Tips and tricks thread

[Crooked Stic]

If you drill another hole in the fender washer off center about half way to the edge and position your screw right you can rotate it to the stack.

[oldandslow]

I sure do appreciate these tips!

[Flem]

Here is a hot tip for what could be the most compact bow oven yet. I was down at the local Habitat resale store yesterday and picked up what looked to be a brand new heat gun and some insulated ducting.
I already had something in mind for my purchases.

Mini oven! It worked really well. I had some G-10ish material I needed to cook, but I hate to get out my big oven for a 1.5" X 10" project. The heat gun was awesome, the cook time was 1hr and to maintain 180-200deg it ran for a total of 42min, at the second lowest setting available. I checked the temperature of the gun housing at the tip and it never exceeded 90deg. The ducting it's self, stayed around 80deg on the outside, which was really impressive, since it does not seem to have any insulation, just reflective properties.

And by the way, if you have a PID controller, you can plug a heat gun into it and maintain a fairly precise temperature without having to constantly monitor the setup.
I went to the website of the ducting manufacturer to check out specs and it shows that they have ducting up to 20"

20" should be large enough to get a bow form into. You would likely need a more substantial heat source than a heat gun (or 2 guns?), but when its not in use it would collapse down to the size of a frying pan for storage.

[Sologuy]

Rody , don’t fergit the preacher stick , preachers never lie...

Use this to set thickness kinda like John does with the blocks .

It’s just a .005 taper marked every .010 “

Ken...can you explain this to me alittle...perhaps via email    Tom

[kennym]

Very easy, make yourself a .005" per inch taper, mine is 2" wide, and use your calipers to mark every .010" thickness on it . Then use it to set the fence on your bandsaw for thickness. It will be close and you get a feel for it in a few times setting.

I know there are more accurate ways, but it works and is easy to use.

On stuff like bocote and other more expensive wood, I cut a scrap first to make sure it's right on.

[Buemaker]

A couple.

[Pat B]

Hey, Bue, you look pretty good with your hair pulled back. 

[Buemaker]

Yeah, I’m a goodlooking spring chicken.

[Shredd]

Horizontal Fence...

 

[Appalachian Hillbilly]

Now that would be a slick way to cut tapers!

[kennym]

Now that would be a slick way to cut tapers!

I don't know, I think I'll keep cutting tapers on my bandsaw... 

[Buggs]

Here is a measuring tip. I was recently gifted a large selection of dyes from an extremely nice fella and wanted to do some sample boards to get familiar with the colors. The problem is mixing tiny batches accurately for repeatable results. The solution? measure the solvent with little syringes!

You can get these on the web or at pharmacies and places that sell large animal supplies. They say for oral use only and have what's called a Luer tip. But they make needles with a Luer lock fitting, so these are also handy for injecting adhesives into tiny spaces. They measure down to .1ml 
I originally started using these with conversion varnish and other catalyzed paints and finishes. Real handy if you want to catalyze 2 or 3 ozs of finish and have no way to measure or weigh, .1oz of hardener. Metric system is much more useful, especially down at the small end of the scale.

[Buggs]

Not sure what this is, but since I know their are some here who make their own micarta and other composites, I thought I would share my experiment.

So I have used powder coat paint powder as colorant for epoxy in the past. It works well and you can get some interesting colors and effects. I use it often when making "G-10". I got to thinking about what would happen if the mix was baked like powder coat would be, post epoxy cure.

I don't have any high temp epoxy, so I chose this Smooth-On epoxy. Mostly because it sets fast and the recommended cure is 1hr at 200deg. Which meant I could take it straight from the cure to the powder coat oven and be half way there. It's a little old and the resin had crystalized, so I thru it on the wood stove to re-liquify.

I mixed up a total of 12gr epoxy and 2.5gr powder, plus a pin head of black pigment. 20% powder is a lot and pigment overloading can cause cure problems with epoxy. Not that its important, but the color is a metallic bronze and with the black its very dark and impossible to see the true color in a picture. The color is a experiment also.

So it went straight into a 400deg oven after the 200deg epoxy cure. The powder paint calls for 10min@400deg and I did not start the clock until the mix hit 400 on the thermometer gun. Don't know what was going on for those 10min, but when I took it out it was kind of rubbery. As it cooled down to room temp it became very hard, much harder than a fresh cured chunk of plain epoxy. Unfortunately I don't have any equipment to measure just how hard, so I did the scratch test and the ball bearing drop test. It took some force to scratch with a stylus, I would say similar to dense Marble. The drop test was interesting. I did a base line drop on my concrete floor and then on a granite surface plate and then the epoxy mix. The rebound was about identical for the granite and the epoxy. The concrete had less rebound as expected.

The stuff is seriously hard! I'm not sure if its any more useful than it would be un-baked. I think I will make some
G-10 scales with this method and see how it holds up

[Buggs]

I forgot to mention, I was listening to the Van Halen debut album on vinyl. It also served as my epoxy timer.

[Buggs]

Noticed this morning the jar has cracked, thats 36hrs after it cooled to room temp. It was not cracked yesterday. I'm guessing the mass has contracted a slight amount, but it's so tightly adhered to the glass, it fractured. It's also cracked around the circumference.

I don't usually mix in glass, so I don't know if the cracking is typical. I used a small canning jar, so I know it could take the heat.

[Jeff tech]

Here is a measuring tip. I was recently gifted a large selection of dyes from an extremely nice fella and wanted to do some sample boards to get familiar with the colors. The problem is mixing tiny batches accurately for repeatable results. The solution? measure the solvent with little syringes!

You can get these on the web or at pharmacies and places that sell large animal supplies. They say for oral use only and have what's called a Luer tip. But they make needles with a Luer lock fitting, so these are also handy for injecting adhesives into tiny spaces. They measure down to .1ml 
I originally started using these with conversion varnish and other catalyzed paints and finishes. Real handy if you want to catalyze 2 or 3 ozs of finish and have no way to measure or weigh, .1oz of hardener. Metric system is much more useful, especially down at the small end of the scale.

I use syringes also when I am mixing my Mas epoxy. It's very precise. I can use the same syringes several times before I throw away. Be sure to mark A and B

[Roy from Pa]

Cool Buggs..

[Buggs]

A follow up to the epoxy experiment. I did make some "G-10" with the powder paint. I wanted to try some different reinforcement, so I used some .002" plain weave glass and some hardware store glass cloth.
Both were failures! The .002" glass was so thin and lite, it was hard to cut into strips, had static cling to everything and would not, not bunch up in the form. Too bad because it would have made some dense laminate. The store cloth (3M Bondo) was a reject only because any cut edge would un-weave itself to the point where all the edges were unusable. I suppose you could spray some glue on before cutting, but it would take a lot of glue, would gum up the cutter and might impede the resin(?)

My next experiment is going to be with the biaxial sleeve. I think it will make some nice laminate. Not much cutting since its two layers and only the ends are raw. It's not the most cost effective material, but it will lay up fast.

[Buggs]

I did the Biaxial sleeve "G-10" and it looks good so far

I altered my protocol since I had not used this material before and could not be sure how well the interior of the sleeve was wet out. I used a lot more resin than normal. I also let it sit for 30min on the bench before I pressed it for 1hr at 80deg and then 1hr at 200deg. Normally I would go from 30min on bench to 200deg. I figured it could not hurt to give the resin extra time to migrate thru the matrix.

And the music for the project was; Little Feat  Salin' Shoes

[Pat B]

Feets don't fail me now!