cycollins
05-06-2007, 03:59 AM
The manual mentions that the CW machine can theoretically take any length of board, but that for a very-long board, one ought to set up mechanical supports to extend the function of the folding outfeed tables. It also says, "no fair just holding the boards up with your hands when they hang too far out of the machine." (I'm paraphrasing a bit, but you get the idea).
I've been building a very long (~40") sled, in order to carve large projects, maintain contact with both compression rollers, and allow insertion, removal and replacement of the work piece, without disengaging the board-tracking sensor (whose name I just learned thanks to some helpful forum users who helped me disambiguate it from the board sensor - I used to call it "The little brass wheel thingy"). Needless to say, the neighborhood of 40" is easily long enough to require some of these auxiliary outfeed helpers. So what to use? Obviously I could use some ad-hoc thing like a saw-horse or something, but I wanted it to have a roller to smooth the uptake of the board as it slid onto the support. I also wanted it to have adjustable height, since the height is critical - too low: board levers down after leaving one of the compression rollers during length measurement - too high: board either bumps into the support causing x-axis stalls and/or levering of the board up into the machine or slides onto the support levering the machine up, arching the board, causing x-axis stalls and generally making life miserable.
So, I went hunting at Home Depot. There is no guarantee of successful hunting for a nebulous tool or work-surface at Home Depot. The people there are generally helpful and well-intentioned but a bit too busy to be imaginitive on your behalf. So when you ask them for "a thing to help support long boards when the come out the back end of a bench tool", they tend to squint there eyes and point vaguely in the direction of the aisle with ladders and sawhorses. So after making a quick survey of a number of other aisles with storage and shelving solutions, I headed over to the ladder and saw horse aisle with low expectations. What I found (hidden next to some sawhorses, behind some guy's abandoned roller full of lumber) was so perfect, I thought I'd share it with the forum. Cheap and to-the-point (much more so than my rambling posts).
It's just what it looks like. A single big roller on a folding base with adjustable height - $20.00. I bought two - one for the front and one for the back. If you're headed to Home Depot, the brand is "WorkForce" and the short-hand name for it is a roller stand. The high-end woodworkers on the forum already know things like that, but for people like me, who use the CW to convert their computer skills into woodworking skills, these things are minor miracles. There's a more-expensive version here: http://pricecutter.com/product.asp?pn=489-9118
and a less-expensive clear-out sale on this one:http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?familyid=4603
Cheers,
cycollins
I've been building a very long (~40") sled, in order to carve large projects, maintain contact with both compression rollers, and allow insertion, removal and replacement of the work piece, without disengaging the board-tracking sensor (whose name I just learned thanks to some helpful forum users who helped me disambiguate it from the board sensor - I used to call it "The little brass wheel thingy"). Needless to say, the neighborhood of 40" is easily long enough to require some of these auxiliary outfeed helpers. So what to use? Obviously I could use some ad-hoc thing like a saw-horse or something, but I wanted it to have a roller to smooth the uptake of the board as it slid onto the support. I also wanted it to have adjustable height, since the height is critical - too low: board levers down after leaving one of the compression rollers during length measurement - too high: board either bumps into the support causing x-axis stalls and/or levering of the board up into the machine or slides onto the support levering the machine up, arching the board, causing x-axis stalls and generally making life miserable.
So, I went hunting at Home Depot. There is no guarantee of successful hunting for a nebulous tool or work-surface at Home Depot. The people there are generally helpful and well-intentioned but a bit too busy to be imaginitive on your behalf. So when you ask them for "a thing to help support long boards when the come out the back end of a bench tool", they tend to squint there eyes and point vaguely in the direction of the aisle with ladders and sawhorses. So after making a quick survey of a number of other aisles with storage and shelving solutions, I headed over to the ladder and saw horse aisle with low expectations. What I found (hidden next to some sawhorses, behind some guy's abandoned roller full of lumber) was so perfect, I thought I'd share it with the forum. Cheap and to-the-point (much more so than my rambling posts).
It's just what it looks like. A single big roller on a folding base with adjustable height - $20.00. I bought two - one for the front and one for the back. If you're headed to Home Depot, the brand is "WorkForce" and the short-hand name for it is a roller stand. The high-end woodworkers on the forum already know things like that, but for people like me, who use the CW to convert their computer skills into woodworking skills, these things are minor miracles. There's a more-expensive version here: http://pricecutter.com/product.asp?pn=489-9118
and a less-expensive clear-out sale on this one:http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?familyid=4603
Cheers,
cycollins