I had another crazy idea… I’ll start from the beginning.

Way back when I started setting up my shop, Jamie at Kaiser’s gifted me a plug cutter, but there was a catch: it had a dull blade. He had since switched cutter styles and it was sitting in a drawer, but it was still a fantastic gift.

I got home and thought maybe I could sharpen it with an angle grinder, just a quick pass to clean up the edges. Wrong. It cut way too fast and essentially ruined the blade. I figured it was dull anyway, so what did I have to lose? I tossed it aside and bought a replacement blade (which is why I created my plug cutter centering jig). Ever since, it’s been in the back of my mind whether I could ever restore that damaged blade.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, and I decided it was time to give it a shot. Instead of free-handing it, I set out to design a jig that holds a rotary tool (aka a Dremel) with a grinding wheel, plus a sliding platform that carries the blade so it grinds on a perfect 4.25″ radius arc. It wasn’t an easy task, but I mustered through it, and here it is…

I was skeptical it would actually work, so I was pleasantly surprised when I cut my first plug with the restored blade. It isn’t perfect yet and I’ll keep working on it, but it’s gone from slated for the trash can to a renewed blade.

I don’t plan on selling the jig, but once I get the process perfected, I’ll be hunting for used, dull blades that I can buy and sharpen. There might soon be another product in my shop: RDTL Restored Plug Cutter Blades. LOL.

I’ve been trying to find a better way to smooth the inner bore of my RDTL printed thumb inserts. Acetone baths work, but they take a long time to do it uniformly, and hand sanding is a pain. I tried my bevel sander, which works, but the finest discs I could find stop at 240 grit, much too aggressive for ASA. When I hand sand, I use 600 grit paper. In true RDTL fashion, if I can’t find something I need, I figure out a way to make my own. A roll of 1000 grit emery cloth and my laser cutter did the trick. I now have 1000 grit bevel sander discs.

I’ve made some changes…

🔧 New: A place for home & small shop builders

Some of you drill your own balls at home. Some of you run a one-person shop and wear every hat, just like I do. Either way, you’ve probably jury-rigged a fixture, argued with a drill press, or built something out of pure necessity because nobody sells exactly what you needed.

I’m starting a Facebook group for exactly that — Home & Small Shop Bowling Setup. It’s a place to share builds, swap tools and techniques, and troubleshoot with people solving the same problems.

Part of what RDTL is about is creating solutions to real-world pro shop problems — like how I created my own fine-grit bevel sanding discs (more on that above) when I couldn’t find any to buy. So consider this group a sounding board too: if there’s something you keep running into and think “I really wish someone made a tool for this,” that’s exactly the kind of thing I want to hear. Full disclosure: I run this group, and RDTL will come up, but it’s not a sales feed — it’s the shop-talk side of what I do.

It’s a closed group, so you’ll answer a couple of quick questions to get in — just enough to keep the spam out.

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time. (The Pink Floyd references just won’t stop.)

Ain’t that the truth…

Crafted with accuracy. Fueled by curiosity.

— Greg