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I think I need a brushcutter but I'm not really 100% sure. My yard has a lot of loose rock retaining walls that have grass growing wild up between the stones as well as rock edging around raised garden beds. Oh, and a good portion of the back yard (and some of the front) is overgrowing with blackberry bushes. I currently have a battery powered string trimmer but it's not very powerful and the string gets thrashed extremely quickly against the rocks so requires constant bumping. Any recommendations on what a good brand/cutting head would be for this situation? I don't know a whole lot about brushcutters other than looking at the marketing sites for some different brands like Stihl etc plus seeing a few in home depot. I have a gas mower (4 stroke I guess since it has separate gas and oil?) so a gas trimmer/cutter that used the same would be ideal.
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Jun 3, 2013 23:59
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Cpt.Wacky posted:A bit late and no one answered this so here: Get a Stihl string trimmer. I have the FS 55 R. Then get a Pivotrim replacement head (about $20). It has 4 little pivot things that you thread lengths of trimmer line through. The idea is they pivot when hitting something like a fence or rock and last longer. Get a big roll of trimmer line and cut a bunch of them to the right length. When you're ready to go out trimming just grab a few and put them in your pocket. I found they last long enough that I don't need to replace them for at least several jobs. Too late! I stopped by a place today and picked up an Echo trimmer. The place carried Stihl, Echo and Shindaiwa. Shindaiwa was more expensive and some people online seemed to be of the opinion that they went way downhill since Echo bought them. The Stihl and Echo ones were the same price but the Echo's had a 5 year warranty compared to the Stihl's 2 year. I got the SRM-225 It has a bump head but the line is super easy to put in. Takes about 30 seconds to load about 12 feet of line which seems kinda cool. Plus the sales guy tossed in a starter pack (gas can, oil and a roll of line) and a hat. Oh and they filled up the gas tank for me haha. The only downside is it won't deal with my Blackberries but maybe I'll look into a hedge trimmer for that or something. I don't know.
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Jun 9, 2013 05:18
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Cpt.Wacky posted:That's cool, Echo is a good brand too. You can always get the pivotrim head later and swap it in. You're going to have to dig out those blackberry roots anyways or they just keep coming back. I've heard of injecting Roundup into them but never tried it. Good luck! Thanks, they grow hella fast for sure. If I leave them for a week or two the sprouts are 3 feet tall!
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Jun 9, 2013 17:11
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Be like us Canadians and use Robertsons  Seriously, Torx are probably better though I guess.
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Jul 2, 2013 21:17
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wormil posted:Showing @ $280 for me. $60 for me: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...&pf_rd_i=507846 If that's the one being talked about. vvvv What are the odds...replying to a 2 hour old post within 2 minutes of each other. Squibbles fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Oct 3, 2013 |
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Oct 3, 2013 23:16
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Christobevii3 posted:Bosch 12v drill and mini impact with two batteries is $129 now. The bare sawzall is $79 on amazon. Sold out on amazon now sadly.
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Nov 6, 2013 18:19
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On the note of watching for sales I use the goon-made camelcamelcamel.com to monitor for the prices I want on amazon. Plane question. If I'm looking to make things like shelves, tables, desks, etc should I be looking into getting hand planes or a jointer/planer? Additionally if it's hand planes what should I get? People seem fond of the old black stanley (pre 1950) ones? Should I just keep an eye on craigslist for them or is there a decent plane out there that is cheaper than the lee valley tools ones. ALSO, what size to look for, #5? or get bigger or smaller or multiple different sizes?
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Nov 18, 2013 04:00
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powderific posted:I bought an anant no 4 thinking that it'd be fine if my $30 Stanley block plane was fine and regret it. So far I've been completely unable to get it work well even after hours of sharpening and fiddling. I'm sure my complete lack of experience has something to do with it, but the little Stanley block plane was up and running after just an hour or so of sharpening and tweaking. I still have memories of highschool wood shop where we had to plane the surface of the desks since people had been writing on them. Pretty much every single person complained about their planes not working well (including me) only to have the teacher come over and demonstrate with the "broken" plane and carve up beautiful long ribbons of wood with no problem at all. Stupid "skill" requirements for manual tools :p
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Nov 18, 2013 17:46
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The Human Cow posted:Do any tools have an accurate laser? It seems like no matter which brand, type of saw, or whatever I try, they're always just a little off.
