Archive for the 'Joinery' Category

Work by others

Published on September 19, 2010 in Finishing, Joinery and Others' work. 1 Comment Tags: , .

I’ve been busy this week; teaching classes two evenings, then at the Ornamental Turning Society meeting this weekend in San Jose, CA. Not much time in between.

Julien made this mahogany box as a gift to his wife for his 5th anniversary. Good move, Julien!

Occasionally I’ll feature work by others. Today I’d like to introduce Julien, a regular at The Sawdust Shop in Sunnyvale, and a student in some classes I’ve taught there. He’s becoming a fine woodworker and finding his voice in his craft as he builds his skills. He sent me pictures to share of a keepsake box he built for his wife to celebrate their 5th anniversary. He explains as follows.

“This box is African Mahogany, stained with a brown mahogany gel stain. The center piece of the lid is figured maple, dyed with a honey amber dye. The finish is shellac, wiped with a folded cotton cloth (no brush marks!) The frame uses splines, also made from African Mahogany, which you can barely see on the photos. All other joinery is just straight miters. I used blue tape for the glue up of the miter joints. The bottom is lined with black velvet.

Here's the inside of Julien's box, showing tight joints and a neatly mortised hinge.

The biggest challenge with this project was to sand the frame. I used
masking tape to prevent sanding marks across the grain. Unfortunately,
when I applied the stain, it revealed that I had not done enough sanding. At that point, I could have wiped off the stain, sanded some
more, and reapplied the stain later. However, with the anniversary date looming, and me wanting to move on to other projects, I decided the sanding marks would become a “unique” feature of that box. My wife never noticed, and I tried to hide those in the photo. The great equalizer (time) may help making those disappear.”

LESSONS

Julien used gel stain on the mahogany; a fine choice here, and even better on blotch-prone woods such as cherry and pine, because its thick texture minimizes the uneven absorption which causes blotching. He switched to dye stain for the figured maple panel, knowing that gel stain (or any pigment stain) would have suppressed all that lovely figure, while a dye stain (which amplifies differences in absorption) “pops” the maple’s grain.

He cites some trouble with sanding scratches, which a pigment stain tends to highlight (as its large pigment particles settle into surface scratches and pores). Several things help prevent these problems. One is to level joints with a hand plane or card scraper, rather than sandpaper, minimizing the heavy sanding. Skew the cutters at 45º, roughly following the joint line instead of the grain of either frame piece. The second is to make a sanding block with ends cut at 45º. That way it’s easier to see when you’re sanding right up to the joint. The last tip is to wipe the joint area with alcohol when you think you’re done, then hold the surface up to a glancing light. It’ll reveal scratches you might not otherwise see until you apply a finish.

Thanks, Julien, for sharing this project with all of us. We all learn together.

If you’re reading this and would like to send in a project with some commentary for this blog, please contact me.

Doorbell: Precision cutting moulding parts

Published on August 18, 2010 in Jigs and Fixtures and Joinery. 1 Comment Tags: , .

The router bit made the top bead of the moulding. Beside it you can see the smallest of the three parts comprising the assembly.

The trim mouldings have to fit just right, and have to wrap around and return to the wall. I needed three partassemblies to wrap from the inside of the cabinet, across the face, and return to the wall with a tiny mitered piece. That means precise cutting. It’s no time for hand clamping to a miter gauge. Here’s my approach.

I build a small bandsaw sled for cutting the 45º miters. You see it  in the picture below.

I used the sled to cut a stop block with one mitered end, which you see held in the “F” clamp near the front of the sled. I backed that up with a second stop block, held in a spring clamp.

I used this sled on the bandsaw (with a new blade) to cut the mitered moulding sections to precise lengths.

To cut the longest moulding pieces, which have one 90º end, I squared the end of a strip of moulding and set the second stop block to cut it a little too long. Then I measured how much too long it was (compared to the cabinet sides), and inserted feeler gauge spacers between the stop block and the cut-off piece to get it to the right length before cutting it to final size.

Doorbell: arch moulding

Published on June 26, 2010 in Jigs and Fixtures and Joinery. Closed Tags: .

Making the moulding for the arched top of the case is the most challenging part of the project.

The arch moulding is made of six 2-1/2"-wide segments, each about four inches long, with their ends cut at 75º.

I know three ways to make an arch: bandsaw it from a large solid board; laminate it from long, thin strips; or glue it up from segments. I chose the latter approach, using six 2-1/2″ wide segments, with their ends cut at 75º, as in the diagram at left.

I cut the segments long  with a sliding miter saw, then cut the angled ends to the right length with a Dubby sled on the tablesaw. Then joined pairs of segments together with biscuits.

Here are two segments glued and clamped, while a second pair await gluing.

The finished segments will be only 2″ wide and 1/2″ thick, I used a little Craftsman joiner and R1 mini-biscuits—just perfect for such small work.

Clamping these oddly-shaped pieces can be a challenge. In my Jigs and Fixtures class, students make one of these clamping boards, along with various wedges and accessories. As the picture shows, the board makes this job simple, with no costly, special-purpose clamps.

Here's the completed arch, all three pairs of segments biscuited and clamped together, face side down.

