Moxon is Approaching

So a few things learned already. There seems to be a very generous definition of flat coming out of a machine. The planer leaves an undulating surface, and the jointer is prone to imparting a bow on edges. I think the latter is due in part to two things 1) bad technique on my part, and 2) the shortness of the in-feed table. Easier to work on 1 than 2, so that's another skill to put on the list of "skills to practice/learn".

So I finally milled, and cut my ash to finish the Moxon Double Screw. All that's left now is drilling a few holes, tapping and threading, and we're off to some real projects.

White Ash

Here are the partly milled pieces of 8/4 white ash. The edge has yet to be completely squared to the faces. I postponed aligning the cutterhead to the outfeed table on the jointer while I worked on getting the dust collector set up. The dust collector has its own 240V/20A circuit, so I don't expect it will be tripping out. The guy I bought it from was tripping out a 120V/20A circuit despite it only being a 2HP unit, so it definitely has a hefty inrush current draw when it first starts up.

By the way, I am really beginning to despise the amount of money spent on electrical odds/ends and wire.

Redemption, Chips & Dust

In the end everything worked out, but not without some frustration along the way. Everyone (the manufacturer, distributor and tech) said the right thing, but only one party ended up doing the right thing. I have to say I am reassured by the service tech, but don't expect I'll be buying too much from either Laguna or the local distributor any time soon.

All that said, the jointer/planer is up and running. There are a few small annoyances already with it, but I don't think they're game breakers. The fact that it's a single machine definitely mitigates the annoyance. My basement is looking pretty crowded already. I'm not really sure how all the wood and equipment is going to fit into half the space when the basement gets finished someday. When the unit runs purely as a jointer, it's mostly good. I'm not really happy with the quality of the fence, but I think I can live with or replace it relatively easily. The problem is in using it as a planer. The planer bed needs to be lowered nearly all the way in order to switch back to jointing. That fact combined with the questionable scale for the thickness setting means that repeatability for different batches pretty much turns into a crapshoot. Lastly, there's a stop switch accessible from the feed side of the planer, but no start switch. Seems like an odd exclusion.

I managed to pick up a used 2HP dust collector yesterday. I had originally hoped to use my Festool CT22 with the jointer/planer and tablesaw. Given the rather copious amount of chips and dust generated, the 2HP collector looks like a stroke of genius... or common sense.

Have the ash for the Moxon Double-Screw vise nearly milled. Couple more passes through the planer, jointing the edges and cut to length remain. So really, I've only started. The aforementioned piles of chips and dust stopped the operation a bit short.