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Nov 26, 2013 19:51
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JPrime posted:Not sure if this has been posted previously, but I just got this from Amazon: I have that exact one and it works awesome... except that my upstairs uses some kind of vertical wooden slats for walls, not secured to studs but secured to horizontal strips of wood which are themselves attached to the studs... and the basement has drywall but the same horizontal wooden slat setup in front of the studs. So when you do find a nail/screw with it it's either going into a tiny 1/2 inch wooden strip or else you need a mega long screw to go through both the drywall and the horizontal strip and then into the stud.
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Jan 19, 2014 10:19
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kastein posted:The horizontal strips are called lath, they were used to hold up the plaster in old construction. Not plaster in this case. The upstairs has lovely stained wooden walls made up of vertical boards about 4 or 6 inches wide each and interlocked via tongue and groove I think. Because each board is not as wide as a stud they I guess they had to have those horizontal furring strips to hold it all in place. I assume that the basement had the same at some point before they replaced it with drywall but neglected to remove those strips 
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Jan 19, 2014 19:19
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Yesterday I learned that I should be careful because apparently not all circular saws have their guide fence parallel to the blade! I thought I was just lovely at using it but when I measured, sure enough it was way off, at least 1/8 inch from the front of the blade to the back. It's the lovely store brand "Haussmann" and was a on clearance at the Canadian hardware store Rona. I guess I know why it was on clearance now! Went out and got a milwaukee today. Haven't used it but I can already tell it's a million times better. Now to see if I can correct all the cuts I made on saturday. Uggh.
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Jan 27, 2014 06:38
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Bad Munki posted:Even on a high quality tool, you'll still want to take some time to dial in the fence. The guide on circular saws doesn't seem to be adjustable though as far as I can tell?
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Jan 27, 2014 17:54
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Yeah a handheld circular saw is what I was talking about sorry if that was unclear.
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Jan 27, 2014 19:31
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Yeah I already bought another saw so I guess I'll just keep the old one around for rough work that doesn't require accuracy or whatever. Maybe I can find a way mount it upside down as a poor man's table saw or something. I dunno.
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Jan 27, 2014 20:05
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Bad Munki posted:Just make that your freehand saw or whatever, I guess. Haha YES! Loan out faulty tools and nobody will come asking to borrow stuff again 
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Jan 27, 2014 20:08
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When I was running the saw along my guide rail (as Bad Munki suggested) I think it wanted to pull away. My cuts were maybe 2-3 feet long and I ended up being maybe 1/4 inch off by the far end. I kept the front corner touching the straight edge but the back kept sliding out no matter what I did. I think I bruised my hand trying to keep it in line. I'll see next weekend how the new saw handles following a straight edge. oh, also the cheap saw had a lot of resistance when sliding which turned out to be from some bumps around where the screws held the plate to the rest of the saw. I filed those ridges off last night but that was well after I had done all my sawing on saturday. Oh well.
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Jan 27, 2014 22:31
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Blackjack2000 posted:Guys, I think he's talking about the ripping guide... ? No not talking about that. Though the saw does have one it is rendered useless by the base plate not being aligned to the blade.
