 20 mm holes spaced in a grid with 96mm spacing to match the festool MFT table. I’m hoping to use the available array of…
-
Otis on Leadership
In Shawshank redemption Otis “Red” goes before the parole board with promises to be better. He tries to play by the rules and repeatedly gets denied. Finally, he has had enough and lets them have it. He is done with their game, they can keep him there forever. He speaks with the tired wisdom of…
-
Work vs Relaxation or Why Captain Call is the Villain
Embracing hard things is important. We lift up those among us who work harder, endure more and suffer to get stronger or make the world better. But how much suck should we embrace? When is ok to relax or is choosing to relax opening the door to cowardice and weakness? Yesterday when I was playing…
-
Lauren’s Desk
Lauren was using her desk for art and computing. She sketched out a design and I quickly drew it in sketchup. We decided to use an existing top from Home Depot. I probably won’t do this again. The quality is really poor. I had a to gouge out lots of loose wood and we used…
-
DIY Calibration tools
I had purchased Fowler 52-520-109-0 Dial Indicator with 1″ Travel with +/-0.5% measurement accuracy. I wanted to measure the alignment of my table saw blade and fence. You can buy tools that do this using the miter slot track with a dial gauge included for about $70. For example, this one: This had fairly limited…
-
Math of the Kreg 720
The Pocket-Hole Jig 720 uses Kreg Automaxx™ to enable one-motion clamping by simultaneously clamping your workpiece and automatically adjusting to the exact thickness of your material (from 1/2″ to 1 1/2″). GripMaxx™ anti-slip holds the project piece secure. The manual doesn’t address how to pick the right screw length or how to set the stop…
-
Making PDFs editable
I automate everything and PDFs are so easy to fill in automatically. It’s a digital world and we just live in it. It’s so frustrating to get a “protected form” that doesn’t allow for appending documents, automated form completion or even filling out fields. It’s silly because all of these forms are printable. Many years…
-
Autoscoring with Matlab
While I qualified a long time ago on the M9, I never really learned to be a good shot. Now, I’m trying to learn to shoot well and wanted to automatically score my targets, keep the data, and get better. There are apps to do this, but none of them did what I wanted. One…
-
Torsion Table for Shapeoko
I needed a torsion table to make sure my Shapeoko XXL had a solid foundation. Dimensions for the Shapeoko are available here. The basic idea of a torsion table is to use two thin layers of material on either side of a lightweight core, usually a grid of beams. Torsion boxes are used in wings…
-
Kerf Mounted Corner Brackets
Kerf Mount Corner Brackets are great. But it takes some thinking if you are working with larger lumber. I recently purchased these and these from amazon. The corner bracket looks like this: The trick is figuring out where to cut the leg at 45 degrees and the kerfs, especially if the leg isn’t square. I…