Chapter 6: Where'd the time go?

Wish I knew! If you find it please give it back, I need it.

There has been progress since my last post. Not as much as I'd like, but I'm getting used to that. One piece of advise is don't try using your bandsaw in your garage when it's freezing outside. It makes this thumping bang noise and the band stops going round. Turns out I snapped my first blade so I went in search of replacements. Despite buying my bandsaw from Screwfix they don't supply replacement blades for it, strange people. I used Woodford Tooling who also have an eBay shop called woodfordwm. They had a choice of blade lengths, widths and teeth per inch (tpi). The more teeth the better the finish of the cut, you also can improve the cut finish by cutting slower. The wider blade is stronger, but the narrower blade can cut a tighter curve. The blade length depends on your bandsaw so check the instructions for that one.

I have been making preparations to bend the Top and might even get around to completing that job next weekend.
First off I have recut the three curve forms and made four more. I came up with this method of getting them all as alike as posible.

Having found that M8 bolts are a good fit in the groove of the bandsaw table I made the extension plate out of aluminium sheet and bolted it down. I then made the two side cuts so that I could fold down the sides of the sheet. This gives it some rigidity and the sides are against the edge of the table so it doesn't droop. I worked out that the curve I need is just over 31cm radius so I then drilled a hole that far out from the bandsaw blade. The arm was then drilled so that it's length from the pivot is about 28cm to keep it clear of the blade. I carefully drilled two nail holes in the end of the arm so I could also repeatedly drill a matching two holes in the pieces of wood to make them all the same.

The good news is that I have seven blocks of wood with identical curves in them, the bad news is that the curves are slightly off from each other. Fortunately I have gone through the collection and found that I just need to put a little packing under five of the blocks to make them match. Not wishing to spend the rest of my life fettling these blocks I figured that would do me.

Meanwhile elsewhere:
I have also been looking into making the wood bend.
Apparently you can get some great flexibility by using chemicals like ammonia according to a YouTube video I found. But given my prowess and luck so far that looks like a good way to get into a lot of trouble.
The more traditional methods are either steaming or soaking in hot water. Sören Åhker suggests the hot water method and, as it looks the safest plan, that is what I am planning on doing.
Now, last time I checked, wood floats so I need to make a bath for the wood that will keep it under the water. I bought an oversize roasting tin from Nisbets and used some metal bars and bolts to make the supports for the wood.

The outer bolts will stop the wood drifting to the sides. The inner bolts are the ones that will hold the wood under the water. The heads of the bolts are at the bottom end to give a bigger surface area so hopefully they won't mark the wood, but I am aiming to put them towards the four corners where the wood will be cut away anyway. The length of the wood is just short of the length of the tin so it won't go anywhere that way. Quite simply I plan to put the wood in, fill the tin with hot water and try to keep the temperature up for about an hour or so until the wood becomes flexible enough to bend over the forms I've just made.

Tune in next time to find out what happened!