Floorboard Reclamation Project
Floorboard Reclamation Project
Not long after we got the planning permission through, I made a decision to buy myself a very special toy tool. Something I’ve wanted for a long time but never up until now been able to find any justification for …a table saw. Once bought, I would be catapulted from jobbing amateur joiner to fully fledged woodsman, a master craftsman, a real man.
So, after trawling a few review sites and clocking the eye-watering price differences, I opted for the Screwfix 10″ Titan (even the name sounds manly and dangerous!) so you can probably imagine my surprise when the first task a real man, a master craftsman and a fully-fledged woodsman needs to take on is two hours of self-assembly!
But, just £99.99 lighter and instructions in hand, I get stuck into putting the kit together and start to realise why I found an identical saw on eBay for the same price, despite being a year old. The owner clearly wanted to be compensated for his or her efforts in putting it together yet after a few wrong turns, it starts to look more straightforward despite the slightly dodgy instruction drawings and the fact it’s nearly 10pm before I make a start.
The legs are on, the guards go in, the blade is added and it’s looking pretty good. I’ll wait until the following morning to turn it on though as it’s pretty late by now.
Morning comes and all of the earlier memories of being scared witless by a circular saw come flooding back and I turn it off before I hurt myself! It’s always exciting getting a new bit of kit but there is always the nagging feeling that something might need to be tighter or slot A isn’t sitting in Tab B properly, so I power it off and go around it again checking everything is nice and tight before I find a piece of scrap and give it a whirl.
It took me a minute to realise that with the guard on, the height adjustment doesn’t help you cut slots as it rises and falls with the blade, so to test making a rebate, I take off the guard and give it a go. All in all though, I’m really impressed. The motor seems to have a fair amount of bite and although this is only with fairly thin offcuts, I think this could be a good buy.
I’ve used this quite a lot whilst trying to make some window frames and it works quite well on anything up to 3″ and mostly softwoods. I’ve had a go at cutting a 3.1/2″ Oak beam and, even with the guard off, although it got through the experience, it didn’t enjoy it, but I imagine if you’re going to need a tool specifically for that, you’ll invest in something beefier anyway. Day to day though, it’s a nice bit of kit. It’s a bit bulky to store away as the legs don’t go through a standard door opening and you have to take them off, but otherwise, I’d recommend it.
Anyway, seeing as we want to reuse as much as we can from the building and we have a pressing need for a proper back door and a cupboard door for under the stairs they become all the justification I was waiting for.
We’ve taken up a lot of the floorboards from what will eventually be the lounge, so I’m keen to repurpose them into a simple z-shape for the stairs cupboard and a much more robust barn-style door for the back. So, after assembling the tool kit, expanding glue, clamps, screws and hinges, I get stuck in. The images are the end result which I think look pretty good for a first attempt.