8 minutes ago, swt61 said:

You need a Festool. The trenching feature alone is very worthwhile. 

I attach the gate as a unit, with two hinges on each side. Then I  cut the top 2x4 and bottom 2x4 of the gate frame, right in the middle, where I have left the 1/8" space.

Okay, I see it meow. 
 

Tenching feature? Does it do moats as well?

It allows you to stop your blade at any depth. Which makes it easy to do half lap joints,  rabbit joints, datos and such at the chop saw.

Spent the afternoon hanging LED lights in the garage to hopefully get decent light without sapping all the tiny bits of electricity I get.

Jeff, what lights did you get?  I need to start searching for LED lights for my garage.

there are corncob led lights with up to 1kw equivalent output.

i have a 500 watt equivalent one in my garage, was the biggest at the time, lights things up real nice.

Same as Al, Barrina 8T from Amazon. Super light and easy to hang up, even with all the obstacles in my garage. 

Edited January 21, 20224 yr by VPI

The light those put out is amazing. Pretty good color too.

10 hours ago, kevin gilmore said:

there are corncob led lights with up to 1kw equivalent output.

i have a 500 watt equivalent one in my garage, was the biggest at the time, lights things up real nice.

I have some big suckers outside as security lights. More like a photon cannon than a light. Anyone making the mistake of trying to break in the back of our house will stand a chance of retina damage 

I like to keep a few big suckers around too!

2 minutes ago, swt61 said:

I like to keep a few big suckers around too!

I can only assume you have taken up angling. 

You know what they say about 'assume'.

There is always a ass before u. 

5 minutes ago, swt61 said:

You know what they say about 'assume'.

The Position?

3 minutes ago, naamanf said:

There is always a ass before u. 

In a perfect world. 

BTW, Bourbon Moth guy says he only buys Forrest flat grind blades for everything. 

Seeing the cuts he's getting even on plywood, I'd have to agree with his choice. Normally a beveled grind blade scores before it cuts, leaving a very clean edge. But the flat grind Forrest blade leaves just as smooth a cut. The benefits of a flat grind blade are many. A few of them are much smoother datos and half lap joints, but there are others. Not having to change out blades all the time would be a big time saver. These don't really make sense as a jobsite blade, because I trash a blade within a month, and the Forrest are expensive. But in a shop setting I'm convinced its the blade to use. Also, a lifetime of free sharpening. You just pay postage, and send the blades to Forrest whenever needed. 

I think Doug has already made this determination. 

5 minutes ago, swt61 said:

BTW, Bourbon Moth guy says he only buys Forrest flat grind blades for everything. 

Seeing the cuts he's getting even on plywood, I'd have to agree with his choice. Normally a beveled grind blade scores before it cuts, leaving a very clean edge. But the flat grind Forrest blade leaves just as smooth a cut. The benefits of a flat grind blade are many. A few of them are much smoother datos and half lap joints, but there are others. Not having to change out blades all the time would be a big time saver. These don't really make sense as a jobsite blade, because I trash a blade within a month, and the Forrest are expensive. But in a shop setting I'm convinced its the blade to use. Also, a lifetime of free sharpening. You just pay postage, and send the blades to Forrest whenever needed. 

I think Doug has already made this determination. 

Curious how they compare to the Ridge Carbide blades. I’ve been meaning to get one or the other to replace my Freud. I really liked it when I had my Jet, but now it just seems to do a okay job at best. 

The Ridge is a very good blade. The Forrest is the best blade I've personally ever used. 

I just don't buy them, because inevitably when I have my saw set up at a jobsite,  some yahoo will cut something without asking, and many times they cut through a nail or screw.

If I had a Forrest blade on the saw, I'd probably go to jail for manslaughter. With a Freud blade, I don't really sweat it.

I have a flat grind Forrest blade. It's not actually flat. Not flat enough for joinery, and super disappointing.

My experience with ridge blades has been mixed. 40 tooth leaves swirls. Rip blade is nothing special. 80 tooth is nothing special and not worth the effort to put it on the saw. I like the custom ground dado I have, but the thickness is inconsistent. To get a 1/2" groove, I have to use a 3/32" chipper and a 0.01 shim rather than a 1/8" chipper.

My go to for a while has been a Forrest 48 tooth which does most things better than any specialty blades I've tried.

Also, I'd earlier mentioned my love for the Freud ftg rip blade. It cuts cleaner joinery than the ridge 40 tooth ftg that's specifically made for joinery. Go figure. And obviously better than the Forrest almost ftg blade.

While I'm on the subject, worst blade I've ever used is a CMT orange that was highly touted by an unscrupulous YouTuber who definitely isn't getting a kickback on them.

I have two of the Forrest 48t, their rip blade (maybe 24t??) and the Chopmaster on the Mitre.
 

Now that they are on sale I was going to pick up the 60t but it seems to be out of stock. 

https://www.festool.com/-/media/tts/fcp/festool-com/downloads/wood-magazine/festoolwoodmagazineno32021ipen.pdf

Big Green is coming out with a cordless Kapex and cordless dust extractors. Not sure if it will be in the USA as early as in Europe but that is pretty cool for jobsite tradespeople.

While I really can't imagine spending that much on a jobsite saw that will often be subject to the elements, I'm sure it's an incredible tool. If I had a dedicated jobsite shop trailer like Tom Silva, I'd be all over it!

The SawStop decided to die on me today. I think it might have had too many false starts with circuit breakers but now it will just make a weird rumbling noise and give the warning lights for no blade rotation. Blade rotates as normal by hand. No reason for it to be thermal protection as I have not cut anything in over a week and the garage is, at most 40 degrees right now. 

Maybe belts are too cold?  

Edited January 23, 20224 yr by VPI

I bought a London Plane board to make my son a chopping board. The one-man woodshop ( https://mactimbers.com/ ) I visited had 4" thick boards about 15" wide. Heavy sucker. This was too wide to go through my planer, so I asked it he could take the waney edge off.

He fired up the biggest saw I have clapped eyes on. It was sited outside under a tarp. "I've only got a 30" blade in it, although it takes up to 48", which is a bit excessive". He fired it up, and with several distinct acceleration stages it became a screaming blur. He sets the fence distance and hoiks this monster plank onto the bed. It went through that chunky plank like a hot knife through butter.

He'll use a push stick, I thought. Nope. The last part of the cut he just put one hand on either side of the blade and pushed it through. I almost couldn't watch. SawStop? Not a chance. One slip with that sucker and a limb comes off.

 

Spoke to SawStop. It all comes back to the shitty 15a circuit. Either get a better circuit or stop using the saw is their advice.