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Heavy Cart

I inserted this cart here because it has such an interesting history to me. It's a three wheeled cart (a swivel wheel back by the handle and two larger wheels toward the open end of the cart; all are steel covered with a solid rubber tires.) that I used as a kid of about age 11 and older to deliver silage to our herd of milk cows. I probably spent more time with this cart than I did with any tool on the farm.

I'd push this cart under the silo chute, fill it, climb down from the silo, push the cart to the mangers and give each cow two large forkfulls of silage. In those days that loaded card was so heavy that I had to get a running start to get it through the dip that was between one row of cows on one side of the barn and the row on the other side. My father followed me with the feed cart and gave each cow her specially measured portion on top of the silage I had left.

I have no fond memories of this activity because I did it every day after school and every weekend until I was 17, when we sold the farm. It took about an hour out of every day. I didn't like the job, but it was probably good for me mentally and physically.

When my father and mother died and my sisters and I were cleaning out the cellar, I found the old cart, still with its original silver color, but stripped of its heavy oak body used to carry the silage. My sisters gave no argument when I asked for the cart, so I took it home.

After power washing the frame and wheels, I painted it. The frame is John Deere green and the wheels are JD yellow. I built a body of oak and yellow pine with low removable sides. (sides are not shown in the picture.)

Now it's handy to move heavy supplies around the shop. I put a tongue on it too, so I can hook it to a lawn tractor for outside work. That sucker will hold a ton.

Old Lathe

This old lathe replaced the cheap Sears lathe I bought when I first started woodworking. I found it in the barn of a neighboring old farmer named Percy. He used it for sharpening various tools around the farm and referred to the lathe as "the grinder." Percy and I worked together making hay one summer and he asked me to get a sickle bar mower blade that was "in by the grinder." When I went into the barn, I noticed that this was more than a "grinder."

A few weeks later I again inspected the tool and discovered it was an antique lathe. I asked Percy if he would sell me the grinder because at that time I had collected several old tools and wanted to add this to my collection. He asked how much, and I offered $10. He hesitated so I upped my offer to $20. Percy said sure. We could load it on his pickup and take it to my place. He reminded me that there were a couple of five gallon pails "over there somewhere with a bunch of stuff that go with it."

$20 doesn't sound like much today, but in 1970 when I bought it, Percy could buy a new grinder and have money left over. The tool was generally rusty or greasy, depending on where you looked on the lathe. The two five gallon pails were full of chaff, and it was hard to discern what was in them. We unloaded everything in a shed garage I had, and I didn't look at it for a couple of days because we were busy with hay.

When I did have time to look it over, I saw the lathe was complete and in the pails were all manner of lathe accessories that at that time would have cost me two or three hundred dollar to purchase. I was delighted and began to clean everything up. It was a few days before I had removed the rust and grease; it was quite a mess. I lubricated everything, but I didn't have a motor for it because Percy had run the lathe with an old monster motor.

One interesting thing was that the lathe had flat drive pulleys meant for leather belts so I was stumped. I didn't want to replace the pulleys because they were part of the antique charm, but I wanted to use it with a V-belt pulley on a modern motor. So I mounted an old appliance motor with a V-belt, ran the belt around the middle of the three flat pulleys, and by golly it worked.

This became my main lathe for the next 35 years. It has babbitt bearings which I have to oil frequently, but it still works well. In those two buckets were tool rests, centers with morse tapers, all necessary wrenches, a metal turning head with bits, various chucks and a few things I never have learned the use of.

The chuck on the drive end is not a Jacobs. The chuck it has opens and closes by using a heavy duty square-ended tool that centers two jaws around a straight shaft on which the turning center is mounted. (There is no morse taper, except on the back end center.) The weight of the lathe itself and the cast iron leg made the tool very stable.

Over the years the old lathe has turned table legs, candle sticks, posts for clock cases, green turnings, and I don't know what all. Today it is back to being a grinder where I sharpen my lathe cutting tools and other things that need a fine edge on them, because I bought a new China made, Grizzley lathe about a year ago.

A funny thing is--I never moved that V-belt off that center pulley and have used the same speed for all my lathe projects. I replaced the old lathe because I like the easy speed changes on the new lathe, and I think those babbit bearings could use a little attention--sometimes there's a little more vibration than I'm comfortable with.

Delta Drill Press

This is a Delta tabletop drill press my wife (when she was still a girlfriend) bought me twelve to fourteen years ago. It has an interesting feature: the head can be set at any angle; however, this feature is not as handy as I thought it would be when we purchased it. In retrospect I believe a tilting table would have been more useful. The head also slides to move it closer to or farther from the vertical support beam. Though I seldom use the slide feature, it can be a very handy in particular circumstances.

One thing I'm very glad I bought at the same time is a mortising head with three square bits/chisels. Though I use the mortiser only occasionally, it too is very handy when I need it. The drill press also does double duty as a drum sander when I need to shape those hard to sand curves. I use large and small drums, depending on the sharpness of the curves I want to sand.

