my new lam grinder jig

[AkDan]

Steve,

a feather board is there to keep the material being cut up against a fence.   When doing my strip canoe I built them out of 1x4's, cut some slits up them on the bandsaw and c clamped them to the table.  the ends arent a 90, I think mine were more like 30 degrees or so, I dont think it really matters TOO much.   Basically when it's pushed up against the stock you want held to the fence, the featherboard holds it there and has some give with all the fingers so you can push it through.  


I am curious what you made your featherboard out of Pete...maybe a close up shot of it?

[Pennsyltuckey pete]

Tommy

I Will double check that thickness issue caused by the play in the belt sander itself.  I have a feeling that that problem, if it does exist on my machine, would be taken care of by the sled.  The face of the sled is ground just like the laminations are, so any play would be addressed in the sled. It would have pushed the sanding drum/belt over and eliminated the play in the first 1/4 inch of grinding.

I did grind a bit last night but did not get anything down to the critical stages.  I am going to wax the back of the sled and the fence to decrease the friction between the two.  I am also going to recheck the square and flat of the sled.  It may have developed a slight bow since it was cut from the 9/4 board.  IT is the little things like this that can drive you nuts when you are trying to be this accurate.

Steve,  to add to wahat AkDan said about the featherboard... and what you noted...  Yes it does get ground off.  What it does is pushes the material that is being ground right up against the sled.  It keeps quite a bit of pressure there.  Enough that it also helps keep the sled up against the fence.  It also helps to stabilize the lamination right at the sanding drum.  

To make mine i ground a piece of hickory to about 1/16 thick and glued it to a block of wood.  The feather board is actually flat.  THe curve is forced in to the wood by the design.  The first time you use the grinder you will grind the feather board off to exactly where it needs to be.

I will get some more pics tonight.

pete

[pditto613]

Pete, I use a similar set-up to grind my lams as well.  It does a fine job once you get the hang of it.  It is a slow process though.  I ordered some 36 grit sleeves that sped things up considerably.

[Steve Kendrot]

Thanks again Pete. Have you found the angle of the fence to the spindle/belt to be critical? I would think that since the lamination face is touching a single point on a curve it doesn't really matter?

Are you measuring the thickness of the laminate as you reduce it till you get the thickness you are looking for, or do you measure the space in between the sled and roller? If you are grinding a pair of lams for a bow, do you grind both lams at each setting before readjusting the sled?

[Pennsyltuckey pete]

Steve,

The angle of the fence to the spindle has no impact what so ever to the grind.  As you point out it is a curved surface so we are grinding against a single point on the curve.  

As far as measuring...
This comes from previous experience with my other grinder...
Measure the thickness of the lamination not the space.  I always measure about 2"-3" back from the end of my taper for the butt thickness. When I finish grinding I cut the taper where the actual desired measurement was obtained. The reason for this is that regardless of how careful I am at starting the grinding process the beginning is always a bit "shakey". We are dealing with thousandths here. The fact is if you watch the video carefully on the second pass you will see where the front of the sled comes off the table for a moment because I got careless. In a perfect world my fence and infeed table would be 2 feet longer so that the sled was fully supported the entire length of the grind. The second reason I measure the taper is because each time you run the taper through the grinder even when you do not change the adjustment you remove a bit of wood and the results are measurable.  The fact is the last 10 thousandths or so are taken off the taper by running it through the same setting 4 or 5 times checking the measurement each time.

When I grind lams for a bow I grind them all at the same setting one at a time, then set the fence closer and grind them all again.  Just make sure that you know which ones are ground and which ones need to be ground.  I also mark the taper so the thin end and the thick end are easily identifyable.

As promised... here are the pics of the feather board.

 

 

I did check the spindle and there is no play in my machine.  I did not check the unit with the belt sander attachment.

