Thread: A lizard has got me into woodworking - Logan area (Brisbane)

G'day,
I'm a late convert to woodworking at 57 years of age. (What happened to being 17 - it seems like just yesterday )

So how did a lizard get me into woodworking? The missus and I came home from shopping one afternoon, and junior has both of the dogs in the house. He stuck his head out the door, and said he had to put the dogs inside because there is a large lizard in the garden. Sure enough - there is a bearded dragon in the garden, keeping very still.

I walked up to the lizard, expecting it to take off at a great rate of knots - it didn't move a millimetre. Has the dog bitten it and broken its back - nope, no tooth marks. I picked the lizard up and it was awake, but cool and stiff.

I sat on the couch with the lizard on my chest, with my hands laid on top of the lizard to warm it up. I was hoping to give it a bit of warmth so that it had the energy to climb a big gumtree that we have. Nope - stayed as still as a rock. I then thought - has it attacked a cane toad and been poisoned so that it is paralysed? I decided to partially fill the kitchen sink with warm water and give it a bath to heat it up. I lowered the dragon into water just deep enough to cover its back, and it still didn't move a muscle. Surely this would help.

After several minutes of no movement, I went on with working on my fish tank. After a few minutes of that, a commotion was coming from the sink with the dragon trying to escape. The bugger had been playing possum. If one of my two dogs had seen it playing possum, it would have been shredded. She's an American Staffie cross, that doesn't believe that any other creature smaller than herself has the right to remain alive on our property.

I decided that I'd try to rescue the dragon and get it into a condition where it could at least climb a tree to avoid predators (primarily the staffy). I bought crickets from the pet shop to feed the dragon as it was very skinny. I put the dragon into an empty glass fish tank with a bit of a branch to climb and arranged for some incandescent lighting to provide heat. The dragon wouldn't move if it could see anyone. It didn't eat any of the crickets as far as I could tell, and after a couple of weeks I thought I'll just have to let it go in a bush block near us and let nature take its course.

I decided to try one more food before releasing into the wild - meal worms. It decided that starvation wasn't as appealing as it first thought, and gobbled down about 20 mealworms. Anyhow - the fish tank is too small for the lizard 600mm by 600mm by 600mm. The dragon is still skinny, so I'm trying to fatten it up before releasing after winter. However, as the tank is too small, I looked into buying a reptile enclosure of about 1.8M in length. They are expensive. I've decided to buy a young dragon once we release this wild visitor.

I've made a few wooden items over the years and have a few woodworking tools, but I think that using my compound mitre saw for making a lizard tank may be a bit of a stretch. I have also been looking at building a custom food pantry, as anything available commercially are too deep and anything you put up the back just gets hidden and you don't see it for several years.

This led to the hatching of any idea - what about getting a table saw? - that can be used for the pantry as well as the lizard tank. I could also build a replacement wardrobe for junior as his is falling apart.

Went and visited several tool shops to see what table saws are available, and they only have jobsite saws with too narrow a ripping capacity. I looked at Hare and Forbes website, and they have several table saws that seem to fit the bill. After watching about 50 youtube videos on table saws and dust extractors, Í've ordered both a table saw and a small dust vac from Hare and Forbes. Just waiting on notification that stock has arrived.

I've also managed to snag a "Non-working" single stage Woodman 3 HP HVLP dust collector on Gumtree for $50. Got it home and it works perfectly. Nice to have a win. I was thinking I'd have to pull the motor apart and fix whatever was wrong in order to get it going.

After doing too much research, I'm still not convinced whether HVLP or LVHP dust extraction is more appropriate for the table saw, which has 100mm outlet port. I've also looked into dust deputy type cyclones, as well as thien baffles as to which is the best solution. I'd also like to try to incorporate a water bath final stage in the filtration system. From what the boffins say, just a single speck of 1 micron wood dust going up your nose will make your lungs explode - or something like that. (Perhaps slightly exaggerated).

I've been more exploring metal working in recent times, but with woodworking being added - a host of combined metalworking/woodworking projects are now within the realms of possibility. I still have to get my metal lathe though before I can take over the world. In the meantime, I'll just have to content myself with making a decent enclosure for the dragon as first cab off the rank.

Anyhow - enough of a waffle for now. I'll be lurking somewhere in the background. Cheers, Ross.