You should just go to harbor freight or Sears (does Sears still sell this stuff?) and get a router table with a cheap router and a fence. You can quickly trim all 4 sides and flip them over to put the new recess in. It will cost less than paying someone else to do it.
__________________
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep..to gain that which he cannot lose. Jim Elliot, 1949
[quote=jimgalli;657041]You should just go to harbor freight or Sears (does Sears still sell this stuff?) and get a router table with a cheap router and a fence. QUOTE]
I have a Sears Router Table with Skil router. The table is one of Sears' better ones. But, I went to use it to trim up a board for a miniature graphic the other day and found the opening in the fence was too wide for the board. They give you filler rings for the table but not for the fence (unless I've lost them). I'm going to make an auxilliary fence I can attach to the one on the table to make the opening smaller or better yet variable. Should take care of it.
You should just go to harbor freight or Sears (does Sears still sell this stuff?) and get a router table with a cheap router and a fence. QUOTE]
I have a Sears Router Table with Skil router. The table is one of Sears' better ones. But, I went to use it to trim up a board for a miniature graphic the other day and found the opening in the fence was too wide for the board. They give you filler rings for the table but not for the fence (unless I've lost them). I'm going to make an auxilliary fence I can attach to the one on the table to make the opening smaller or better yet variable. Should take care of it.
Dan
Mine found me used from God knows where and the fence is long lost. I just clamp another piece of wood with a striaght edge where it needs to be and have at it. I also cut and / or enlarge my holes in the boards with this thing freehand which is dangerous as hell. I count my fingers when I'm done. So far so good. I have a 3/4" Carbide cutter and it never gets changed.
__________________
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep..to gain that which he cannot lose. Jim Elliot, 1949
I have an under $50 Harbor Freight drill press and a set of their forstner bits for cutting the lens openings (I drill undersize and then use a dremel to open them up if necessary). My router bits are a set of something like 15 carbide bits from HF at under $30. Their stuff is fine for light use - I can't imagine a contracter using it.
I was in Harbor Freight the other day and looked at that saw, it is the cutest little thing I've seen in some time. The also have a tiny little cut-off saw that I'm going to pick up for some metal work I need to do.
My wife has one of those saws. They are not worth the cost to have them hauled away. The blade depth adjustment is done by loosening a wing nut then sliding the table up and down in a cast guide. The table flexes, the blade flexes. Nothing ever repeats. They are nearly impossible to adjust. A Dremel table saw would be MUCH better. I made my first cameras and lensboards on a Dremel table saw. Dremel saws are now going for big bucks on Ebay however. If you have room, virtually any other table saw besides the mini saw from HF is a good choice by comparison. The mini chop saw you mentioned is a much better tool but also suffers from flexing.
I think that the ultimate setup for someone tight on space would be a minilathe with a saw arbor and an adjustable table. It seems like most of the small saw manufacturers think small needs to mean junk.
__________________
Barry Young
Young Camera Company
Sponsored Ad. (Subscribers to APUG
have the option to remove this ad.)
Thanks. The chop saw is just going to be for crude cutting, I'll clean up the edges of the metal on my milling machine. At the price if it saves the time and energy spent with a hacksaw, it will be worth the price. However I do expect it to die a quick death (back to the hacksaw), and I'm only going to work aluminum with a little bit of stainless rod (4mm diameter). At the price it is simply and experiment to see just how bad it really is.
I did get to look at the table saw, it did look extremely cheesy, but cute at the same time. I hear good things about the MicroLux saws. I've also considered building a table saw out something like a Ryobi 4 inch portable circular saw. The circ saw I have in the kit of 18 volt tools actually has put up with a bunch of hard work for me, so it might make a decent table saw with the correct AC power supply.
Thanks, I will be cutting a little bit of 4mm and 8mm stainless, I expect to snap a few blades on that stuff. I also ordered some 3 inch abrasive blades to see if they will fit (they were cheap). The arbor is the same size, so it is a calculated risk. Mostly it will be cutting aluminum bar (6061) up to about 3/8 thick. They claim the accuracy will be so good that I can cut right to the dimension that I need, I expect I'll need to finish mill about 1/16 off the ends to true them up.
I was thinking of buying one of those Harbor Freight table saws, but after some quick googling--it seems like a lot of them burn out easily or arrive broken. I found a decent rated, but inexpensive 10" table saw--the Ryobi BTS10S.
I don't expect wonders for $99, but it seems like it might be handy for light large format cutting needs--lensboards and the like. Is a 10" saw too large for cutting lensboards and other small pieces?
Linear Mode
