Tools in Review

With the move across the country and a new job, I have had to purchase some tools that I have lost access to or just left behind. Here are some highlights.

A new lawn mower

I decided to ditch the gas lawn mower and left it in California.  I have heard good things about the Greenworks system and that is what I went with.  I have the lawnmower, edger and blower that work all on the same battery.  I have not been disappointed.  To be fair I have not mowed my entire lot in one go.  The single battery is able to cut the entire front yard.  I don't have grass in the back so not sure if it will do both.  To put things in perspective, I have a half acre of land.  This is the first time that I have had a self propelled mover.  It is nice to say my youngest had fun "pushing" it by himself.  Now he just needs to learn how to turn.




New Planer
I went with the home  brand standard of the DeWalt DW735.  It is a good planer and had access to one at my previous job.  I had always thought I would get the Shelix head to go with it.  But then there was a realization.  The new head would cost about $500.  New blades are $55 each and they are sharpened on both sides.  If I would replace them every year (this is a guess), It would take me 10 years to pay for the Shelix head.  By that time I may want to upgrade or go a different route.  While the Shelix is a good cutter head, I don't see the need to drop the money on one right now.  This may change now that I have to buy my lumber in the rough not surfaced two sides.  The biggest issue, and it is big, is that it does not hook up to a standard shop vac hose.  I am not sure what the connection is but I am taping the hose on right now.



New Cordless Tools
I broke down and got new DeWalt drill, diver and circular saw.  My old drill was no it's last legs and needed to be replaced.  Not much to say with the systems that I purchased.  The drills are smaller and easily used by my kids.  They helped me repair the fence.  The circular saw is a game changer.  Needed to cut a 2x4 stud to length and I didn't need to go to the chop saw.  I will say that the saw is a battery drainer.  I have two 2 amp batteries and it will drawing the batteries cutting down sheet stock.
New Hand Tools
This was the reason that I went to the Woodworking Show.  I picked up a hand saw and marking gauge at Lee Valley.  I am looking to do more traditional joinery on some furniture that I am making and these are kind of important in the laying out consistent marks.  I also picked up a square and marking ruler at Wood Peckers.  I know that these are square and it is amazing on how far off my other marking tools are.

The Woodworking Show

The nice thing about moving back east is there are the Woodworking Shows back here.  They stopped doing them on the west coast several years ago.  I have to say, it is an expensive not worth it show.  They advertised Kreg, Erlex and other vendors there. I was hoping to go to get some deals on some tools I needed for upcoming projects.  Well it was mostly resellers, so the deals were not there.  The entire show was something that I walked in an hour.  I had a nice chat with the Grex vendor about sprayers.  Purchased a couple of tools from Lee Valley and Wood Peckers. Probably will not go again. 

That being said I am interested in going to some of the larger shows, but that will require a little more planning and travel.  

New Dust Collection

Last year I bought a shop vac and dust deputy from Home Depot.  I was pleased how they worked but did not like the amount of room it took up.  I came across a video on YouTube that had this design for it.  The link can be found here. This is not my design, but I did make some changes to the original design.  One thing was that I had a different vacuum.  When I went to shop for the parts, I found that the 2 ½” PVC coupling was not snug in the foot attachment holder.  I did not think this was going to be a big problem at the time.  As I was putting it together, the legs were too loose to pull around the shop to various tools.

The fix to this was to make a table out of 2 ½” PVC.  It is amazing how sturdy this is.  It is also difficult to remove pieces that were not cut to the correct dimension.  Overall, it came together in a few hours and works well. 

On the subject of using this as a vacuum, I find the system lacking.  I lose too much suction in the system to use effectively.  It does great pulling the sawdust from the machines because it is a closed system.  When I attach the floor attachment it does not seem to pull enough with the separator attachment.  Maybe I need a vacuum that pulls more CFM, but that is something I am not going to worry about.  I like how it works now.

Here is an update to the last paragraph.  Since I filled up a bucket, I swapped out to a new bucket.  The new bucket was purchased last year for the wood working class.  That bucket worked so much better.  Apparently a used beat up bucket does not work as well as a new one.