69 - Bench Top Storage System, страница 5
Quick Tips k Willie Stecker of Hilbert, Wl hangs his oily finishing rags on a folding clothes drying rack. Once dry, he can safely dispose of them. Planer Set-Up Gauge▲ Jackson Huber of Kansas City, KS made a switch guard for his router table by screwing a 1 "-dia. PVC pipe clamp to the switch plate. A To see hole locations on dark-colored stock, Roland Weisser of Midland, GA uses a correction fluid pen from an office supply store. ■ My benchtop thickness planer is a great tool that's saved me time and money in getting quality, surfaced lumber. The problem is that setting it . up for the first pass on rough stock can be a guessing game. If I only know the approximate thickness of my stock, I have to make a guess when setting the cutter height. Many times, the cutter is set too high and nothing happens. Other times, it's set too low and the planer takes too big of a bite. To save time and get more accurate setups, I made the gauge shown in die photo. The gauge is nothing more than a hardwood "leg" attached to a W hardboard "foot" that rests on the planer table. The length of the leg is determined by the distance from the top of the foot to the "zero" mark on the planer's thickness gauge, as you can see in photo A. The gauge can then be screwed to the planer table. Now when I want to adjust the planer, I just set a cutoff from the piece that I'm surfacing on the gauge and lower or raise the cutter head until the indicator is even with the top of my material (photo B). This way, I know at a glance the planer is set to remove a thin slice from the stock on the first pass. Rick Manzie North Las Vegas, Nevada bench Vise Helper_■ ShopNotes No. 67 had a bench vise helper for supporting long stock clamped in a vise. I thought I'd share another version. As you can see in the drawing, ifs nothing more than an L-shaped piece of plywood that gets clamped in the end vise of your workbench. It's easy to adjust the helper to match the width of the workpiece, depending on its size, by sliding it up or down in the end vise. Leu Arnold Brevard, North Carolina ShopNotes 5 NOTE: adjust helper up or down for best working WPI/^WT No. 69 Send in Your Shop Tips If you have a unique shop tip, we'd like to consider featuring it in one or more of our print or electronic publications. We'll pay up to $200 for a tip we publish. Just write down the tip and mail it to ShopNotes, Attn.: Readers' Tips, 2200 Grand Ave., Des Moines, IA 50312. Or FAX it to 515-282-6741, or send us an email at shopnotes@shopnotes.com. Please include your name, address, and daytime phone number in case we have any questions. 5 |
