Thought I’d put up a quick post to talk about all the improvements to woodshop and great work being done over the last few weeks.
We have been working away every wednesday and making great progress!
Getting organised with Trello
We’re diving in to trello (Join us here: https://trello.com/invite/b/xmODU9ax/e44742719bbd040c69a17dbfd8c9653f/woodshop) and getting all the things we’re working on into there to keep track.
Documenting all the things
I have been going hard on the wiki, check out our great looking cause wiki page https://wiki.hsbne.org/causes/woodworking
I’m also working on a machine template, using the table saw as the prototype. https://wiki.hsbne.org/tools/woodshop/tablesaws. I think thats getting close to done so look out for the other machines getting this template in future.
I’ve also gone and sourced the manual for every machine we have in the shop, so even if the wiki page is sparse we at the least have the manual for every one.
Talking about manuals, I have printed them all out, and they are in a big binder in the shop! This should make it easy to pull out and refer to when you have questions.
Another binder thats been made for the woodshop is our MSDS register, where we keep all the msds’ for the chemicals we keep and use in the shop. If you bring a new chemical into the shop, please lets work together to make sure it gets an msds printed and into the binder.
Dust extraction hitting goals
We got some help to sort out the power concerns, got the control panel in a good spot and we’ve been working since on getting machines connected!
The belt and disc sander was the first to get plumbed in. Then we made a huge effort one wednesday and we got all of the center island plumbed in, so the A3-31 Thicknesser/Sander, PS-12 Tablesaw and the N4400 Bandsaw.
This leaves the smaller tools now left to do, such as the mitre saw, spindle sander, scrollsaw, disc sander etc. We will be shifting focus to work on a new mitre station to get that done first and then build our extraction once we have the new station.
But work isnt stopping on the dust collection, we are pushing forward with all the parts required to have the blastgates automated, with the compressed air lines and electrical system.
Vicmark lathe, so close
We have bought a new motor and vfd for the vicmark lathe, so we will be installing all that in the near future. Once it spins, we will be getting all the replacement parts such as chucks and tailstocks, toolrests etc. I’d say we may have a great working lathe by mid september, if not sooner.
New Mitre Stations
We’re working on a design to house the mitre saw, spindle sander, disc sander, scrollsaw, pantorouter etc in a module mitre station design. @Ale has got it all under control and we hope to start building it soon. This will be a great refresh to the shop and give us some super strong and sturdy cabinets to work with.
New Machines
We have a new mitre saw and panto router! They will be out and ready to use once we have the new stations built for them to go into.
Everything is restocked
I’ve gone and done a huge stocktake and repurchase, we should have everything in stock (except for drum sander sandpaper at time of writing, we’re figuring out the plan there at the moment). We also plan to restock our collection of glubots once they’re in store again.
Table saw online course
The table saw online course is getting great feedback. I’m continuing to tweak it, but its officially on the wiki page for the saw, and is the official induction path. I’m hoping to do the N4400 and A331 over the next few months as well.
Cheers!
Thanks for reading, I hope you come along on a wednesday and get involved with us in improving the shop!