Thread: A tale of two Woodfast combination machines

[QUOTE=BobL;2209546]

Originally Posted by Anorak Bob

Attachment 481464 /QUOTE]

Bewdtiful! - one question - how do you get such nice CS on those curved surfaces?
Mine always come out lopsided and chewed out.
Some sort of special CS bit?

Thank you Bob,

I use a 90 degree spot drill running at about 150 rpm. High speed seems to be a recipe for chatter.

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Short bit and low speed makes - shoulda thought of that.

Along the same lines, if I have the right size bit, another other trick I've used is to use a centre drill, the starting section of which fits the hole size and this reduces the amount of wandering. Only works for the some sizes of course.

Originally Posted by BobL

Short bit and low speed makes - shoulda thought of that.

Along the same lines, if I have the right size bit, another other trick I've used is to use a centre drill, the starting section of which fits the hole size and this reduces the amount of wandering. Only works for the some sizes of course.

Bob,

Prior to making the Eccentric Engineering 'Acute' tool sharpening kit, I most often used Weldon deburring bits for countersinking. When building the kit some of the countersunk fixings required both countersinking and counterboring because of their closeness to an edge. The job of a spotting drill not a deburring bit. The bit in the photos is an 8mm Sutton, purchased from Hi-Speed Tooling in Welshpool for about $15.

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BT.

Hi all. Sorry for the confusion my last post created. Poundy and BobL are right. AB the comment was a poor attempt at alliteration

Mine's now got bright shiny brass nuts instead of old wing nuts, thanks to Bob.
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I had a small "incident" with mine recently, it ate my push stick. I was ripping some long boards with the blade set low & had a push stick sitting on the jointer outfeed table, which proceeded to walk under the infeed table & make contact with the jointer head.
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This is something that could potentially happen on any of this type of combo machine. I'll make a wooden block with rare earth magnets to sit on the outfeed table to cover the front & side gaps, to prevent any future incidents. It would be easy to inadvertently stick a finger or two in there.

The gauge requires some work.

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The original handle has been replaced by a cobbled together brass concoction, the screw of which is bent as is the pivot pin. The machined faces on the gauge were neither flat nor square and to paint the gauge, the degree scale had to be removed.

Removing the scale required the removal of the U-screws. Initally I tried using a screwdriver in a slot I filed in one screw head. Didn't budge so I resorted to using an easy out after centring and drilling the required 2mm hole for the No.1 easy out.

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The machined faces are now flat and square.

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The two extra holes in the vertical face annoy me. I could plug them with piened in cast iron plugs but the only cast iron I have is 4E which could be a different colour which would probably prove to be equally as annoying as the holes! Probably time to move on...

The stop rods are missing. I will use some 8mm stainless rod for their replacements, 8mm being a slightly better fit in the sloppy holes than the original 5/16" rod size.

The gauge pivots on an 18" long 3/8" x 3/4" bar, a size that appears to no longer exist in Australia. Key steel, if it was avaiable, is a few thou oversize and usually only available in 300mm lengths. Another challenge.

More to follow.

BT

ps.. Mike, any chance of a close up photo or two of your gauge's handle and if possible, a couple of dimensions? Please.

Originally Posted by Anorak Bob

The two extra holes in the vertical face annoy me. I could plug them with piened in cast iron plugs but the only cast iron I have is 4E which could be a different colour which would probably prove to be equally as annoying as the holes! Probably time to move on....

Any chance that some CI of that old thicknesser would match?

Originally Posted by BobL

Any chance that some CI of that old thicknesser would match?

Might be more of a chance Bob. The Flowcast 4E is continuous cast bar and has a fine grain, undoubtedly finer than the Woodfast sand casting, and probably would be noticeable.

Bob.

You're going to a lot of trouble with this resto' Bob, I just masked off the scale before spraying the main body. Mine doesn't have a pivot pin for the mitre bar, it is drilled & counterbored (on the underside) for a socket head screw, which screws into the body. There is a grub screw in the top of the threaded hole to lock the socket screw.
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Here's the pictured of the knob, good luck replicating that.
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Originally Posted by 62woollybugger

You're going to a lot of trouble with this resto' Bob, I just masked off the scale before spraying the main body. Mine doesn't have a pivot pin for the mitre bar, it is drilled & counterbored (on the underside) for a socket head screw, which screws into the body. There is a grub screw in the top of the threaded hole to lock the socket screw.

Here's the pictured of the knob, good luck replicating that.

Thank you very much for the photos Mike.

Little chance of me replicating the handle. A job for a 3D printer no doubt. I will have to come up with a DIY substitute.

Bob.

Mike,

The stops rods are missing from the mitre gauge as are the clamps. The clamps look like steel pressings in your photo from an older thread, and there being no easy way for me to replicate them means I will probably attempt a couple of cast iron substitutes.

To aid in my efforts is there any chance that you could let me know the length of the original rods and their distance apart in the clamps?

Ever grateful

Bob.

Hi Bob, here's a couple of photo's of the rods & clamps. The rods sit just under 25mm apart, just far enough so that the stop rod clears the front of the main body.
You could easily make clamps by drilling two holes through rectangular blocks, then spliting them with a thin cutter. I'm sure you could make some fancy brass or stainless ones with nice knobs, instead of wingnuts.

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Thank you Mike.

The casting's upper clamping face for the mitre gauge's handle or knob in my mind should have been parallel with the base of the casting. It wasn't but is now.

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