planer stand

I recently aqcuired a new planer and built a rolling stand for it. Here's how it turned out:

Unfolded and empty

Folded and full, including storage and wedges

The planer is a DW735, which now has a Shelix head in it. I've got some more photos showing the details. of the stand and the setup, and how I got there.

I got plywood and some clear riftsawn construction lumber from the local home center.

With the planer set up on another surface, the parts were milled to size.

Here's the basic planer stand. the casters are on plywood triangles that are not easy to see. I hid many of the screws.

I eventually installed the Shelix head. Here you can see the reflection of the little carbide blades. I am  very satisfied.

The Shelix head is a little smaller, apparently. Masking tape to the rescue.

Here's a dowel notched to hold the folding tables up.

Shelf in two sections. This should make it easy to remove, sweep, etc.

Quick tip: clamps help transport lumber

I discovered that if you have a roof-rack, you can affix boards to it very quickly using a [quick] clamp. This saves time fooling with straps & rope. Just make sure it's tight and won't wiggle.

Taking a couple of french cleats over to a friend's house for installation (on his car). We just saved 5 minutes we can use to decipher concrete anchors at the local home center.

You might still want to use one strap as a safety. Make your own decision on this. I'm not guaranteeing it's safe in every case and you must take responsibility for your own decisions--but this has worked well for me on a half dozen occasions.

Visiting the lumberyard is more fun with a friend

Today I took my friend Frank on an exploratory mission to figure out what type of wood we might want to build a rather odd portable bar. We ended up finding a nice purpleheart board 12" wide and 17' long at Anderson Mcquaid (no affiliation) in Cambridge, MA. I had no idea those kind of sizes were even available, but we found it reasonably affordable. I always like my trips to lumberyards enough to prolong them, but even more so with a friend along.

Scott: "We must look like a couple of yahoos right now."
Frank: "Scott, we're using this lumber to build a purple and yellow glow-in-the-dark bar-top to bring to [...]. We *are* yahoos."

OK, readers, I'm heading back down to the workshop. Don't forget to smile.

High speed, low-bandwidth wood transportation system

I just bought some clear pine for a toolchest (and some extra) at my local lumber purveyor. I got it home fast ;-). I'm stacking and stickering at home now. Since stickers need to come fom wood that's handy, very dry, and expendable, I'm cutting strips from a scrap of 5/8 plywood.