I was intrigued by the tip in issue #253 about making wooden balls with a belt sander and put together a box for my sander. I have a supply of ambrosia maple end cuts that I had been saving for some worthwile project and this seemed perfect. I soon found that this is a slow and noisy process. With maple I found it is imperative to chamfer the edges. Even with chamfered edges, the smaller balls took about 6 hours and the larger ball took over 10 hours and could have used some more. The noise is quite obnoxious and I found it better to start it and leave. Unfortunately my wife would come home and cut it off.
I finished the balls with 4 coats of gloss polyurethane. Having no real need for wooden balls, I now have a bowl and a jar full of wooden balls for a conversation piece.
Fine Woodworking Recommended Products
Rockler Complete Dovetail Jig
Spacing: Fixed Stock width (max.): 11 in. Stock thickness: 1/2 in. to 3/4 in. for through-dovetails (pins board can be up to 1-1/8 in. thick); 1/2 in. to 3/4 in. for half-blinds Half-blind depth: 5/16 in.
One of many extremely accurate Incra miter gauges, this model offers 180-degree adjustment to 1/10 of a degree, and a long, straight fence with a telescoping stop system.
New Generation LED digital tube display. 3 vacuum run modes. Adjustable vacuum startup and shutdown time in vacuum auto mode. Controller, tool and vacuum run LED indicator. All controller designs make your work more intelligent, convenient and safe.
The Powermatic smoothed boards excellently. It has a plastic insert that sits shallow of the fence, where thin boards tended to catch when flattening faces. The Powermatic was the only model that uses a knob to adjust the angle of the fence—a nice feature—except that locking it caused the fence to move slightly, which made it tricky to square the fence. But when locked, the fence did not move. The 90° stop was easy to set but wasn’t reliable. The guard was finicky to install and would often not snap back fully after a board passed by.
The Ridgid R4251 was a pleasant surprise. It uses two articulating arms to let it sit against a wall. The mechanism had me skeptical, but it performed excellently. The controls are conveniently placed and easy to use. The bevel and tilt locks for working off of the stops were my favorite of the field. Its LED results in a nice, accurate shadow.
With its graceful curves, cabriole legs, and ornamental back splat, a Queen Anne side chair is a bucket list build for many woodworkers. Dan Faia had a very specific Queen…
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Comments
This is my favorite reader's gallery post in my tenure at FWW... easily. So much awesome here!
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