When you want sawdust ...

[rick55]

I thought I'd try capturing my other hobby, woodworking. I set up to use the flash to freeze the saw blade, using a 580EX at 1/16 bounced off an umbrella. The camera setup was 500D, 17-55 @ 55mm, 1/125 @ f/3.5. I had my 430EX in slave mode set forward, bounced off the ceiling to illuminate the background. The main trick was to have enough light in the room to use the saw without cutting off my fingers, but not enough to blur the blade. The umbrella was about 3 feet away from the blade, so I was able to use 1/16 flash (shorter duration).

I'm fairly happy with the DOF, background, and reflections, but I wish there was some sawdust. I turned off the dust collector, and raised the blade more than usual, but no luck. I didn't have any scraps of oak around big enough for the shot (this was poplar): I think that might do better.

C&C most welcome.

Cheers,
Rick

[Colin Southern]

Hi Rick,

You just "too me back" over 40 years My parents used to have a bench saw like that - I was using it one day and had a bit of sawdust getting under the wood - so I brushed it away with my hand and ... you guessed it!

Luckily it just caught the edge of my index finger, but I've still got the scar.

These days I use a number of power tools (safely) for making frames for stretching canvas - I should try to get a shot of wood chips coming out of the thicknesser - it's a bit like snow coming out of a snow machine

[rick55]

Yow! One of those lessons you remember, and are glad it wasn't worse.

The thickness planer is a good idea: it does tend to throw stuff, especially if I forget to turn on the dust collector. It also doesn't require using the self-timer, since it feeds itself.

Cheers,
Rick

[Colin Southern]

Yow! One of those lessons you remember, and are glad it wasn't worse.

I reckon!

The thickness planer is a good idea: it does tend to throw stuff, especially if I forget to turn on the dust collector. It also doesn't require using the self-timer, since it feeds itself.

Cheers,
Rick

Yeah - I use it for putting a bevel on the stretcher bar so that the inside portion of the frame doesn't touch the canvas (I made a jig that forces the wood through on an angle). I tried all sorts of things for containing the chips (with varing degrees of success) - but these days I have a wooden "plate" that I bolt on to the top of a 240 litre rubbish bin - a 4 inch flexible pipe connects it to the thicknesser - and I cut a big hole in the plate and inserted a couple of mesh rubbish bins with some filter material sandwiched between them to filter out the chips ... works like a charm (just doesn't look as spectacular!)