Ridgid Oscillating Edge Belt/Spindle Sander

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Sanding is not my favorite job, but I learned a long time ago that if you want a good finished product your have to put the time in on sanding ... sad but true. Like any true woodworker, in order to lessen the amount of time I need to invest in a chore I hate, I went out and purchased a power tool to make the job quicker, easier, faster and even less dusty (I think). To be honest, I have been looking at this tool for a few years and for one reason or another have always found an excuse to pass it up. I know when I first started looking at them the price was much higher that the price I finally paid so that will have had some bearing on it. I finally saw this sander on a sale for a price I could not pass up, now I am sad I didn't purchase this years ago when I first stated looking at them.

I haven't used a spindle sander in many years and had forgotten how handy they can be, and I happen to have a couple of belt sanders and hand unit and another that is permanently attached to a board that works ok, but with the Ridgid, I now have the added affect of oscillating, which speeds up sanding creates less wear on the belt in on specific area.

The sander is very well designed with the front even able to drop down to various angles which means sanding at critical degrees is not only possible, but easy. I liked the dust port in the back too, anything that will help pull the dust away is useful, and the port is out of the way. By coincidence,  ....

Making Mini Computer Speaker Boxes

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Making speaker boxes isn't anything new, many woodworkers have been doing this for years but in most cases they have been making BIG speaker boxes for LARGE stereo systems. In out case we are going to make small speaker boxes for ... oh, a computer, MP3 Player, an iPod or iPad, a Tablet or even an iPhone if you have the correct adapter. The ones that we made sound at least as good as the the ones that we used as donator speaker boxes, and they look good enough that you can put them out in public and now have to apologize for plastic speakers.

So! the first thing we had to do was to find a suitable set or donator speaker boxes. We wanted something small and of course they needed to "powered speaker", that is, they either needed batteries or a small transformer wall plug to power the speakers.

Of course your BIG speakers for you larger stereo systems do not need to be powered, there is more than enough juice in a full blow stereo system to power the big speakers. We found our donator speakers at a yard sale for, I think about $3.00 There are TONS of these little speakers around some with and some without the transformer plugs, but even if you get one without, you can still get a transformer plug to drive the speakers rather than using batteries all the time. The advantage with the ones that take either batteries OR use the transformer is that you can use these, with batteries, at the beach, at the cabin, hiking, canoeing or whatever.