Couple of bits and bobs arrived in the post today:
Some brass-plated hinges for the next project, a silicone hose adapter to try to improve dust extraction from the bandsaw:
Beats a spring clamp and a bungee cord.
And this little doodad as well:
I’ve been wondering how bad the noise from the shed actually is for the neighbours you see. Enter the Uni-T UT353, a cheap little noise meter from Shenzen. And after a wee bit of experimentation, some pleasant results – the loudest thing with the bandsaw running is the vacuum cleaner that does dust extraction. It’s 87dbA in the shed itself with the door shut; 65dbA just outside on the decking; and it’s 55dbA back on the patio by the back door (for reference, it’s 65dbA inside the kitchen with junior watching Rescue Bots and the other usual sounds of life).
Now, start cutting wood and that does change a bit – 102dbA inside the shed, 83dbA on the decking and 74dbA back by the house. But that’s still only up there with a car driving past, not the you-definitely-need-hearing-protection levels that were my only experience of it so far (because I’m in the shed you see).
So that’s nice to know. I don’t think I’ll be getting anything noisier (the sander is rated at 76dBA) and frankly I don’t want to; and I limit the hours I use the bandsaw to anyway because people have to work (and anyway, apart from the boxes, I don’t use it for much beyond rough cuts).
Tonight for example, I took some of that 8/4 oak which I’d rough-sawn (by hand because it wouldn’t fit in the bandsaw) to about 1′ lengths, and I trimmed off the damaged edges (pack straps tend to mangle those) using the bandsaw.
I should get the four pieces I need from that for the next project without much trouble. I just planed the sides flat and marked a centerline; I’ll cut that in half tomorrow and then in halves again, and then trim the depth on the bandsaw (because thicknessing from 8/4 to 6/4 is a bit much even for a scrub plane like Sid). I’m taking this slow in the (probably vain) hope that’ll minimise the wood suddenly jumping into twist or warp or cup or bow…
Then some mucking about with the legs and checking faces&edges and planning the profiling of the legs and whipping up a quick check-piece from a poplar scrap to see if the thing in my head looked the way I thought it would when I see it in real life:
I like the tapering off towards the back of the leg, not quite like an aerofoil shape but the same kind of idea. I think it’ll give it an interesting look (it won’t be quite so asymmetrical, but the size of that piece made it hard to hold which made it more awkward than it will be for a full-size leg).
And then I just laid out the tools for tomorrow and closed up the shed.
Quiet night tonight, I guess I’m just tired from the sudden arrival of winter…