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Jan 28, 2014 07:07
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Blistex posted:Saw in question? Yeah similar to that but with a silver base. Or shoe I guess? I snapped a couple of pictures last night. The Saw  Front blade measurement. You can also see where those two black screws are, they had raised lips around them that was scraping along the wood causing tons of drag.  Back blade measurement.  This is the one I replaced it with on sunday: http://www.amazon.com/Milwaukee-639...lwaukee+6390-21 Squibbles fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Jan 28, 2014 |
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Jan 28, 2014 17:36
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Tim Thomas posted:I guess I still don't understand. Even if the blade is turned 45 degrees (think |/ instead of a ||), so long as the shoe is registered on the fence of your guide and you completely move the entirety of the blade through your cut, the cut will be straight. It's how tracksaws get away with the whole tracksaw thing; the baseplate doesn't need to be square, the guide does, and you cut through the guide to define the line of cut. Same deal with how cove cuts on a saw work. Yeah I think the blade was pointed away from the guide and so it was pulling away from the straight edge. At the time I didn't realize the blade was out of parallel so I was trying my hardest to keep the shoe lined up with the guide regardless of what the blade itself was doing. I was also being kind of dumb and just had the wood on some plastic sawhorses so the force I was exerting trying to keep the shoe parallel to the guide was trying to move the sawhorses around so I was having to use one hand to hold everything down and guide the saw with my other which wasn't all that stable. Plus I think I bruised my palm a little from pushing and twisting on the saw handle so hard. Anyway, it's all kind of a moot point because as I mentioned several posts ago, I now have a new much nicer saw. I might get to try it out Thursday now instead of having to wait for the weekend due to a planned power outage at my office so I'll be spending the day at home 
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Jan 29, 2014 05:28
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Splizwarf posted:This is terrifying. Please grab a helper or take a minute to rig a stable platform in a situation like that; juggling your attention and a power saw while pushing hard on multiple things is a great way to cut off both hands, your dick, and all your legs. I know and I'm dumb and I won't be doing that again.
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Jan 29, 2014 18:07
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New circular saw trip report: Milwaukee saw is awesome. Probably helps that I put a nicer blade on it too I guess. Still though, cuts straight as an arrow when following a straight edge. And cut through 3 layers of 11/16" plywood with ease, no real resistance felt at all. I really suck at free hand sawing though. I can't get the back to stay straight. I line up the notch on the front with what I want to cut but as I push the saw along the back either fishtails or my natural tendancy is to pull it slightly to one side or the other which makes the blade not line up with the cut line and also makes for wavy cuts. Is there a special technique for that or it is just practice? Oh, I also noticed something interesting, on this saw the blade can be set to extend so far down that the motor housing bumps into my straight edge guide. I have to raise it up an inch or so so that they don't interfere with each other. I guess it's good that the saw has the capacity to cut that deeply if I ever encounter something that requires such a thick cut.
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Jan 31, 2014 02:32
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Slugworth posted:Do you find that Milwaukee sort of heavy and cumbersome? I think I have the same model, and while it is a great saw, I shy away from it in favor of my lighter dewalt a lot. It's kind of heavy I guess but I think it's actually lighter than the saw I had before so not so bad. It seems easy enough to control since most of the weight is taken by the work piece anyway. As for how I was cutting free hand, I was trying to line up the mark on the front of the shoe with my cut line. There's no markers on the back to align and it would be tough to try and watch the blade itself without getting a face full of saw dust. I did most of the cuts using a straight edge, I was just wondering if there was a way to do it free hand.
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Jan 31, 2014 18:36
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t_violet posted:I used to use the notch or a speed square or a straight edge but then I took a class in framing. The instructor had us sight off the blade following a straight pencil line. My cuts are much straighter now, I just make sure I've got the sole plate snugged up against the surface and sight through the side of the saw (either side depending on orientation, tougher from the back side tho') to follow the pencil line. Good info, thanks  Oh, I learned something else today (not saw related this time). Irwin bar clamps: Not so good I picked up a couple of 36" bar clamps at Home Depot on thursday and today I was tightening one of them down, not even particularly hard and it broke! I went and exchanged it at Home Depot with no problems but I'm thinking of just returning both of them for a refund now that I see how weak that particular part of the clamp is compared to the ones they sell at Lee Valley. First, the Irwin clamp, the part that presses against the bar as you turn the hand screw to tighten seen in the picture below:  I tightened it down and heard a pop and all of a sudden the clamp was quite loose. Turned out that little bit of metal had snapped. 2 little bits of metal broke off, It broke along the red lines in this picture:  And now here's an equivalent clamp as sold by Lee Valley. Note how much thicker that little metal bit is:  Both claims claim to be able to do 600lbs of clamping force but the Irwin wasn't able to do anything close to that. Not like I measured but I really wasn't screwing it down very hard at all. I'll try to use them for the rest of this project and see how they hold up.
