OK, actually last night and today, but that would have made the title of this post entirely too long.
After a crazy week at work, last night I finally got the opportunity to get back out into the shop to continue work on the crib. As I'm waiting for my mortising machine to arrive, I didn't want to start working on the rails for the sides of the crib as, if I remember correctly, you should always make the mortises first...that way if you screw up the mortise you can cut the tenon to match. So anyway I decided to skip ahead to cutting the slats for the sides of the crib...the plans call for 46 of these things.
As I'm looking at the blanks to be ripped into the slats, I'm trying to decide the best way to rip them without having a chunk of hard maple (which is exactly that...really hard...and heavy) flying back at me. The last thing I wanted to do was to start off the weekend making an example of myself. As I eyed the table saw and, being the eternal pessimist, thinking of all the things that could go wrong, I turned around to the bandsaw. Figuring that ripping the slats using the bandsaw would greatly reduce my chances of injury, I set up the fence to rip my slats 7/16" wide...they were to be cut a bit wider then I needed so that I could plane them down to remove the saw marks.
So I get started...jointed and planed four 30" chunks of maple down to 1 3/8" and commenced the rippage. I was having a good ol' time, rippin' and jointin', when suddenly it dawned on me...I never checked to see what the actual thickness of the finished cut was...
Now, on to the first lesson...never believe the measuring rule on the fence. (My sincerest apologies to those who were waiting to hear about the self-amputation of a digit...no dice, still counting to ten). See, I'd never used the fence on the bandsaw for ripping anything, so I had no idea that it was off...about 1/8" off, to be exact. So instead of ending up with a bunch of slats 7/16" wide, I ended up with a bunch of slats a hair under 5/16" wide. And as the plans called for slats 3/8" wide after being cleaned up, I was left with a pile of kindling. I'm sure I'll find some use for them sooner or later, but nevertheless, I was rather, well, pissed and promptly called it a night. I had truly ruined enough wood for one day. Luckily, however, I didn't finish ripping all the too-skinny slats...only about half.
Headed back out this afternoon to resume the festivities. After last nights bandsaw debacle, I decided to make a test cut on the table saw, just to see if I could do it without launching said maple across the shop. The table saw actually did the job quite nicely, which brings me to the second thing I learned today...Forrest table saw blades are everything they are cracked up to be. I had what I thought was a fairly decent 40 tooth blade that worked pretty well on thin stock, but after trying to use it to mill the blanks for the legs of the crib, it quickly got put on the shelf. At first I thought that maybe my saw wasn't capable of dealing with stock that thick, especially hard maple. So I decided to try out the Woodworker II. Went through that wood like it was butter. And that blade (and the old saw, for that matter) earned its keep today as I was able to rip everything you see below...and yes, I'm still counting to ten. And I am quite happy to report that no wood was flung in the process.
Tomorrow, however, will most likely be a wood-ruining-free day...the Daytona 500 is tomorrow and all...
One last thing as a post-script...no, I have no affiliation with Forrest Blades or any of their resellers. I just think their blades kick ass.