The table lacks a cranking table lift, which I often wish it had, but a lift would not work well with the angling head because the table couldn't swing from side to side. The angling head concept must not have proved popular as I no longer see this model offered. The hand lift table (with a lock on the vertical beam) on this model does, however, prove useful in a few rare instances, and its not as difficult to lift and set as one might think (as long as the beam is lubricated). The hand lift's universality gives it a slight overall edge over a cranking lift, pain in the neck or not.

While the drill press has few stories, the table it sits on has one. A friend for whom we have baled hay for 18 years was going to discard the table. He didn't know quite how because the table is all steel. His best plan was to cut it up. When he offered it to me, I jumped at the opportunity. It was pretty rough--rusty and greasy--but after some scaping and cleaning, I painted it a dark green and set it in the shop.

This is one tough and heavy table. It must weight upwards of 400 pounds. It's about 4 X 8 feet so it doesn't get moved. The one time I moved it after it was set in the shop, I used a crane on my Ford tractor. Besides the drill press, the table holds a heavy metal vice, a chop saw for steel, cement, and such, some heavy anvils, and a small disk and belt sander. Underneath there are leg supports that act as a heavy-duty shelf. There I keep heavy stuff that I'm not going to use often. When there is heavy pounding (as in steel or other metals) or bending to be done, it happens on this table.

Workbench II

This is an extraordinarily handy workbench. Unfortunately, when this picture was taken the bench was covered with a pile of lumber. It is about 4 X 5 feet with a solid 1 3/4 inch glued up maple top. It has three standard woodworking vises (two six-inch and one four-inch) and is bolted to manufactured steel legs. On one side a pattern maker's vise is built into the top.

For years this was my primary workbench--until I built the oak bench mentioned at the top left of this page. Its shortcoming is that it's a little low for my comfortable working height, and it's not as stable as one might wish. I've always meant to fasten those steel legs more securely, but never got around to it. (I think a well secured shelf under the table would do the trick.)

The two vises on the ends of the table (on the side shown) make securing a long board easy. The pattern maker's vise on the opposite side of this bench will secure square or odd shaped items in a multitude of positions. I rarely use it, but when I need it, there's no vise better. It takes a little effort to set it up just right, but because the jaws can be set to any shape and the whole vise can be swung out and up, it secures odd pieces in handy work positions.

Pattern Maker's Vise

This bench too has an interesting story. The same friend who gave me the all steel table with the drill press on it, also gave me this bench--and for the same reason--he was going to throw it away! His plan was to burn it up, then scrap the remaining metal. When he offered it, I had it on my truck before he could change his mind. (Incidentally, this giving was not all one sided. Over the years I have given him several pieces of farm machinery I no longer used.)

This vice came with the pattern maker's vise and the two six-inch wood vises. I added only the four-inch vise and cherry faces for the other vices.

Incidentally, there in front of this bench is my little 5hp, 12 gallon Shop-Vac vacuum--rolls around the shop and is very handy. It has good power and so far has done everything I've asked of it.

Here you see the shop's heating and cooling systems.

Router Tables

In this picture these are actually two router tables: you see a vertical table (with the router mounted in it) sitting on top of a horizontal table. I have to admit I'm very happy with the way they both turned out, and they work well. They were designed around a Triton Router that my wife recently gave me for Christmas. This site shows up close what I did to design the two tables: http://www.linssuv.com/router.htm

The horizontal table actually has two router mountings. On the far end is my 15 year old Black and Decker router mounted in a small plywood table that I originally mounted on the corner of my workbench. On the near end is a formica top, taken from an old portable dishwasher we had, on which I have mounted my new Triton router. Just below the middle shelf there's a drawer (for router bits and such) that can be opened from either end of the table. It's all shop made, including the fence (below) that works only on the formica end of the table. ( I have a smaller fence for the other end.)

The fence can be used as a split fence as shown, or the split part can be removed to provide a solid fence. I have no mitre in the table. If I need the mitre effect, I use a flat board against the fence; this trickworks most of the time but is not as good as a mitre inserted in the table--maybe someday. . . .

The vertical table uses a vise mechanism to move the router up and down a rabbeted slot on each side of a vertical stanchion. It works well and is a lot safer than a horizontal table in certain applications. I've found a slanted jig that can be used with the vertical table that appears to make cutting raised panels very simple--we'll see.

I made a third table that is a sliding table to accommodate writing with the router (as in sign making) and cutting sheets of plywood. To get a fuller explanation and see how this table works, click on the picture below.

Craftsman Table Saw

If this old Craftsman saw could talk, it could tell a hundred stories, many of which would be about the stupid things I have done while using it--the most interesting being about how I cut off half of the middle finger on my left hand. While that story is about the worst event, there are many more about my pushing limits I never should have. (The picture shows that I use it without a blade guard or a splitter.)

I bought this saw in 1969 when we bought the farm because the house needed major renovation inside. Until that time I had used a much older Craftsman saw that I'd borrowed from an uncle. When he wanted it back, I had no choice but to buy one. At that time the $300 (maybe $279) I paid for this saw was a major investment--more than a refrigerator or a stove! But when I bought that saw I was stylin'!

