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I went ahead and bought a 10" ryobi band saw, as it was only 169.00 and this will allow me to get through my first few builds before buying the Powermatic 14" this summer. I figure having a small saw would still be useful even when I get the big one. I am almost all tooled up now, just need a thickness sander.

Now, for the price this seems to have been a good deal, easy set up, seems pretty strong with mahoganey, any way I got 2 questions:

1. the blade size is a 67" which noone makes other than ryobi. Do ya'll know a place that will make bandsaw blades according to your size requirement? Ryobi sell them but they are like 30 bucks each, and somehow I don't think ryobi would make the best blades.

2. what would be a good thickness sander that is not too expensive for a novice like myself. I saw the performax 10-20, but not many other options.

also, would it be too ambitious to want to thickness EIR and spruce myself with a handplane, or am I looking for trouble?

Suffolk Machinery (maker of Timberwolf blades) makes them custom
lengths - worth absolutely every penny. And for short blades like you
and I have, they're just not very expensive. I got a 1/2 and a 3/8 for I
guess around $20 or so including the shipping. The woman I talked to
on the phone to place my order by golly knew her bandsaw blades!

http://www.suffolkmachinery.com/

As for a thickness ander, I've personally decided there's not one that's not
"too expensive". The cost of those things is just staggering to me.

I thicknesed my first two top back and sides with hand planes, hand belt sander, cabinet scraper and random orbital sander.  It is not very easy but it works to get you building till you can get a drum sander.  BTW the first one sounds GREAT so it can be done.

Kirby

If you've got straight-grained woods, hand planes wouldn't be terribly hard, I don't think. I thicknessed a set of sides that way and ended up going way too thin... I just couldn't believe I'd be done that quickly and didn't check my progress often enough.

Ditto Jay's comment on Suffolk... I used a 9" Ryobi for a while and it was great. I loaned it to a friend when I picked up a Sears/Rikon 10" for a good price and it's a little beefier, cast-iron table. The Timberwolf blades are especially good for small saws because they require less tension. Follow their instructions for tensioning.

I have a Performax 10-20 and it's great. Make sure and budget for a dust collector, too.

You might also try cold-calling cabinet shops to see if they have any extra tools for sale. My friend picked up a 16-32 for $300 recently because it needed a new conveyor belt. It was just collecting dust in a corner.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Check out Amazon.com for the Performax 10-20 sander at $549. And they have the infeed/outfeed tables on sale now for $48, down from $79. I bought a benchtop Craftsman 10" bandsaw for $120, and I find it's really handy and portable, and performs most general tasks fine.

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Chris Nielsen
Soquel, CA.

kirby

how does the second one sound?

bandsaw blades are often welded up by local saw doctors, the folks who do sharpening and carbide tip replacement.

i get mine made up in asheville. no one that i can find sells ready made 114" blades. just one of the benefits of having a bandsaw that is about my age(16" walker-turner 8 speed wood/metal, an overengineered gem).

What should I use to closely monitor my thickness with the top back and side if i go it with the planer?

i mean, regular calipers, won't reach very far to the middle to gauge uniformity and consistency.

John;

Don't know yet.  I just bent the sides and am cutting head and tail blocks now.  Will let everyone know when it's done.

Kirby.

I've thicknessed everything so far with a Wagner Safe-T-Planer to do most of the work, and a Gilbert sanding disk to finish.   Drill press gets a lot of work.

I'd like to try a double top soon, and I don't think I'm going to be able to do the plates for that without solving the drum sander problem.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

John;

I spent the money for stew mac long reach dial indicator.  Several people have built their own frames.  Standard dial indicator can be had for under $50.00.

an adequate dial indicator can be had from harbor freight for $6.99 when they are on sale and a recent thread illustrated homemade thickness calipers.

a well honed and set up no 5 jack will thickness your woods very well. after all thats how it was done for hundreds of years. yard sales, estate sales, auctions, and ebay are cheap sources for good, reliable stanley and record planes.

if you have no experience with hand planes read up on tuning and honing, and practice on scrap to get your technique down pat.

John,

For what it's worth, you might try searching craigslist for a drum sander. I found mine on there and just took along a joined top when I went to go look at to make sure that it worked ok.

Good luck!

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Thanks,
Blain

http://www.ullrichguitar.com

"89.67% of all statistics are made up on the spot."