So I got a wild hair when I was cleaning up my table saw.
But first a little background, I have been trying to clean up my shop and make it presentable for pictures and videos. I have been woodworking for 16+ years and I feel confident that I could teach. So I thought the logical place for me to start would be some on-line videos and see where it went from there. It is a slow and arduous process to take a woodworking shop that has been used for years as a factory of furniture making and turn it into a showroom for teaching woodworking, but I am going to give it a try.
Which brings us back to my wild hair. So I took a plane to my workbench that exists as an extended part of my out-feed table and smoothed it down to refinish. My table saw top was coated in years of neglect as well so I carefully sanded it down to a beautiful metal color instead of what was there. I think it bordered on greenish ;). The last zero clearance insert I made for it was about two years ago out of some particleboard and it was looking pretty rough. I had some MDF left over from a form build I did. That is about the only thing I like that stuff for, but I thought it might work well for the insert so I tried it out, we’ll see how it works. I cut it out, routed it to size using a pattern following bit and put some set screws in the bottom to adjust it to height. I put some magnets in the back to hold it down good and a short nail in the back end to keep from flying out.
All done it looked o.k., but I wanted more than o.k. so I painted it bright red… There that was better, it looked official. Like a real woodworker, concerned about safety and all that jazz. It looked like it just came off the factory floor. Something inside me beckoned to have some fun with it. It needed more.
“FLAMES! I said to myself. “This sucker needs flames!” So I pulled out some clear drawer liner I use for glass etching sometimes and put a piece on the insert. Using a razor blade I cut out my flames and hit it with some spray paint. A final coat of clear and it was Hot! I like it, it makes me think if I stick my fingers near there they will get burned.
The fiery pits of hell on my table saw. Yeh, that’ll do.
Hope you like it. I will try to add to this blog so you guys can follow along as I “pimp my shop;)”
The bear in the last photo is another use of scrap mdf, it is my bear push stick. I usually make them out of solid hardwood, but hey it was there. Maybe this MDF stuff is growing on me…What am I saying, yuck.