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Feb 2, 2014 05:03
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Hmm, I may pick up some Pony pipe clamps. I see KMS tools sells them locally. I got 4 of those lee valley clamps yesterday so I think I'm set for bar clamps for now
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Feb 2, 2014 21:55
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If you are handy with a soldering iron I think it's not too hard to do yourself? A friend of mine had a nicad pack that was all run down. He popped it open and it was just made up of a bunch of smaller cells soldered together. He went to a local battery specialty place and they sold him NiMH batteries of the same size and he was able to put it together himself. They would have done it for him I think without charging too much.
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Feb 2, 2014 22:47
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Bad Munki posted:My understanding is that black & decker is now the walmart brand. DeWalt seems to be the higher end of Black & Decker. B&D used to be good but I think they pushed their quality down and had DeWalt take the place of their decent tools? I'm just basing this off of the local DeWalt dealer/repair depot place selling B&D as well.
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Mar 10, 2014 16:40
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Bad Munki posted:Well, by walmart brand, I don't mean cheap (that's incidental), I mean cruddy. By definition, if it's built like a tank, it's not a walmart brand. To me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeWalt quote:In 1992, Black & Decker started a major effort to rebrand its professional quality and high-end power tools to DeWalt. So they have indeed made a concious effort to devalue the B&D name in favour of DeWalt I guess. Or rather rely on the B&D name to sell low end products based on their reputation and low cost but reserve the actual good quality stuff for DeWalt.
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Mar 10, 2014 17:52
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Picked up the ridgid r2510 portable table saw this weekend. Actually it's labeled r2513, not sure what the difference is. Home depot had it on sale for $450 (Canadian) for father's day. I considered the Bosch one but after reading a ton of reviews I couldn't justify the $150 price difference. I won't get a chance to use it right away, still gotta finish the drawers for my entertainment unit. But after that I have plans to build a computer desk, hallway bench, bed frame, dining room table, wine rack... yeesh so much to do, if only it would stop raining here Edit, actually one question. I read somewhere the riving knife is too thick for some thin kerf blades. The knife has a max and min blade thickness printed on it. I bought a 50 tooth Diablo blade that is thin kerf but I can't tell if it's too thin or not. It feels very close to the same thickness as the knife but there's no actual thickness printed on the blade or packaging. Anyone know off hand if the blade is thick enough? I think the min thickness printed on the knife is .094 inches Squibbles fucked around with this message at 04:21 on May 26, 2014 |
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May 26, 2014 04:11
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Robertson bits for life, yo
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Sep 9, 2014 16:18
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Yeesh, the Ridgid contractor table saw is down to $300 now at HD Canada according to their latest flyer. I guess they must be clearing it out for next year's model.
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Dec 5, 2014 06:48
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I got my Dust Deputy this weekend. Hooked it up to my Ridgid shop vac and it's amaaaaazing. Just as good as the reviews say. I vacuumed up all the sawdust I made over the christmas holidays building my desk, which ended up filling about half of the 5 gallon bucket on the deputy and none of it made it into my actual vacuum. Huzzah! I also tried it out hooked up to my table saw and router table and it works great both of them. Couldn't be happier with it Also I didn't realize this but the dust deputy has tapered connections so you don't need to have a 2.5 inch hose, the Ridgid 1 7/8" one will work too I think. Though if you did that you'd probably need an adapter to connect the hose to most tools anyway.
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Jan 12, 2015 06:41
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Mildly interesting story about pressure washers. I was talking to a lady once runs a booth at a local swap meet type place. Apparently they hunt around for used and/or clearance electric pressure washers. They buy them at auctions or clearance/bankruptcy sales or whatever. Then they make sure they work, mark them up a bit and contractors will come to their booth and buy as many of them as they have. Apparently consumer grade electric washers are considered disposable items by contractors who will just run them til they break down then pick up more at places like that. I guess it works out cheaper for them in the long run than investing in gas ones for some reason. Maybe they don't trust their employees with good equipment or something.
