I need more clamps

And slower setting glue. Last night I made a trip over to the Lowe's and picked up some red oak for test purposes. A far cry from the hardwood dealer in terms of quality. I had to spend the better part of 20 minutes digging through the piles to get straight wood from the twisted and warped majority. I walked out with enough staight peices to get some practice in on mortise and tennons. Maybe a small plant table or end table will do the trick.

I picked up some 1x2x8' peices to glue together for the legs. So I laid the 2 boards on the work bench, put a line of glue down one, spread it with a plastic scraper, and then hurriedly put just about every clamp in the shop on the 8ft length. When I got done I had a mess of glue and a clamped up pair of boards with 50lb of clamps on it. It is a bit overkill, but it turns out c-clamps were about the best thing I had to generate enough clamping force. Before doing this type of glue up again I will need some more small f-clamps and some more cauls to better distribute the pressure.

After cleaning up the glue mess I was off to the tablesaw. I wanted to verify my measurements on the blade alignment. So I hacked together a quick jig to hold my digital calipers.

It actually worked pretty good. Now I have an accurate number for how out of adjustment my saw is. Looks like it is about .001" over the manufacturers range for alignment front to back. Not too good. I think I will need to drop the whole motor and trunion assembly and file the brackets slightly to get this bugger into alignment. I am just out of wiggle room in the direction that the blade needs to move. Drat.

I assembled the riving knife on the saw. I am not sure it is much use since it doesn't lower or tilt with the blade. So for those operations and also for dado work I will have to remove it. But I figure it is one of those ounce of prevention devices. The small cost of the parts is cheaper than the alternative if it saves an accident in the shop.