Review of Laguna 2hp Mobile Cyclone Dust Collector

So a couple days ago, I posted a review of the Sens-Gard hearing protection... I never would have thought it would get the draw it did!  Hearing protection: the new sexy!

Other interesting thing... I got a bunch of emails asking about the Laguna 2hp Mobile Cyclone Dust Collector shown at the end of the video for the noise test.  What's funny is that I recorded this review before the Sens-Gard review.  Here I thought I'd get ahead on video for a change...

The summary? I love it.  Give the video a looksy to see why.  Some good stuff in there even if we're just talking about a dust bucket.

As mentioned in the video, many woodworking retailers are carrying this now including Rockler and Woodcraft.  Since I don't see it on both of their sites but have seen them both available in my local stores, it is possible that only certain stores carry them.

Review of SensGard Hearing Protection

Yeah, not a terribly sexy posting, but I like these quite a bit and that was the last thing I thought I'd say about hearing protection!

Since it's been at least a few weeks since I was a teen able to listen to heavy metal on "11" all day with obviously no damage (teens are invincible; stuff happens to other people...) I now actually find I like working with these on more than off.

SensGard makes two varieties of the ZEM hearing protection (you'll see it listed as ZEM not SensGard at local woodworking stores; dunno why).  A -26db attenuating and a -31db attenuating pair.

I wanted to review these about a year ago, but had no idea how to show you how well it works given my camera equipment at the time.  Now, I have a microphone I used so you can hear the difference.  I made sure the audio path to the camera wasn't going to mess with the sound so no automatic gain control or clipping.

Man, to think, just weeks ago I could listen to Iron Maiden at "11" with reckless abandon.  Hmm, that might have dated myself... okay, "few weeks" might be gratuitous...

Note: they won't stop the voices in your head.

Voilà, a video review of an audio product...

Fixing Veneer Bubbles and Related Topics

Let me be the first to admit that doing 12 veneered panels of varying sizes for the Angle Madness project in my shop is kinda no fun.  Takes all the available space between bags, work tables, "veneer flattening areas", and places to aerate the finished panels until they finish curing.  Plus at night when I'd think, "oh, time to go make another panel", I had flashbacks of the movie "Groundhog Day" only without the fun of ice carving.

All the burl panels came out great; only one has a bubble on it so we'll go repair it and talk about a couple other related topics including an experiment I did with some of the remaining scrap veneer to see how fine a gap you can get away with during a glue-up.

I've scraped and sanded all but this last panel now so we can move on to looking at the drawer webbing and back column.



Hope the weather in your area is starting to feel more like shop weather!


As an aside, I've been playing with different aspects of the video process to see how to fix some things I don't like about the current process.  One night while in the shop taking some test video, I saw a baby Gecko on one of the panels of the garage door:

It was fun to watch her scurry around looking for the smallest bugs that were attracted by the lights in the shop.  I say 'her' cuz I'm not seeing anything to say 'him', but I don't know Gecko parts well!

The interesting thing is that a friend of mine posted a similar shot to Facebook taken from their house window at very nearly the same time.  Two people replied with photos taken that same night.  An interesting coincidence!

Felt like scooping her up and putting her in the backyard; the ants this year are amazing... she'll be the size of a cow in no time!

A Lighthearted Interview with Christopher Landy

Christopher Landy over at TheLightHeartedWoodworker.com blog comes up with entertaining interviews from time to time.  He decided to pick on me last week, which was a lot of fun.  Here's the light-hearted interview transcript.

Angle Madness! - Veneering the 4-Way Bookmatch

In this episode, I work on the Maple burl panels that will adorn the tops of the drawer tiers.  Each is will be book-and-end matched more often called "4-way bookmatched".  However, as we discussed in the last episode, I'm placing the burl cloud to the outside edges of the panels, which adds an extra step in the second set of bookmatches of the "4-way".  You can see the burl cloud on these two panels.

We'll talk about testing for bubbles; I have one I found tonight on a burl panel; I'll roll a short video this weekend showing the repair.

The end of the video has a high-speed start-to-finish glue-up of the panel to act as a bit of a check-list for doing a panel glue-up in a vacuum press.  Easy to do, but I was surprised when I started annotating it just how many steps there are.

I was recruited to dog-sit for 3 weeks while my mom goes up to Canada to enjoy cool weather.  I thought maybe these two could be efficient "Pavlovian Veneer Tape Hydration Units"... I even had a dinner bell!  But they look a little useless in the shop. -sigh- just use the regular dispenser I guess...


...and because I know someone will ask :)  the tape on the pinky isn't because of a shop accident!  Went to stop a high clearing pass and it was a harder faster shot than I expected.  Right on the tip of the nail!  By the end of the game, the glove was a little messy.  I didn't work on the panels at all that week because odds are I would have 'stained' them just like all my keyboards now :-/  But... we won!  :)

By the way, High-Friction Guard Wrap from Lee Valley is absolutely fantastic for wrapping a dinged-up finger like this.  Sticks to itself, can be repeatedly removed and applied, breaths nicely, and doesn't slip.  Even if you don't plan on inadvertently stopping a puck with your finger nail, I'd highly recommend getting a roll both for its shop function of giving you better grip, but also as a top-shelf bandage wrap.