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I know modifying Y levers works, but adapting the cap iron to engage a standard Y lever is best, as it does not reduce the sensitivity of the screw adjustment. Personally I recon the DIY is much easier too.

Fercel extractor, Alto attix vac with the filter cleaning button (it works!) and a 2 motor Numatic workshop vac with a big bin and big plastic coated felt filter.

I'm not sure about the exact status of HSE reccomendations for woodworking, but in my old profession (agriculture) if you chose to ignore guidance notes detailing best practice, and there was an accident... 1/ failing to follow published guidance could invalidate insurance or radically reduce...

Personal career change: I was set for electronics but a pre college year put paid to that - a rewarding 'constructive' environment of design etc., but I couldn't believe the lab politics which seemed to take 75% of staff processing power! Fell by accident into growing things (agriculture) where...

Thanks for your input, DC. Call your accepted variation in stick movement of 3x 1/32" (around a target of 3x 1/32") 2.5mm. If we assume a 45mm radius block in the Knapp a bit of Pythagorus suggests your target knife height (of between 3 and 6 stick divisions) calculates to the range of 0.02 to...

Thanks for your replies and PMs. But no one has had a punt on acceptable knife height variation! And yes, that's the boy, Dave; little weight and a gert long pointer. A real Woodworker's dial gauge.... Just to clarify: Absolutely no slight on JETor the 310 intended! I think a +/- 1.5 thou...

The recently reccomended Machine Woodworking for Hand Woodworkers makes an interesting valuable read for the self taught. Thanks Scrit! From it I get the impression that the practice of setting planer blades with a dial gauge on an engineers magnetic mount, may be laudable but possibly over...

Thanks Scrit, that sheds a bit more light on the subject! The foray into bi metal blades was as a result of wanting to try variable pitch. Part of the sucess of the Woodslicer (carbon, thin kerf 3-4 tpi) would seem to be due to a steadier blade, variable pitch reducing vibration. Varible...

My set is from Lidl, 4 3kW sockets and remote, (9.99). Been using for 2 year. The bit inside the controlled socket that does the actual switching is a small relay. The contacts on this will last best on resistive loads, like the workshop fan heater. A 3kW inductive load is really pushing it, so...

The Axminster Plus saw with 53cm wheels will tension a 1" M42 blade to around 18,000psi*. Probably could do more but Dragon was a bit generous on the blade length and I run out of screw thread at this point. This tension seems OK to me. They also had a 1" blade from thinner than normal stock -...

Bill Pentz is pretty firm in pointing out that lots of air is needed to capture all the dust (not just chippings) from machining operations. He appears to say that a hood placed to surround the stream of waste thrown off by the cutter connected to a 100mm extracion pipe wont do the whole job...

Am getting materials for a version of the Highland booth next week. Concertina style paper filter arrived last week, self supporting so no weldmesh required behind it. 1st try will be with existing tefc 14" fan (simiilar to Machine Mart industrial plate fans). Will report back. Good old Lidl...

Ammonia will give you brown. The vinegar method requires iron, not zinc, so galvanised nails are no good at all. Dissolve some steel in white vinegar - steel wool dissolves fast (may need degrasing in hot detergent first) and rusty nails take a few days. Used neat will stain oak very strong...

If you find you've still missed a bit, wet sand some more stain over the offending glue line, with a fine abrasive mesh pad

DIY booth folds up for storage: Unfortunately, not an original idea! However, if you've no room for a permanent booth either, this may be of interest to you. With no room for a proper booth (they sometimes go for as little as £2 or 300 on ebay) I had suffered with Heath Robinson lash ups. The...

The fan I've been using is ali bladed TEFC ex agricultural ventilation job (used to keep pigs cool). Not entirely kosher but fairly safe with solvents if used to pressure the spray area, with the motor on the 'suck' side handling clean incoming air. It's probably more effective to have the fan...

Thanks to you both, it's full steam ahead, with experiments, I think! Previous arrangements - the big outdoors, and later a fold up effort with (sparkproof) fan as per Fine Woodworking. The latter only had about 1 sq m of glassfibre filter; the small surface area has a lot of flow resistance...

The only pro booth I've been in, had a wet / waterwash filter, so I'm guessing from photographs that the pleated media slots into a holding frame of some sort. Could someone with pro "booth savvy" say how this is normally done? I was thinking of using some galvanised trunking (folded channel...

I got a 180 amp 5kVA arc welder about 40 years ago. At that time MIG was not an option, as the cheap disposable mini gas cylinders hadn't been invented. It's not much good for car bodies (you need MIG for that) but excells on steel from about 2 to 8mm. It's been used to make a lot of workshop...

You might prefer an inexpensive pair of reading glasses, (assuming you already have good close up eyesight) ; optically correct, in strengths up to 3D (diopters) they are often to be found in bargain supermarkets like Lidl and other 'value' outlets at around £1 a pair. At that price I used to...