Saturday, March 16, 2013

The Box That Almost Never Saw The Dawn...

This is an update to a project I described a couple of posts back. The Dawn of a New Box, briefly discusses my first attempt at inlay or intarsia. I also used splined mitered corners for the first time on the project.

My original design and intent was to create opposing rabbets to form the interface between the lid and the box. After constructing the box and gluing everything up I discovered I had thought how I was going to accomplish the inside rabbet on the lid. For about two days I brewed what I thought I knew. and later realized I didn't know, over and over in my mind. No solutions came to mind. I decided to look for help from the online community on a couple of the forums, but I wasn't getting any responses or at least no response in the immediate manner my impatience typically demands. On a whim, I looked on Google+ to see if I could strike up a one on one discussion with someone and low and behold there was Chris Wong from Flair Woodworks. He was very patient and took quite a bit of time to describe a couple of techniques I could use. One option he gave me was to use my wheel marking gauge to slowly cut my shoulders, while using a sharp chisel to pare to the desired depth for the cheek. The second method would utilize my small Dozuki saw to cut kerfs between the shoulder and cheek lines to speed waste removal and limit tearout at the corners. I had choosen the latter as the method I was going to use. Thanks Chris for pointing me in the right direction.

Before I could begin to work the rabbets I was going to need to cut the lid from the fully assembled cubicle box. I had already determined that I was going to cut 3/8" from above the second spline from the top of the lid. and this should have left me with about 3/8" of material to cut the rabbet. I had intended to cut the top off using my bandsaw, but for some reason I have been getting a lot of oscillation in the blade lately so I opted for the tablesaw. So measure twice check, better make three times and as we all know you can only cut it once. BBbbuzzzzzz, one, two, three and finally four sides cut off in seconds. Awesom... Aweful what have I done, there is only about an 1/8" and its not nearly the clean cut I had imagined. I looked for a second and then quickly realized I had measured the 3/8" from the bottom of the first spline instead of the top of the second. Now there is no way I'll be able to cut the rabbets as I originally planned. I wasn't even sure I would be able to clean the surface on the bottom of the lid and top of the box good enough. What a mess. I decided to let it set a couple of days to avoid immediate use as a heat source.

After a day I proceeded to clean up the surfaces and sanded them flat. At this point the lid and box sit nearly flush with one another. There is only about a 1/16" lip left on the lid so I will be gluing in pieces to serve in place of the rabbet. I will post updated pictures over the weekend as I near completion of this little project/learning experience. Thanks for stopping by.

Until my next post:

KEEP YOUR MIND ON YOUR FINGERS AND YOUR FINGERS ON YOUR HANDS…






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