I’ve got some 3mm Al from fleabay for the insert – just need to get around to cutting it to size. This is likely going to mean making some changes to the riving knife – I can see no way that it’ll fit through the hole once the insert is in place.

Extraction and guard is something I need to think more about. It’s not going to change until I get the new saw station built – that’s for sure. The guard will be removed (permanently) from the riving knife. It’ll be brought in on a pole type arrangement. My first thoughts were to have the pole drop down from the roof – that way it’ll never be in the way when cutting sheets. However, since the saw station will be moveable dropping from the roof simply ain’t practical.

Added:
Had a couple of hours today to get it all mounted on the wall.
First thought was to mount the 24″x5″x2″ bit of wood directly onto the breeze blocks. But, I decided in the end to put a couple of battens up with some 1/2″ board on top then fasted the woodrat board to that. This seems to have worked well and everything is rock solid.

I’ve decided it’s time to do things correctly – or at least better.

Things I want/need from the station:
1. It must be mobile – ie on wheels.
2. The final height of the table saw bed should be the same as all the other benches – this would allow any bench to be used as an extension support or outfeed table.
3. There should be a draw underneath the table saw to collect the dust that tends to always get missed by the extraction system.
4. The side extension needs some support as well.

Now, under the dust draw I intend creating some shelving – just for putting odds and sods on, or perhaps various jigs.
I was contemplating putting drawers under where the extension is. But I think I’ve come up with a better use for that space – a drum sander . Now, I can’t afford to buy a 24″ drum sander, but I might be able to fabricate one. There’s nothing really complicated about a drum sander. It’s just a drum (to which is attached sand paper) with a pulley on one end. The pulley is connected to a motor. A flat board is used as the bed, it has a piano hinge at the back end and an adjuster at the front edge.

Now how hard can that be ?
I’ve a sneaky suspicion it might be a lot more difficult than I first imagined.

My drum sander will be based on this.
One thing I can’t see at the moment is how to make the actual drum itself. I can see a ‘fairly’ easy way to make the wooden bit (which the sand paper fixes to) but how to fit the wooden part to a shaft – nothing springs to mind at the moment. Hmmmm, thinking about it, does the shaft need to be round ? Fitting a square shaft would be quite easy – but then you’ve got the problem of fitting the pulley on the end.

I suppose one way would be to use a solid 1″ square Aluminium shaft, find someone with a lathe and turn the ends to the correct diameter. A bearing at one end would take care of that and a keyway in the other should take care of mounting the pulley.

Now the only question is would I really use a drum sander – that’s something I’m not sure about.

Materials:
The actual station will be made of a mixture of stuff.
I need to sit down and get an idea of what sort of amounts of wood I’ll need for the framework. Board wise will just be MDF. Currently I’ve hardly any spare MDF in the shop so I’ll probably buy in a few boards. The majority will be 12mm I think. The MDF isn’t going to be needed as for structural bits as the strength will be provided by the actual framework. I’d imagine that a single 8×4 board will be enough.