A few days ago I finally started on the base. First up, cutting the rest of my lumber to size. This time around I hunted down a friend that I found out had a table saw. After the top debacle I had no plans on trying to cut the entire base to size with a circular saw again.
Here are the results…
So yeah, a table saw pretty much kicks ass. I’m kicking myself for not tracking down one sooner. I didn’t even bother to plane the legs. I just glued those suckers together.
Oh how my painfully jagged top would have appreciated a table saw. Ah well. Live and learn. I broke down and have a power hand planer arriving today to try and deal with my top woes. After hours of planing it became clear my top would not get fixed by hand.
Surprisingly, the Porter-Cable was the only one that came with a dust bag. Seems trivial but after using a router without dust collection, no thanks. Attempts to find a dust bag for the others either came up empty or expensive. This one, with dust collection, was significantly cheaper and got decent reviews. Hopefully it holds up.
And yes, I could have bought new lumber, borrowed my friends table saw, and redid my entire top without need for the power planer for a fraction of the cost. But then I wouldn’t have a cool new power tool.
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