Now there are "contractor's saws," occasional-use saws, midsize saws, general-purpose saws, benchtop saws, cabinet saws, collapsible roll-around saws and on and on, but back in the 1960's there were pretty much just table saws. If you happen to sit one on a cabinet, you had a cabinet saw, but it was the same saw you could put on legs. If you added wheels or casters, you had a portable saw.

I've always been going to build a cabinet around this saw, but for 37 years it has set on the same legs with a couple old sheets wrapped around the bottom to contain the sawdust. I bought aluminum side extensions with the saw and later added wooden extensions with a wood run-out table. It works as well as it ever did, maybe better since I replaced the original motor two years ago. I've looked at some of these new saws that are as big as cars and do everything but cook breakfast, but for my purposes I can't see the advantage--though I often wish I had more power (This saw has only 1 1/2 hp) so I could cut faster.

The story of the lost finger begins in 1972. I was a young man of 30 making an outside door of 2 inch pine for my neighbor. The neighbor, who had a radial arm saw, had recently purchased a wobble dado (a relatively new item to the market at that time) and suggested we might use it on my saw to make the dados in the main door frame for raised panels that were to be inserted. All was going well until I tried to back into a cut (something one should never do)because my shop at that time was too short to accomodate the length of the door's rails when I made the dado cuts.

I was not used to the dado and misjudged the power of its bite. I was also reaching over the blade (something one should never do) and my stance was not well balanced (something one should never do). If I had seen anyone else doing what I was, I would have believed him too stupid to operate power equipment, but thinking I could get away with it this once, I proceeded.

For what I was doing, I was very fortunate. The wobble dado kicked the piece of wood, flipping my hand into the blade. I say I was fortunate because I could have lost many fingers or even the whole hand. We went to the hospital, the finger was cleaned up, and I missed "Hawaii 5-0" that night. In a way that event was a blessing because it greatly increased my respect for power tools and my fear has served me well over the years. That missing 1/2 finger has provided all kinds of humorous conversation over the years, but I won't go into that.

Power Hacksaw

I bought this metal cutting bandsaw from a peddler from the Carolinas in about 1977. We took it off his pickup and into my barn. I also bought a 20 ton hydraulic press from him. I paid him and he was gone. I didn't know how well it would work, but it was cheap (I think I paid $79 for it.) and I was tired of hacksawing everything by hand. At that time I was farming full tilt so cutting metal was a common need.

This little saw has been a lifesaver. I have used it frequently from the day I bought it and continue to do so. It has never quit and I've had to change the blade only about three times in 30 years. It's not terribly accurate, but it will cut rod and angle iron very nicely. It has a small table that can be inserted, and I've used the table to even cut some sheet metal. It was certainly worth the money.

Work Table

I originally made this table as a run-out table for the tablesaw, but I found myself using it so often for assembly of light projects that I gave up the run-out table idea and made a different setup for the tablesaw, something more simple.

I use this table almost as much as the workbenches because its so big (about 3' by 6') and so mobile. It's mobility makes it handy for moving projects around the shop, and its top has a manual up and down adjustment (which is a little clumsy because each side must be adjusted individually) that makes it able to accomodate the various surface heights in the shop.

As the pictures shows, the table is also handy for piling stuff, especially all the parts that are going to be used for a particular project. I stuck two drawers in the front to hold sundries--never enough storage.

Anvil 1

This old anvil has followed our family since1949 when my father bought the Ernest Bellis farm outside Ringoes, N.J. When the Bellis' had their farm sale no one bought this anvil, probably because it was too heavy to move. It was an old anvil then so its age can only be guessed. The anvil was in what the Bellis's called the wash house which Ernest had turned into a workshop after they moved the washing chores into the house. (Incidentally, in that washouse house was a dog treadle which the Bellis family had used at one time to run the washing machine.)

In the wash house-workshop was a huge workbench with this anvil on top. In the 10 years we were on the farm, that anvil hardly moved (It probably weighs about 80 pounds). I remember Dad used it when he had to pound the rivets to secure new blades the sickle bar mower knife. Dad took the anvil with us when we sold the farm, but he almost never used it, so when I bought the Cokesbury farm and had a #6 sickle bar mower for the 1948 John Deere I bought, he gave the anvil to me. Now I rarely use it, but when I want to really whack a piece of steel against something solid, there's nothing better under what I'm hitting than this anvil.

Anvil 2

This anvil belonged to Dick Laskey's grandfather. Dick was a neighbor and good friend who lived across the road from the Cokesbury farm. Dick and I were both interested in making stuff. In fact, Dick and I were making a back door for a new addition on his house when I cut off my finger. (See the story under tablesaw above.)

Dick and I eventually turned our attention to making ornaments and lamps out of tin. My old anvil (See anvil1.) was not very useful for the finer curves in some of our lamp making projects, so he brought his anvil over to my shop, where we did most of our tinkering. We made a lot of great tin stuff, but never quite achieved professional grade. When he moved to Texas in 1978, he gave me this anvil, and I've been forever grateful.

I use the anvil frequently because when something metal has to be shaped, this anvil offers all kinds of curves and flat surfaces. I often use it now to shape aluminum flat stock which I incorporate in many of my woodworking projects. I also use it for copper and tin pieces when the need arises.