Just got a brand-new Jet bench grinder.  I turned it on and it started vibrating wildly.  Before I could flip the switch back off, the wheel cracked and jammed in the guard, stopping the motor cold.  I also heard something go whizzing right by my head, I think a small chunk broke off and came flying out the back chute, bouncing off the wall.

Needless to say, I’ll be taking advantage of Amazon’s excellent return policy.

Yesterday, I wasn’t paying attention and tried to tilt my tablesaw blade over to 45 degrees. I encountered some resistance and, thinking that the previously flawless tilt mechanism was sticking a bit, forced it. The real cause was that I had forgotten to change out my zero-clearance insert. So I ended up bending my beloved Woodworker II blade. Not much, but enough to ruin the previously flawless cuts.

So, being a Saturday, I ran down to the local Home Depot and got the most expensive Freud blade they had to use while I send the WWII to Forrest for straightening.

This morning, doggone it if I didn’t do the exact same thing again and bent the Freud!

What’s interesting is that the brand-new Freud blade barely cut better than the bent WWII.  First thing Monday morning I’m ordering a new WWII from Amazon.

I’m glad I asked blastgatego.com for detailed specs on their gates. Turns out the outside diameter of their 6″ gates is 5-9/16″, which comes nowhere close to either the PVC piping or the flexible hose I’m using. Back to making my own!

I experimented this weekend with making my own blast gates from 3/4″ plywood and a pvc connector. I ended up with something that would work, but I was looking at around $7 each for materials alone, plus my time. So I think I’ll go with gates from blastgateco.com, they’ll work out to a little over $10 each including shipping.

Obviously, precise and dependable measurements are important to me. Over the years, I’ve been irritated by most tapes because they’re just not accurate and often inconsistent from measurement to measurement. However, I’ve found what I consider the best measuring tape ever, the stupidly named “Big Johnson” 16′ tape. Check out my extended review!

I finished up building my sound enclosure for my new cyclone dust collector. And the initial tests are very nice. I’m seeing noise reduction of 13db! A 10db reduction means that a noise “sounds” half as loud, so I’m getting over well over that. More importantly, the noise level is down for the high 80s, which is approaching hearing damage levels, down into the mid-70s which is a bit more than normal conversation. It’s great! Once it’s painted, I’ll post some pictures.

Lumber from Home Depot and Lowes is usually pretty bad.  Warped, twisted, etc.  2x4s are especially bad, even Lowes’ “Top Choice” lumber.  The wider Top Choice lumber, however, tends to be much flatter, so I’ve gotten into the habit of buying 2x8s and ripping them down to size.  Sometimes there’s some problems when the ripping releases the internal stresses in the wood and the ripped lumber will bend a little, but then I use the jointer so fix it.

With this board, however, there was no saving it.  I’ve never had a board “explode” like this.  This wasn’t a day or a week later, this was immediately after ripping.  The two halves are over 3/4″ apart in the middle and you can see from the end shot the extreme bend it developed.  Keep in mind, before the rip this was an almost completely straight board!

I’ve finished assembling my new 3HP Grizzly cyclone dust collector.  I built an isolation stand so the system can stand on it’s own and not be vibrating any walls. It’s also on rubber vibration isolation feet.  I also designed the stand so I could assemble the entire system in the middle of the shop and then use a pallet jack to roll it into the new sound enclosure I’m building.  Also, God forbid, if I have to do repairs to the system later I can easily roll it back out.