I also checked my fence and my sled for true against my steel straight edge.  There was, as I suspected, a slight bit of warp.  I used the steel and a sanding square to bring them in to square.

pete

[Steve Kendrot]

I'm getting close to running out of questions! Do you feed the butt end or the taper in first? Does it matter?

[Pennsyltuckey pete]

I feed the end of the taper that will be the butt end first.

pete

[AkDan]

Pete, are you running it paralell to the belt at a slight angle to the belt or grinding on the wheel alone....kinda hard to tell in the pic?!?! Guess I'm missing this one. I'm going to build this jig on my day off this coming week, gotta love working 12's 8 days in a row shew.

Thanks for the pic of the featherboard, definatly better idear then what I use on my table saw LOL!

[Apex Predator]

Cool beans Pete!  I really appreciate the time it took to share this with us.  I may have to try this myself!

[Pennsyltuckey pete]

AkDan,  Sorry I too have been doing the 12 hr days,  BUt hey,  I have a job so I aint gonna complain.  I run the taper across the round part of the belt or on the spindle only, not the flat part.

pete

[AkDan]

I hear the job gig Pete....I aint complaining toooo much   .  

Thanks for that info!  I dug my sander out, got to working on some 4 wheelers these last couple days, back to work tomorrow for a couple day yay.

[AALLFAB]

up

[barley40]

Been wondering Pete how thick the lams when you start and what did you saw them on?

[Pennsyltuckey pete]

Barley,

This next part is almost embarrassing to share!  I Live in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.  I am blessed with the fact that there are a lot of good local hardwoods around here.  Woods like, Maple, Ash, Hickory, Black Walnut.  What I did was find a local saw mill that harvested the local woods and would pick up a board or two of rough sawn 10/4 wood.  I would then take it home and turn it in to lam slats on my circular saw.  By the way the key is a good blade (YEa I spent $40 on one and will never go cheap again)  One day while I was at the mill Dan, the guy who owns it asked me how I was making my lams.  (he had already taken an interest in the bows that I had shown him that I had made from wood I purchased from him.)When I told him Dan very politely, but with the requisite glint in his eye, told me that I was doing part of his job and he would show me why.

This was when I had my eyes opened for about the third time by this wood master.  

We took the ash, hickory and black walnut boards I had just purchased over to the back of his shop.  There standing in its glory was a band saw that had a blade that was two inches wide.  The feed in table was 6 feet long and the run out table was 10 feet long.  The adjustable fence spread from 3 feet in front of the blade to three feet behind it with a second fence behind that one.  HE asked me HOW THICK???    Yea that glint was still in his eye...  3/16 of an inch if you could.  In about 2 minutes he had the fences adjusted.  He asked if I was comfortable manning the run out table.  SURE!!! as I was wiping the drool from my chin.

In less than 15 minutes I had a pile of lam blanks I couldn't believe.  The waste from the band saw was negligible and the cuts way better than what I was able to do on any of my saws. This is what I took home that day!

 

The moral of this story is to go in search of a local saw mill.  Look in the yellow pages, Talk to guys who build furniture, Ask anyone you know.

pete

[razorback]

Pete, where in the Pocono's do you live. i used to live in Dingmans Ferry and really miss that area.
Tony

[Pennsyltuckey pete]

I live by  Marshalls Creek. Down by East Stroudsburg. It used to be nice but...  well lets just say it has gotten way to crowded for my taste.

Dingmans Falls are still beautiful.

pete

[Mike Most]

It is always nice to fine that local, bandsaw man... very cool...

Mike

[cobbow]

Hey Pete

I just got my interpretation of you lam grinder built this last weekend. My jig takes up a little more room than yours but gives me more of an in and out feed table. I will post pics when I get home. I wish we had more maple around here it is all oak and a few walnut.

Thanks for sharing your ideas
Cobbow

[bamboo]

pete i don't live too far from there ---
whats the name of the mill?-if you don't mind
 that looked like some nice stuff

[cobbow]

Here you go I am going to give this a try. First time to post a pic.
 

 

another shop project