More Woodworking

I'm still trying to put the woodshop in order. The photo shows a Milwaukee orbital sander that's probably at least thirty years old. I got it from the Career Center I used to work at after the students dropped it on the floor and broke the handle off. I offered to weld it up but the instructor said he was just going to trash it because the pad on the bottom was shot and it already had quite a few miles on it. I grabbed it up, welded the handle back together and brought it home. I only used it a couple of times because most all of my woodworking was done at the Career Center and later at the high school. Since I no longer have the luxury of doing all my work on company time, I took a hard look at the sander the other day and decided I'd try and see if I could come up with a new felt pad for the bottom of it. If so, I'd keep the sander. If not, out she goes. 

Of course the sander is old enough that there was no parts listing for it but I did find a pad that I thought I might be able to make work. Since they don't list the dimensions in the parts list, it was a shot in the dark ordering the larger replacement pad but I got lucky and the bolt pattern is the same, I just had to trim it down from a half sheet sander to a third sheet. I've got a little quarter sheet sander also that's out of commission. I think the wires are broken in the cord right as it leaves the sander body. I figured if I can fix the Milwaukee, I'd just toss the little one but I'll probably take it apart and see if I can patch it up - just too cheap to throw things away that are relatively easy to repair.

The photo shows a couple of pieces being glued up to make a drawer for my woodworking bench. Nothing fancy or elaborate. No finger joints or dovetails. Just something utilitarian to store a few things. One of these days I would like to try my hand at cutting some dovetails. We had a jig for that in the high school woodshop that worked really well. If I was planning on doing some serious wood working I might invest in one. Be nice if I was good enough to cut them by hand. Like everything else, you can be good enough with a little instruction and a lot of practice. Don't see that happening with all the other things I've got going on.

Looks like the nice weather is done for the season. Looking at some snow coming our way tomorrow maybe. That's going to limit what I work on but I'm happy with what I've gotten done lately. With the wife getting better and getting the floor in the back of the shop poured, I've been a happy camper. Barring any unforeseen disasters, I'm hoping for a very productive winter.