Woodworking

I got a drill press for my birthday! Hurray! Now I can start making the harp for my sister. I've got the wood and plans, and a new bandsaw blade just arrived today.

The drill press is a 10" Skill. It's got a laser to make lining things up easier, which is nice. One thing I noted was that while it is listed as a 10" drill press, the swing is only about 2", meaning the thickest thing I can completely drill through is about two inches. I guess that 10" is the maximum size it can work on. I can get around that, and I don't really need to drill through anything thicker than that anyway, so that shouldn't be a problem. Quality is very good so far, it feels quite solid. It has five speeds, changeable by moving the belt, (it's belt driven) to different speed pulleys. It also uses a chucked mount, which was interesting, because I hadn't used a chuck in a long time.

The bandsaw blade I got is a 1/4" skip tooth blade, 4 TPI (Teeth Per Inch), and it cuts amazingly fast. I have a Craftsman 10" bandsaw, 1/3 horsepower. The stock blade is pretty bad, it's 3/8, and I don't remember how many teeth per inch, but it was hook, and made a terrible cut. It had a wide kerf, cut as slow as a snail, and had a wide curve radius. The new blade has a narrow kerf, cuts nice and quick, and turns better. I didn't know it would make that much difference or I would have done it much before this! (If only I had had it for milling the cedar! Before one cut might have taken ten minutes instead of two or three -estimate-...)

Anyway, that's all for now because I have to get up at 0500 tomorrow for a swim meet. Hm... maybe I should do another paragraph on the wonders of swimming...