I've got some exotic wood in a piece that's 1/4" x 3" x 24" and I want to cut approximately
1/4" wide pieces from it. THe best thing I can think of is to use a hobby type table saw (circular) Any advice???
underworld
It is so thin perhaps a straight edge and a razer knife would work?
Jim H
Well, it's 1/4" and it is pretty hard stuff. It's called Purple Heart ....more than twice as hard as Mohagany. I might try a small piece with the knife though.
If you access to a bandsaw with a good fence attachment, you can re-saw wood in a relatively thin thickness if need be, then recut these pieces into your desired width. The blade leaves a rough-sawn look to it, depending on how fast you feed it through and the type of blade you use. I have had good success using a 3/8" wide by 6 teeth per inch, and also a 1/4" by 10 TPI. I find this method is much safer than a table saw if you can live with the "rough-sawn" look.
Best regards in trains .. Dave
I've never worked with purple heart, but is it toxic at all? Some exotic woods are toxic or have allergy issues for some people. You might want to do a search online. You would want to use a face/dust mask and maybe latex gloves... It's hardwood, so I think you could cut it on a regular tablesaw or with a bandsaw.... Since you would be cutting such thin slices, you would want to use a zero-clearance insert on your tablesaw. Then do the following (I'm stealing this idea from Wood Magazine):
First, figure out the thickness of your blade - the kerf that will be lost when you cut. Then, cut a long piece of some other type of wood (pine etc) that is 1/4 inch + the width of the kerf - most likely this will end up being 3/8 inch.
Then, cut this long piece into 7 pieces, making 7 short strips that are 3/8 inch wide - these are spacers.
Your exotic board is 24/8ths wide, so you will get about 8 pieces out of it. Set your fence on the tablesaw so that the first rip will make a 1/4 inch cutoff to the left of the blade with the fence on the right side of the blade.
Now, clamp a piece of flat wood to the tablesaw table, snug up against the right side of the fence (the side away from the blade). A longish piece that is flat on the side that touches the fence.
Now, using the pine 3/8 strips you made earlier you will do the following:
A) rip a 1/4 inch strip from the exotic piece.
B) move your fence a little to the left and place one of the pine 3/8 strips between the right side of the fence and the board you clamped to the tablesaw, then lock the fence. You have now indexed the fence over toward the blade by 3/8 inch!
C) go back to step A until you make the last cut, leaving you with a 1/4 inch cutoff and a 1/4 inch piece left over!
Note: If you want the finished piece to be 1/4, you might want to fudge the width of the spacer pieces a little wider (maybe 7/16), so that after you sand the strips of exotic wood you will have 1/4 width left - this would reduce the number of good strips, but will result in a final product that is the width you want on the 7 pieces that are good.
Using a razor saw on an exotic hardwood might take you forever, man! Use a good carbide tip combination or rip blade in a tablesaw. I'm sure you have one or know someone who will be glad to let you borrow theirs. You might end up buying a new blade for the guy, though!
RIP Chewy - best dog I ever had.
WoW! Thanks!!! I think that will definately help me
I'm going to be getting a small hobby size (4 inch blade) table circular saw.....Harbor Freight has one for $49.99.
underworld,
Those are good points about the zero clearance insert (which you can make, even with limited tools, just takes time) use with the small pieces, actually, I use them with large pieces, and it would be good to make one for any saw you purchase. You can probably find instructions on many woodworking sites how to do it (pictures I always fins helpful)
Personally, I think You'd be better off with a $99 Delta saw available at Home Depot or Lowes (sometimes on sale for like $79). The purpleheart you are cutting is tough, though it's thin and you might get by with that 4" saw. One thing that concerns me about the 4" is the quality of blades available in that size, there are not many blades period available in that size. Even that $99 saw may have a tough time with regular board in purpleheart (like 3/4" thick). But I'm sure you don't want to spend a ton of money. If you get the $99 saw, you can use regular 10" tablesaw blades, which a decent one can be found for about $40 (what I paid for my first "decent blade", now I use nearly $90-100 blades, but they can be resharpened). Plus if you get the $99 saw, you could use it to do work around the house, build benchs, shelves, supports, and parts for your layout (ie, you could use the miter gauge that comes with it to make nice 45's), etc. that the 4" saw can't really do. Maybe someone with the 4" can chime in here.
