My "staycation"

I was planning to head south this week, but it was not meant to be ... the AC went out, and that became a priority. No, I didn't fix it myself--but we ended up replacing the outdoor part of our heat pump outfit. Rather painful.

Not that this kept me from spending some money, however. I picked up a pretty hefty sander on craigslist. I wish I had taken some better "before" shots, because it was very rough ... most of the paint was off of it, and there was quite a bit of surface rust. The cast iron tables were in very bad shape and the whole thing was of course filthy. So I spent the last couple of days rehabilitating the sander, tearing it down, cleaning it thoroughly, sanding and polishing the cast iron tables, and painting the whole thing. I can honestly say that I know a lot more about how this thing works than I do about most of my other tools (since this is a sander, which is pretty basic, that might not be saying much). You can get a little bit of an idea of its original appearance from this shot, maybe:



The older Grizzly tools were a much sicklier shade of green. The Rustoleum I used was a pretty close match for the current color scheme. Because that's so important to me! I thought about making it some dramatically different color, just for kicks, but for some reason, I didn't.

I probably have about 15 hours in this thing. I did have to order a part for it that will be delivered tomorrow, so that's why the disc table isn't on there; the mounts are pretty fragile, from the look of them, and one was shattered.

Can't wait to fire it up and try it out ... it's bigger than it looks, maybe ... 1 hp motor, 6 x 48" belt, 12" disc. The little Harbor Freight model I have looks like a toy next to it, but that thing has held up wonderfully. I don't think I'll retire it, but it's quite puny in comparison ... it's very easy to stop the motor entirely by exerting too much pressure on the belt. And the plastic table on the HF sander is puny to the point of being useless ... it won't stay where you put it. Still, the belt sander is useful; maybe I'll keep a finer grit on it and use coarser grits on the Grizzly for hogging off lots of wood (not that my measurements and cuts are anything but precise!).




Ain't that purty?

Yes, I read Don's blog, not because I knit, but because I understand and respect his devotion to/obsession with his craft. I sometimes wish I felt this way about my job.