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Jan 30, 2015 06:04
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I own this router bit set and it's served me well. It doesn't have any of the really fancy bits (fanciest is an ogee bit), but it does most of the common jobs just fine. I have that set too and it's been pretty decent. The only other bits I have bought are a couple of up spiral bits and a slot cutter. The one up spiral bit I got with a quarter inch shank broke in half while cutting a groove in a piece of fir. All my half inch shank bits have held up though. Oh, I cut a bunch of finger joints in pine and the straight bits in that set gave a ton of tear out but the up cut bits did beautifully.
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Feb 10, 2015 17:12
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Crotch Fruit posted:I finished up all my cuts with a circular saw, and just in time too it appears. I purchased a brand new Bostitch 7 1/4" 140 tooth plywood blade and made about 16 2' long cuts in 3/4" plywood, and about 6 cuts in 1/4" plywood, by the time I made the final cut in 1/4" plywood my circular saw was starting to really smell like a bar-b-que. I know that the plywood blade does not have carbide tipped teeth due to the small tooth size, but do I need a new blade already? I made the mistake of buying a plywood blade from Canadian tire when I first got my circular saw. I think it was 200 or 180 teeth. It was absolutely brutal and terrible right from the get go with chipped and frayed edges everywhere. Then I got a 40 or 60 tooth dewalt blade and it cuts everything super smooth and clean.
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Feb 18, 2015 16:35
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Constantly re clamping my straight edge sucked, I tried using a triangle to square up the straight edge and that produced hilarious results each time, I finally just set my $10 caliper to the correct depth and used that to measure each end of the straight edge before and after clamping.
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ReelBigLizard posted:
After watching a few of the videos from Paul Sellers on sharpening planes and Chisels I finally got up the courage to sharpen my cheapo home depot chisels. It worked amazingly well and they both look better than when I bought them and are way sharper too Gotta work up the courage to sharpen my Veritas plane blade now. I guess I should get around to restoring my Stanley #5 and sharpen that first to make sure I can do it.
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Feb 25, 2015 06:59
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unfortunately.
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I'm thinking of building a drum sander. There's plans and instructions available from stumpy nubs (YouTube channel and web site). Anyway, they recommend a 1 to 1.5 HP motor to run the thing which is fine. It looks like I could buy one new locally for about $200. I've been keeping an eye on craigslist but pickings have been pretty slim. My question is, am I dumb for considering an electric lawn mower motor? Are those fundamentally different than the type of motor that is used in things like table saws? Any other type of motor I should look for to find one for cheap?
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Mar 8, 2015 04:34
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Here's the drum sander http://www.stumpynubs.com/snw50.html I had gathered a tefc motor is ideal. In the video they use a 3400rpm motor and use 2:1 pully ratio to slow it down to 1700. There's a good number of motor repair places around here actually though a lot of them seem more focused on big industrial type ones. Also 3 phase motors seem to be more common sadly. I should try phoning around I guess.
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Mar 8, 2015 05:33
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A nice thought about washing machine motors. A quick googling seems to indicate that most are 1/4-3/4hp though, a bit too weak for my purposes. Same with dishwashers and such. Hmm, I wonder what type of household item would come with something larger than 1hp other than a table saw or some such.
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Mar 9, 2015 00:31
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The Locator posted:Evaporative Cooler. Not sure why I didn't think of it earlier, I grew up working on one of these trying to keep it working before we had A/C. Any other large-ish blower like A/C air handlers I imagine, but I've never torn into the guts of an air handler to know what kind of motor it contains. Sadly those seem not too common around here in Vancouver. I did a quick search on craigslist and found 1 whole result for swamp coolers and none for evaporative coolers. It doesn't really get hot enough here on the coast where people have AC or similar stuff. Ah well, I'll just keep my eyes peeled on craigslist. Or once I'm ready to actually build this thing I might just hit up a few stores and see if there's any ok prices on reconditioned or new motors.
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Mar 9, 2015 03:27
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