A quick Follow-up, Karma, A New Old Bandsaw Rube Goldberg Would be Proud Of and Finishing Notes

A quick follow-up:

At a customer request, I made a template based on the board by ACC Tournament Board maker, Roy Boyles. The customer sent me one of Roy's boards to work from. I sent back the board and the template and never heard another word from the customer. I made the template for free and didn't charge for shipping it back. So much for common courtesy.

Speaking of Karma...

I was reminded why you don't treat people like SH*T (see above). The reason is Karma. Yes, the universe really does keep score. This was once again demonstrated to me when I had to replace my bandsaw this week. I've given away many things on craigslist for free. One of the more useful things I've given away was a perfectly good electric water heater. It was used, but it hadn't been used that much. I gave it away to a gentleman who, like a lot people these days, is financially strapped and couldn't afford $400 for a new water heater. He picked up the water heater, took it home, had a friend who was plumber/electrician install it for him and he had a perfectly good water heater and didn't have to take cold showers anymore. He made a point to send me a follow-up email and thank me for the water heater.

Fast forward a couple of years. My smaller vintage Powermatic 41 14" bandsaw, which I've always secretly hated, finally breaks! Yeah! I've hated it because the blade never tracked right, it was a pain to tension the blade correctly, it took a funny blade size (99") that most vendors don't stock, and the blade frequently jumped off the wheels if you put any pressure on the blade.

So now I have to get another bandsaw. I too, am watching every penny and can't afford a new bandsaw (and I don't want new, I'd rather get a vintage one) and I can maybe afford $100. I found a nice old delta 14" band, but it was pretty far away. A couple of days later, I'm trolling Craigslist and sure enough, an old Rockwell 14" bandsaw shows up and the guy is only 10 minutes away.

A New Old Bandsaw Rube Goldberg Would be Proud Of...

I get over to the guy's house and boy, did I hit the jackpot. A nice, clean vintage 14" Rockwell with some Rube Goldberg type modifications. He added 2 table extensions to either side of the table. The stock table had been extended 12" in either direction. The original owner had built a complicated looking 4-tier tower to raise the motor and then added 5 Pulleys to the original single pulley. He created and welded on a nicely integrated dust collecting shroud to the lower door of saw. He wired in 2 sets of enclosed 110V outlets (total of 4 outlets) nicely integrated into the switch area. He beefed up the power cord to handle the extra juice required by the extra outlets. And it had the original stock motor.


Finishing Notes

For the first 200 or so crib boards I've made, I've really struggled to get a consistent and repeatable approach to finishing, that was quick, easy to do, repeatable and gave my boards a look that really emphasized the warmth of the wood grain but didn't look plasticy or fake! Rather, it gave a look of depth to the wood and it's grain.

So last week, I was sanding and finishing up 10 soon to be released boards and I thought about all my previous attempts at trying to get a consistent and easily repeated finish and this time really stepped through what I was doing with a very methodical approach. I took notes of what I did, I repeated the approach and I got it! Finally!!!!

I didn't invent some new finishing approach. Rather, I just finally made sure I was consistent in my approach and paid careful attention to what I was doing. Too often, I get distracted and or impatient when finishing, so I veer off course. The key this time was to make sure that I prepped the board properly when sanding and sealing. Prep is everything when it comes to finishing. No surprise there.