Well, I re-learned a lesson last night….over and over I go to the workshop at night to relieve stress from a stressful day at the office…and invariably I screw something up. Woodworking relaxes me, but until I am sufficiently relaxed I am not focused enough for delicate or dangerous work. This is why I am not good at golf.
If I am tense and tired, it is no time to try to do delicate work with power tools. At best, I damage a project, at worst, I damage myself.
Last night I got lucky and only damaged a project. I tired to "improve" the 1/16-inch diameter deviation on the French Baker’s Pin that I made my wife (mentioned in an earlier post.) Instead, I made the deviation significantly worse. I was trying to use a "sizing tool" attached to a parting tool (sort of a "C" bracket that attaches to the parting tool with thumb screws). I set the tool at the desired diameter and swept it back and forth across the length of the baker’s pin.
While the sizing tool does help to create a piece of uniform size, it causes tons of tear-out. Seems like this tool is only good for sizing grooves in a piece, and not rounding to a uniform diameter.
Back to the drawing board for other methods to create an "exact" uniform diameter spindle.
About mattsanf
Matt Sanfilippo is the Chief Partnership Officer (CPO) for the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Co-Director of its Engineering Research Accelerator. In this role, Matt coordinates and enables strategic and sponsored research opportunities across the college, and stewards the development of proposals for major research opportunities along strategic themes. Additionally, he enables collaboration among the college's research institute/center executive directors, and industrial and government relations personnel in the pursuit of opportunities with industry, federal and state governments. Before becoming CPO for the College, Matt was the Senior Executive Director for Research Initiatives, the Executive Director of CMU's SII (Smart Infrastructure Institute) and ICES (Institute for Complex Engineered Systems), and Associate Director of PITA (Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance) and RAMP (Research for Advanced Manufacturing in Pennsylvania).
Before CMU, Matt was Managing Director of Applied Technology for Michael Baker Corporation, an engineering and energy services firm. Matt managed Baker's technology division including Geographic Information System (GIS), software and web development, multimedia, virtual reality, visualization, Global Positioning System (GPS), mapping and surveying services. Before joining Baker, Matt was an Innovation Director for Redleaf Group, a Venture Capital/Operating Company focused on information security, supply chain and mobility solutions. While at Redleaf, Matt managed technical due diligence for seed-stage investments and coordinated relationships between Redleaf and their partner companies. Prior to Redleaf, Matt was CIO of GZA GeoEnvironmental Technologies, an infrastructure engineering firm, and operations manager for their Internet start-up that focused on web-technologies for health and safety and manufacturing metrics.
Matt is on the board of Larson Design Group (LDG), past Chairman of the Board for the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden, current board member of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation (PHLF), current Vice President of the Sewickley Heights Gun Club (SHGC) and former member of the Information Sciences and Technology Advisory Board for the Pennsylvania State University Beaver. Matt is also former Vice President of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Association of Internet Professionals and former Vice President of the Board of Trustees for Baker Combined Charity of Pennsylvania.
A Learning Adventure in the Workshop 