Tapered the legs...

I got up early this morning to taper the legs. I wanted to have them kind of curve and taper, but they're a little to small for that. I ended up just going with a straight taper. I tried to make a simple table saw tapering jig, but that was going to turn out to be a bunch of work. So, I did a quick band-saw tuneup and cut the taper. The first cut didn't go as expected. At first I thought I had hit a really hard knot. Turns out the drill press was in the way. Mistake #221. After moving the drill press, the tapers went fairly quick.

Unfortunately, at this point I got pretty into what I was doing and forgot to take pics. Basically, I cleaned up the horrible bandsaw job I did to get the tapers. I used my No. 7 plane and got it down nice and flat, then I took my cabinet scraper and cleaned up the transition. They're by no means perfect, but they'll do.

Once I finished the cleanup, it was time for quick sanding and a glue up. Again, I was on a roll so the only picture of the entire leg & apron glue-up that I have is the one you see here.

While I was letting the glue dry I did a final sanding on the cabinet. I progressed from 100 up to 220 grit and put a 2lb cut of shellac on the cabinet, then set it outside to sun dry. Worked pretty well.

Ohhhh yeah...

... the ball bearings came in. They worked great. Unfortunately, the tires that the blade rests on have "flat spots" on them. So when the blade is feeding through the guides it moves left to right about 1/4". That ain't good. So, the band-saw remains in pieces until I can get replacement tires.

I flattened a board today. 4 sides, by hand. Maybe 1/64" out of flat. That's pretty good. The edges were square to the faces as well. I was pretty proud.

Band saw bearings...

... have not come in yet. I went to a couple of places around town but they would only sell to businesses. Then I found one company that would sell "... to anyone with money." So, I ordered a couple of bearings Wednesday. The little buggers were expensive at $13 a piece. Hopefully, they will come in today and I can complete my band-saw tune up tomorrow. The poor little band-saw, in so many pieces. Pics if I have time.

Bandsaw...

So I watched the Wood Whisperer episode on band-saw setup and tuning. So, I decided to try and tune up my 10" Rockwell. Yeah, the wheels were WAY out of plane, by about a 1/2", so I fixed that. I also replaced the steel guide blocks. I read an article that rated "Cool Blocks" as really good, but they're around $15. That same article said that if you had some hard maple laying around you could make your own. Well I had hard maple. I made 2 blocks for the top guides and left the steel bottom guides. The top thrust bearing was fine, but the bottom had seized up and had a groove the size of the blade. So I need to get a new thrust bearing before I finish tuning.