- Joined
- Jul 26, 2013
- Messages
- 380
- Points
- 158
I live in a small city apartment, and the shop is a Model T era garage I also share with a car. I would really like to have a decent tablesaw, but there is just no room. For a couple of large projects I went out an bought a 1950's Craftsman saw on craigslist, and sold it for what I paid for it when I was done. At a yard sale I found a Rockwell Bladerunner- pretty much an upside down sabre saw mounted on a table. What clinched the deal was it was super light, so I could put it way on a shelf. Here's some information on it, with some good discussion. Be sure to read down to the simple mods Mr. French made to the saw- they help a LOT, although for model sized wood moving the rollers out so they work on 2X sized lumber isn't necessary:
http://toolmonger.com/2010/11/01/rockwell-bladerunner/
A few days ago I got in the mood to make some stripwood. My favorite local craft supply store
http://www.scrap-sf.org/
always has short bits of picture frame material. Lately most of it is rubber wood, or Hevea, but I have also found oak, walnut, birch, basswood and others. There's no telling what they will have- sometimes some exotic wood flooring, laser cut thin plywood, and right now they have a bunch of kitschy african blackwood or ebony carvings itching to be chopped up for other purposes. The hevea is interesting stuff- quite flexible in strip form, and it shows up everywhere now. I started to cut the frame stick into 1/4" thick lath. Ther bladerunner fence, in a word, stinks. It does not lock well and needs to be overtightened to say put. Even so, if the wood grabs on the blade it will probably be knocked out position. What I finally figured out was to adjust the blade speed and the feed rate to keep a smooth cut going. After a few tries I was able to get consistent .25" thick slats of varying width which I then cut into strips on a Proxxon bench saw and finished on someone elses' home-made thickness sander I picked up a while ago.
Without the bladerunner or a table saw I would have to be very picky about what sized frames I could use, and for chopping down the larger pieces it worked pretty well. I'd rather have a tablesaw but with my space restrictions I've found it useful for the usual household power saw tasks. I've even cut 3/8" aluminum plate with it. It does a lot of things pretty well, but most importantly it goes back on a shelf when I'm done.
http://toolmonger.com/2010/11/01/rockwell-bladerunner/
A few days ago I got in the mood to make some stripwood. My favorite local craft supply store
http://www.scrap-sf.org/
always has short bits of picture frame material. Lately most of it is rubber wood, or Hevea, but I have also found oak, walnut, birch, basswood and others. There's no telling what they will have- sometimes some exotic wood flooring, laser cut thin plywood, and right now they have a bunch of kitschy african blackwood or ebony carvings itching to be chopped up for other purposes. The hevea is interesting stuff- quite flexible in strip form, and it shows up everywhere now. I started to cut the frame stick into 1/4" thick lath. Ther bladerunner fence, in a word, stinks. It does not lock well and needs to be overtightened to say put. Even so, if the wood grabs on the blade it will probably be knocked out position. What I finally figured out was to adjust the blade speed and the feed rate to keep a smooth cut going. After a few tries I was able to get consistent .25" thick slats of varying width which I then cut into strips on a Proxxon bench saw and finished on someone elses' home-made thickness sander I picked up a while ago.
Without the bladerunner or a table saw I would have to be very picky about what sized frames I could use, and for chopping down the larger pieces it worked pretty well. I'd rather have a tablesaw but with my space restrictions I've found it useful for the usual household power saw tasks. I've even cut 3/8" aluminum plate with it. It does a lot of things pretty well, but most importantly it goes back on a shelf when I'm done.