Toy car project, I could throw up...

[dbhost]

I got home, inspired to lay out my design on the glue up, which I did, and off to the band saw, and sander I went...


From the side, a beautiful, graceful curved shape...


A low, tapered, rakeish nose that even Lamborghini would be envious of.


A flip tail with a spoiler reminiscent of the can am racers of the 1960s and 1970s.


Shapely curves even modern sports cars strive for...

All was going so well...

Until I tried to make room for the wheels...

Need a roundish hole in the side for the side for a wheel opening, about 3/4" deep to manage the wheels I want. So I dug out the forstner bits...



WHAT was I thinking? UGH!!!!

First attempt at the VA drill press and these particular forstner bits...

Not blaming the bits, too fast an entry into the wood...

Must get drill press... Adjustable speed of some sort...

I could just puke...

I guess I am going to slice part of the car off, and redo that one side, and set it up as an open wheel car instead...

Excuse me while I kick myself...

[dbhost]

No pics yet, but I took the car to the band saw, lopped off the bad section, and cut my new curves, then sanded it out the rest of the way.... I got to relieve the edges with a simple sandpaper swipe, and will be hand sanding it tomorrow...

The pilot holes for the wheels are drilled, and I am taking a new tack on the wheels. Hole saw... I figure I should be able to make my own wheels out of 2x4 pine simply by picking my hole saw, and cutting a nice hole. This SHOULD in theory generate a plug in the shape of a wheel with an axle hole through it...

Of course right now a lathe would be a mighty handy tool to own, but I will have to deal with what I have...

I am looking forward to finishing this project up and getting it to my friend's son...

[shoottx]

Once you get the wood out of the hole saw, run about a 2 inch bolt through the center hole,with washers on either side, cjinch down with a nut and you can chuck it into the drill press on a slow speed and san the wood to any shape you want.

Look at the knobs here http://www.bt3central.com/showthread.php?t=40463 the knobs were done that way.

[dbhost]

And here I thought you cut those out on a lathe...

Thanks for the tip. I was actually considering that method...

[dbhost]

Hey shootx, how did you eject the plugs from the whole saw in one piece? I can't seem to figure out a non destructive way of doing this...

I should mention, I wanted to use at least 1.25" thick material, and I am coming up short in that dept due to limitations of my hole saws... They just aren't that deep...

[LCHIEN]

Hey shootx, how did you eject the plugs from the whole saw in one piece? I can't seem to figure out a non destructive way of doing this...

I should mention, I wanted to use at least 1.25" thick material, and I am coming up short in that dept due to limitations of my hole saws... They just aren't that deep...

First, drill about 2/3 or 3/4 the way though from the top then flip the wood and use the arbor bit to realign and drill the last bit - that way only a fraction of the wood will be in the hole saw. You'll have to sand off the resulting ridge. Remove the nut from the back of the arbor and pound the shaft into the hole saw this will help eject the wood blank.

1.25" thick is pretty tough for hole saws, try glue-laminating two 5/8" discs together?

You might try waxing the inside of the hole saw, but i never tried this it might just wear off before it does any good.

A big hint for hole saws... They are very bad about having no way to eject the cuttings, they stay in the groove and keep getting cut, they fill the gullets and turn solid and keep the cutting teeth off the bottom and the heating high until it burns from friction. Even lifting the quill won't clean the kerf.
The best way to use a hole saw I have found, is to cut about 1/2" dia. or bigger relief hole intersecting with the cut. If you are making a wheel, the relief hole should be on the outside so as not to ruin your piece. It should be positioned carefully so it won't intersect the wheel but should cut completely across the hole saw kerf. When you drill the hole saw cut, the sawdust will fall out this hole and keep the kerf much cleaner allowing a faster and cooler cut.

[dbhost]

I was thinking a lamination was the only way I was going to get the thickness I want...

If I can get some shop time tonight aside from cleanup (I was REAL lazy over the holiday weekend) I will so some resawing and planing to get some 1/2" or 5/8" material to cut my wheel blanks from...

[shoottx]

May be just the reason to run down and buy a new Hole saw set!

[LarryG]

I know you have a band saw. Do you have a disc sander, or maybe some flavor of oscillating sander like the Ridgid belt/spindle model? If so you could make a circle sanding jig to "true" your wheels after roughing them out on the band saw..

A disc sander presses the workpiece down onto the table. With an oscillating sander you might need some means to hold the workpiece down, but that shouldn't be too difficult to engineer.

[dbhost]

Yeah, I have the Ridgid Oscillating sander... Probably one of my most used tools in the shop...

I trued cutting them out on the band saw last night. Sure wish I had the Timberwolf blades already...

Looking into that jig... Thanks for the tip!

Okay, just checked it out. That is one of those jigs that is forehead slapping obvious...

I ran into trouble with the DP last night and have had it up to here (visualize the gesture...) with that stupid thing... I could NOT get the table square to save my life last night... I have 4 wheels with crooked holes now...

Now the big question. Floor DP or benchtop? The Ryobi is okay, but I was thinking about the 16 speed HF floor model... I don't want to spend a fortune on a drill press, but I don't want junk either...

[John Hunter]

Do you have a circle cutting jig for the bandsaw? If not they work great are are easy to make. Here is a link on how to make one http://www.woodmagazine.com/woodwork...e-cutting-jig/

[dbhost]

I just saw that article last night... I am actually ordering up a bunch of UHMW strip for building jigs for that band saw... I still need better blades. That HF blade, well... I have nothing nice to say about it other than it cuts okay.

[shoottx]

Hey shootx, how did you eject the plugs from the whole saw in one piece? I can't seem to figure out a non destructive way of doing this...

I should mention, I wanted to use at least 1.25" thick material, and I am coming up short in that dept due to limitations of my hole saws... They just aren't that deep...

Actually I used an adjustable fly cutter. I don't have any idea where it came from but it will work to depths up to 3" . Even at slow speeds it shakes the DP. But because of the nature of the cutter, unlike a hole saw there is no problem ejecting the wood. It does take more clean up though!