Tips wanted

[martinka]

I started cutting a piece of 3mm birch play last night. It's a pattern of a 1914 car on a piece about 13"x8" but the ply is bent. Not much, but it's enough that I need to press down to stop it bouncing and this is making it difficult to turn. I did think about a piece of 6mm ply across the top and bottom, cut the middle of the pattern, then move the pieces to the middle and cut the edges. But, how would I fasten the pieces to the work? Can't glue it, and can't staple it or pin it as I cut it to finished size. No doubt there's a simple way to keep it flat, but it's evading me today. I blame the stress of this morning's trip to the dentist, so anyone else got any ideas?

With hindsight, I should have made the piece oversize and stacked it with some scrap ply, which would have made it easier to cut anyway, but I'm not known for planning ahead.

Ta...
Martin.

 

[Chippygeoff]

As you so rightly said Martin. You should have had the ply a bit over size. Its very difficult when wood had warped, especially in the hardwoods that I use. With me I can take a lot of it out on the belt sander but you cant do that. You need to apply as much pressure as possible around the blade area but its not easy as you have to turn the piece as well. In your shoes I would work from the middle outwards. I feel the more you work towards the outer edges the less bounce will occur. There is a way round this though and that would be to pin it to another piece of ply and put the pins in the waste area bits and you can leave the pins proud for getting them out afterwards. Hope this helps.

 

[ChrisR]

Martin.

I can think of two ways of temporarily fixing the 6mm ply strips, clamp and wrap with masking tape, then remove clamps or use double side tape as you would for routing.

Hope this is of help.

Chris R.

 

[martinka]

Cheers, Geoff. I've been to the good old standby, Wilko's, and bought some panel pins. It also cost me a small fortune for stuff that I didn't know I needed until I saw it.

as you would for routing.

The only routing I ever did was when I routed the wiring through the frame of a custom bike I built.

Martin.

 

[Chippygeoff]

Funny enough I also went to wilko's this morning and did exactly the same. I only went in for some bubble wrap and ended up buying four spotlights for my display, 2 extra storage boxes for stock, teak oil and a new broom.

 

[martinka]

The panel pin trick didn't work, the birch ply is stronger than the other bits of ply I have and bends it to the same shape. Well, except for other bits of birch ply, but I hate to make firewood out of something I paid for. I'll just have to persevere and hope for the best. I waxed the table and will polish it tomorrow, and I think I will do the same with the workpiece and hopefully that will make it easier. In the middle of the job I moved the metal band saw to get to something I'd dropped, and an hour later I had finished fitting swivel castors to the saw. Can't beat concentrating on one job at a time. :mrgreen:

Martin.

 

[ChrisR]

Martin.

Sounds like my school reports, easily distracted needs to concentrate more. #-o

Back to the problem with your bent ply, using the method as in my previous post, but instead of using the ply battons / strips, you used, maybe try something a bit more substantial for the brace even a thin strip of steel.
Just a thought.

Take care.

Chris R.

 

[martinka]

Cheers, Chris. Got a garage full of metal and all I think about is using wood with wood. Duh!

 

[Mike M]

You got some great advise, Martin.
One more thing is that you have good speed is not the blade will grab the wood.
Good luck.
FD Mike

 

[martinka]

You got some great advise, Martin.
One more thing is that you have good speed is not the blade will grab the wood.
Good luck.
FD Mike

Only got one speed, Mike. 1400spm, or whatever the single speed Hegner is.

My o/h is off work for annual holiday so there won't be much work done in the garage this coming week. And with my memory I'll probably need to ask all over again in a week's time.
I might sneak in for an hour if I am up early tomorrow morning
Martin.