I have a pretty serious woodworking home shop, and I'm more into that than trains, I just wanted to run my trains I had when I was a kid, and got onto this forum a few weeks ago.
Make sure you make yourself some push sticks so you don't loose any fingers. Have the blade about 1 tooth above the surfase of the wood and wear your safety glasses. Remember safety first. Today here at school for my HSers I am giving the table saw safetydemo and test. Purple Heart is a vey oily wood when you sand it on a disk or belt sander the edges will come out looking like carbon paper, really purplish color. Also it is very expensive. Good luck.
laz57
Hi,
I have a small table saw from Harbor Freight and do not find it at all usefull for strip wood. The rip gage is really flimsy and even after making my own which I could bolt to the table it was not satisfactory. The blade wobbles and this is what causes the bigest problem. I am going to get a decent bandsaw next time. The $50.00 to Harbor Freight would have made a good down payment.
I've cut my share in both hard and soft woods. The zero clearance insert is a must for a table saw. I can't add anything more than what Jim or Laz stated, except I love Wood Magazine, as much as CTT.
As for the saw. I would avoid Harbor Frieght. I picked up an 8" bench top table saw for my small jobs several years ago from Sears. Been great when you don't need "more power" from the big 10".
Good Luck.
Rod L.
I have had 4" saw made by Dremel for at least 30 years and have used it many times to cut pine and poplar into stripwood down to about 1/8 X 1/4. I would not try smaller. From what previous posters are telling you the Harbor Freight saw may not be of equal quality to the one I have used. I don't know if Dremel even makes a saw anymore. The problem with a full size table saw, which I also have, is that it has such a wide kerf that you lose a lot of wood.
Micro Mark has a very high quality model saw, but the price is as much as a moderately priced table saw.
http://www.ares-server.com/Ares/Ares.asp?MerchantID=RET01229&Action=Catalog&Type=Product&ID=80463
Thanks to everyone for all of the info/advice!!! The Dremel saw looks nice, I'll take a look around to see if they do still make it. As far as 4inch blades, the wood supply store has a really nice quality fine cut blade...and the kerf is only .08. The other thing I thought of earlier today is if there is some sort of jig for a dremel tool, as there are some very nice fine cut blades available for that and I already have a dremel tool. The stock wood I have is 1/4" thick and I would be cutting pieces about 1/4" wide.
Thanks!
Today I looked at a Delta 9" bandsaw. A local dealer has them on clearance for $69. I almost went ahead and bought it but I wanted to do some more research.
I've got that bandsaw! It's pretty good, but took a little more time to set up than I expected. There was an add-on fence you could buy, I got mine through Amazon.com (toolcrib).
http://www.amazon.com/Delta-28-181-Fence-9-Inch-Band/dp/B0000223AQ/sr=1-1/qid=1171175539/ref=sr_1_1/104-2844063-4980752?ie=UTF8&s=hi
You might be able to special order it or find on ebay or something.
Ja - my 2nd favorite magazine is Wood!
Penn State Tools (makers of my dust collector) sell this little saw, but I have never actually seen one in real life or used it, so I don't know if it's good or not. Blades are about $10 on their site as well.
http://www.pennstateind.com/store/mts3.html
Fred - that's a nice one. If I upgrade, that's the one I'd get. I could drive to their showroom in about 2 hours, so I'd skip paying the freight though!
http://www.grizzly.com/products/G0555
I've got a steel 4 wheel cart and a couple mobile bases from Grizzly (Shopfox) and they are great for the money!
Yep, it's industrial enough to keep up with large volumes of cutting, accurate enough too, and not so costly you cannot afford the thing. Grizzly was also wonderful with tech support, something that seems to be most important anymore with purchases. Jake
The Grizzly looks awesome! One of these days........
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