A useful new discovery

Needed to make an acrylic box for the non-perishable top of my son's wedding cake.  Cutting the acrylic was not a problem (#5 Flying Dutchman polar blade and slow speed works great), but we decided to use wood at the edges since my scroll saw cuts were not precise enough to attach the acrylic edges directly.

Having had little success in the past with CA glue and epoxy, we decided to try caulk to hold the acrylic in the slots in the wood strips.  Although the caulk squeeze-out seemed to clean up with water, we were still left with unsightly residue in places once it dried.  Fortunately, a call to DAP yielded the suggestion to use mineral spirits, which worked like a charm and didn't harm the acrylic.

The assembly is almost complete, and I think it should work out OK.  I'll post pictures when we're finished, regardless of how it turns out!

New tools, new techniques, new possibilities

Here's how to construct, shape and sand a multi-lobe, curved bowl, featuring the small inflatable sander from King Arthur's Tools.  New tools, new techniques, new possibilities!

The new shop is finally complete

We finished the final job--to put in an additional circuit for the dust collector and flip it so the dust ports are on top.  The band saw is stored on the opposite wall, and can be rolled out when needed.  Joe's table saw is in the basement, where he has plenty of room for jigs and stuff.  And we can still get our car into the garage!

Easy fix to make a taller bowl press

I finally got tired of using a stack of books for gluing bowls that were too tall for my press.   I didn't want to undo the press, just add some height, so I added a few coupling nuts and some threaded rod.  For a more elegant version, check out Dave Van Ess's bowl press on scrollmania.com.  It's really neat and fits into its own box.

For now, this will do just fine!