Teak Temptation

Saturday saw me and Pete off in the Landrover over to see another UKWorkshop forum member in Winchester, principally to have a look at his Deft table saw. I have to say that it's a really great piece of kit and built like the proverbial 'outhouse' but I did leave with one or two niggles at the back of my mind. Firstly, would I use the capacity?..probably not, as I've never needed to saw anything larger than the current depth of cut of my Kity, so why replace it? Secondly, the crown guard is ingenious but has the huge disadvantage that you can't actually see the saw blade in motion as it's completely covered, so it's impossible to line it up at the start of an accurate cut. If I were in the market for a table saw for the first time, then the Deft would be a definite contender, but I came away on Saturday deciding that my money could be better spent elsewhere. Current thinking suggests that if a bigger doc bandsaw were purchased a little later, that would then take care of my requirement to handle larger pieces of timber...in theory.

On the subject of kit, the Camvac arrived on Friday night and I wasted no time in getting it plumbed in. It's very noisy in it's initial state, but if a couple of long hoses are inserted into the motor exit ports on the top lid, 75% of the racket is channelled away and it then becomes only slightly louder than my old chip extractor...the plus side is that it's far more efficient (it sucked up everything when I tested it out on the p/t) and will form the basis of an efficient extractor system in a couple of years. It's also got a far smaller footprint than the old machine which means that I'll be able to tuck it away under a bench.

Sunday was spent in relative peace and quite planing up the first sixteen sections of the revised coffee table. At first, the teak was a real and unadulterated pain in the aris as the LA Jack had to be rehoned after each alternate piece, but after a while, a rhythm sort of sets in and I got into the swing of the process and really quite enjoyed myself. What helped enourmously was that most of the material was chewed off with a wooden jack leaving just a mm or so to clean up to the gauge line.

I have to put my hands up again though and admit to having a whistfull sideways glance at the planer a couple of times...