Safety Measures of our Table Saw

Happy New Year to all the puzzle lovers and woodworking lovers!

I have written about our workplace facilities on this blog for four times last year, "The Sanding Workstation", "A Handmade Branding Iron", "Safety Measures for the Jointer" and "A Handmade Router Table." Well, can you guess what will be the next subject? Oh yes, you already saw the title of this blog, of course. I'm going to write about the most powerful, useful and dangerous power tool, a table saw.

We have three table saws and they are customized by Juno. There are lots of jigs for the table saws and one of them is a zero clearance insert. Here are the inserts we use. Juno made two wooden zero clearance inserts and one for mitre cut, one for straight (90 degrees) cut and a splitter. On top of the picture below, there are a wooden zero clearance insert for mitre cut.

The reason he made these jigs is to prevent off cuts of small pieces of timber to be jammed between the gap of the saw blade. With the inserts that were attached to the table saw, there is a wide gap around the saw blade. If you want to cut small pieces of timber and use the attached standard insert, cuts off of timber might be jammed into the gap, and it will cause damage, for example, off cuts might scatter and hit you, and they might also damage the pieces you are cutting or damage the saw blade.

As you see in the picture below, there is a very narrow slit for the saw blade which barely passes through. It has only a narrow gap for the saw blade and it can support timber and timber will be more stable.

This zero clearance insert is made of wood because it is easier than making it of metal. Juno inserted grub screws on each corner of the zero clearance insert because it can be adjusted to the height easily by screwing. (see picture below)

There are other parts here, these are riving knives. The attached riving knives are big and they have to be attached to the parts to which the saw blade is attached, and it is physically impossible to use these metal riving knives when we use a handmade zero clearance insert.

Therefore, Juno made and attached this wooden splitter to the handmade zero clearance insert. This splitter is almost the same thickness as the saw blades and is fixed by glue and reinforced by bamboo skewers. Dependent on purpose, Juno changes splitters or riving knives appropriately.

The next picture shows lots of screw holes on the surface of the table saw. Juno made these holes for setting fences and jigs easily.

There is one more convenient thing, it's an extension of the table saw, out feed table. When you rip long timber, it would be a little difficult to keep it stable. The out feed table makes the timber stable and makes feeding easier to push. It's a very convenient function but takes room, so that Juno made it as a folding-out feed table.

Juno customized the table saws a lot and made them more convenient. The puzzles we are selling now were mostly cut by this table saw.

Well, we are working on Juno's new puzzle now.
Please look forward to seeing the next puzzle!

Yukari

A Handmade Router Table

Today's topic is a router table that is one of the important tools for woodworking. A router is a power tool used to hollow out an area in the face of a workpiece. We mainly use the router for rounding the edges of puzzle pieces.

Juno bought a router table from a local hardware shop. It seemed all right but once he used it, he noticed that the router couldn't attain precision. He wanted to increase the precision and decided to make a router table by himself.

 1. The router table
Firstly, Juno made a box and attached it at the end of the workbench (The red legs are the workbench in the picture below). This box will be the base of the router table.

2. The router height adjuster
Juno bought a cheap router and attached it to the inside of the box upside down. Underneath the box, there is a star knob screw. This screw is connected to the wooden block that is placed in the box. The wooden block is holding the router and it can change the height of a router bit by rotating the star knob screw.

3. The dust collector
Behind the wooden block, there is a hole which is connected with a dust collection pipe. This dust collection system works really well, we won't be bothered by saw dust.

4. The air assist
On the workspace of the router table, there is another tool to get rid of sawdust, it's an air assist. The air assist is connected to the air compressor. We use this plastic flexible nozzle which is very convenient.

5. The changeable melamine boards
We use various types of router bits and depending on a bit, we change the board on the router table.

6. The fence of the router table
Depending on work contents, we need to change the position of the fence, therefore Juno set two aluminum T tracks and two star knob screws on the table. It's easy to use and stable.

7. The mitre track for mitre gauges
The long mitre track on the router table is for mitre gauges.

8. The switch
The last article is about the switch of the router. As you see, the router is inside the box and the box has a door. It is awkward to open and close the door when we use the router. For this reason, Juno uses the power outlet on the workbench as an on-off switch.


Preparing a good environment is key to making good products, we believe. Before we start the woodworking, there are plenty of jobs to do, aren't there?

Reza 6-8 (QLD silver ash + Jarrah)

We have started selling the second batch of Reza 6-8, polyhedral shaped interlocking puzzle made of QLD silver ash + Jarrah.

One of the pieces is branded by the handmade branding iron that Juno has made from an M8 hex-head brass screw using a cheap Chinese CNC router.