Dome building: Vital saws and stands.

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Friday: Continuing with the framing and paneling of the dome around the observation slit frame. I had to cut up my last sheet of 4mm birch plywood to get wide enough strips. Which leaves a lot of waste. I will have plenty of material for the top ring of panels. Three more panels and the third tier is complete.

The miter saw has made this project possible. With weird compound miters on each end and precise length requirements on each strut. So I would never have attempted such a design without owning the miter saw. Just being able to shave a tiny bit more. Or to change the angle slightly. Is an amazing improvement over any other tool I have ever tried. Experience obviously helps and can save a lot of time avoiding taking many, very small cuts.  

The table saw sled is an absolute revolution in my cutting skills and accuracy on thin 4mm birch plywood. This is regardless of all the power tools I own now and have owned for decades. The DE7400 rolling saw stand has made my use of the table saw completely practical. I have to roll the heavy saw along the central corridor of my ridiculously cramped shed. Then do a tight 180° by the even narrower doorway. All just to clear the raised threshold and outside step. The journey has to be repeated, in reverse, on my way back after using the saw. 

Practice makes perfect and it gets easier each time as I learn knew tricks of balance and where to push and pull. This freedom of movement has allowed me to make sawdust outside where I need to cut large sheets of plywood. I just set up two B&D workbenches with clamped rails to support the large sheets during their movement through the saw. Though three stands and rails would be better to support long and floppy strips of wavy, 4mm ply.

The miter saw lives on a long fixed stand in the shed and is an absolute pain to use just there. I have to bodily lift and drag the saw and its silly stand out by a foot or more by scuffing the widely splayed feet along the floor. All this just to clear the ends of the stand for longer work pieces.

The miter saw is just too heavy and too awkward for me to carry about regularly. I simply could not use it at all if I had to take it outside each time. Another DE7400 rolling stand might make real sense for this saw if I only had room to park it. I could then mount my Inca band saw and heavy disk sander on the DeWalt fixed workbench using the matching, universal, Q/R brackets.

EXCEPT! That these two saws need very different stand and working heights! Image below left shows the problem. On the DE7400 the miter saw is knee high to a grasshopper! The much taller, miter saw, fixed stand is in the background.

After struggling to get all the kit outside it started raining hard just as I tried to snap the differences. The miter saw must have a different [rolling] stand [and has.] But not a compact one like the excellent example under the table saw. Note the wide disparity in Q/R support brackets. The miter saw stand has a single rail. The table saw two widely spaced rails. Don't order the wrong brackets or you'll kick yourself.

Several drooling idiots on YouTube call the rolling, table saw stand a miter saw stand. If only it were true! The ridiculously oversized and complicated, tubular, DeWalt miter saw stand looks like a mad inventor's ironing board on steroids. It has a very poor record for reliability of the gas strut which is supposed to lift the top section with saw attached.

Interestingly, the fixed stand can be easily fitted with wheels for mobility. There is even a commercial kit in the US for adding wheels. I my look into modifying my own stand. The extending, material support arms can be used as leverage to move the stand around quite effortlessly. [If the owner has enough room.] Or, to lower the legs with the saw still in place. This offers a safe way to lower the saw and stand down onto added wheels.

Meanwhile, back in the shed, the fixed stand, with bandsaw and disk sander attached, could be pushed much further back until the feet contact the wall. The slide mechanism on the miter saw sweeps a very large radius both front and rear. The rear overhang, even without a vacuum hose or dust bag fitted is huge. Which means it can easily hit the back wall during large horizontal angle adjustments. Unfortunately the table saw will not easily park under the fixed stand on its rolling stand. Perhaps I could fit large riser blocks under the rubber feet of the fixed stand? Or perhaps not.

If only two, large, birch trees hadn't been growing just there, when I built the shed, I could have added several more feet to its width. Once the 30" deep shelving unit is fitted on the right there is no room to swing a cat. Let alone a 12" sliding, miter saw. The trees have finally gone but now there's no room for expansion with the observatory building in the way. The octagon is far too small for sawing up sheets of plywood and the dust would be a bore anyway.

Sunday: Completed the last three of the third tier of trapezoid covering panels. Then  had a look at my Inca bandsaw. It has lived on a shelf in a large rack which made using it unnecessarily difficult. I was having to wrap my arms around the rack's corner support post. Which was very limiting and made cutting larger pieces impossible unless I rotated the whole saw body midway though the cut.

I need to have a freestanding arrangement for this saw to get some real use out of it. While I was cleaning it I rotated the entire motor on its axis to bring the On/Off switch to the front. Band saw owners should check the Snodgrass blade and guide set-up method. All very logical and sensible. I discovered it on YouTube after years of haphazard fiddling with my saw's settings.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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