Finally put the finishing touches on the roof of the shed yesterday. The roofing felt is all battoned down, and the guttering is fixed so it will start collecting rainwater for the veggie patch.
I'd seen an advert for a pillar drill on the internet from the supermarket Aldi (along with adverts for power winches - that shop sells the weirdest things!). No true workshop is complete without a pillar drill and a lathe. Well for £41 I figured I might as well get one of the boxes ticked. I went over there on Wednesday, only to discover that they weren't going to be available until Thursday. I was going out on Thursday evening, and Friday I was on an extended shift - so I wasn't going to be able to pick one up till yesterday (Saturday). So I went back over there in the morning - and they'd sold out and they weren't going to be getting any more in.
So I consoled myself by going to buy a new powered mitre saw. The other one had served me well. I'd put the kitchen together with it, and quite a lot of my wife's shop was put together with it. But it was on its last legs. The catch that pulled the blade guard up had broken off in the last throws of putting the kitchen together. Since then I had to make do with pulling the guard up by hand before making the cut. This struck me as being a rather dangerous situation. I'd seen first hand (pun intended!) what can happen if someone missuses one of these things. I figured it was time for an upgraded anyway, so I trotted over to the nearest B&Q, and bought a new one. One of the problems I'd had with previous incarnations of the mitre saw was that it was limited in how thick or wide a piece you could cut. You will always have some limitations - and they can easily be overcome with a handsaw. But I use the mitre saw so much, I figured why not kill two birds and get one with a bigger range of movement. And I have to say it's a pleasure to use. I bought the MacAllister £68 one, which has the blade gantry mounted on two sliding rails. One of the bugbears of previous mitre saws has been the difficulty with changing the angles the blade comes in at. They both had rather twiddly little knobs to lock down the turntable with. I either over tightened which made it difficult to loosen, or under tightened in which case the angle of the blade could change just as I was going to make the cut. Neither a great situation. The new mitre saw has a much larger handle right at the front, and the range of movement of the gantry is much wider - going out to 50 degrees where previously it would only go as far as 45. In addition it has a laser guide on it. Now I've always viewed laser guidance on powertools to be a bit of a gimmick which you could (or should) probably ignore. I retract that - at least with regards to the mitre saw. It has two laser lights, which I think need adjusting a little. But never the less it was considerably easier to build the new garden gate as a result of the lasers. The oblique strut supports had some odd angles, and it was reassuring to know exactly where the blade would fall as soon as I started. All in all - a good result.
Still want a pillar drill though.
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