Here’s the final assembly. Again the clamping board simplifies an otherwise very complicated holding problem. The moulding is face-side down, ensuring that the faces will all be in the same plane after gluing. At that point, a couple passes with a handplane will level minor height differences and remove mill marks.

Next step—cutting a dado on the back, then shaping the segments into a smooth semicircle.

Doorbell: moving again

Published on June 21, 2010 in Joinery. Closed Tags: .

Biscuit joints
You can see the biscuit slots—in the sides of the sides, and in the face of the back and bottom. #20 (large) biscuits will tie it all together.

I recut the sides and arch to fit the new scheme: making the cabinet in the shop and popping it into the wall recess (instead of building it in place). This afternoon I cut the biscuit slots for the easy stuff—the straight sides and the bottom. I’m using #20 (large) biscuits to get the most gluing surface.

Guide to locate slots in the back face

A plywood plank, clamped at each end, guides the biscuit joiner as it cuts slots in the face of the back.

Biscuit joinery is straightforward and fast. The sides are the easiest part. I laid them against the back and used chalk to mark biscuit positions approximately every 6″. Then I clamped the sides face-down on the workbench and cut the biscuit slots on my marks. (I use chalk because I can just wipe it away later, unlike pencil marks.)

The straight elements of the carcass.

Here you see the straight elements of the carcass together (but not glued).

Getting the slots in the right places on the face of the back is trickier. I cut a piece of scrap plywood to the width I wanted for the inside of the case, centered it side-to-side on the back, and clamped it into place. Then it was a simple matter to butt the biscuit joiner up against the plywood’s edge and plunge it down into the face of the back on each mark, cutting the slots you see here (with biscuits sitting in them).

Here you see the straight elements held together by the biscuits (no glue yet).

I know! It looks just like it did days ago when it was a bunch of separate pieces fitted into the wall recess. But this is better. Really. Everything is straight and square, and I didn’t have to make two dozen trips between the house and the shop to get things to fit.

The hardest parts are ahead. I had to recut the arched top shorter. Next I’ll kerf it and bend it, then figure out how to attach it to the back. Biscuits won’t work unless I fill in some of the kerfs. I’ll have to noodle on it a bit. Ideas are welcome. Also, I have to assemble and shape the curved moulding for the top.

Doorbell, pt. 3: Moulding

Published on June 7, 2010 in Joinery. Closed Tags: , , , .

Here the bottom of the lining is in place, and the straight mouldings are in their final positions on the sides.

Moulding is happening, and it covers a multitude of sins!

The walls of the recess are uneven in surface and depth. I forced the plywood sides into position against the back, then scribed them to project 1/8″ out into the room from the plane of the wall. That way I could make moulding cover the gaps between plywood and wall, and wrap around the fronts of the plywood sides. Those plywood sides fit into dados in the backs of the mouldings, so no gaps or unfinished edges are visible from the front.

I made the moulding and the bottom of the cabinet from Honduras Mahogany, a wonderful wood to work with. Moulding is easy to make on a router table.

First, I milled my board 4-square (always a good practice). Then I ripped 2″ wide sticks and planed them to 1/2″ thick. Next, I mounted a half-round bit in the router table and set it to cut quarter-rounds out of the two edges. Finally, I moved the router table fence over so I could route shallow half-round flutes on the surface. I chose all this detailing to echo a detail vocabulary established by a nearby built-in library cabinet.

The half-round moulding for the top will be a tougher job, and I’ll probably do it as a segmented glue-up. We’ll see.

An end-view of the moulding looks like this, courtesy of Google’s Sketch-Up.

This moulding is 2" wide and 1/2" high, with flutes on top and a groove on the bottom.

Doorbell, pt. 2

Published on June 5, 2010 in Finishing and Joinery. Closed Tags: .

The original plan was to build a door chime and mount it on a veneered board with a cross-hatch inlay to echo the limestone tile floor in the room. But when my wife saw the design, she asked me to first line the recess with mahogany so it would look similar to a nearby door and cabinet. Easy, right?

Well, nothing about this recess is square. Nor is the top an arc of a circle. So there’s going to be a lot of shimming involved, and I’ll have to make a wide molding to hide all that ugly business.

Kerfing the top piece

I had to cut 1/8" kerf every 1/4", almost all the way through the plywood, so it would bend smoothly around the 14" diameter arc.

Here the kerfed arc bends easily.

You can see the results of kerfing. The plywood now bends easily to the required 14" diameter.

The recess lining temporarily clamped in place.

Here are the four pieces of plywood, temporarily clamped in place.

Lining the sides is straightforward, using a couple pieces of 12mm mahogany plywood. But the top piece has to bend. So I decided to kerf it.

Here you see the kerfed piece on the tablesaw. I made the first cut (almost all the way through), then attached a scrap to the miter gauge and inserted a 1/8″ pin in it, 1/8″ away from the blade.

Once this fixture was in place, I could set each kerf over the pin to cut the next, working my way down the board. This edge view shows that the kerfs go almost all the way through the wood. There’s an unkerfed section at each end, with a rabbet to mate with the straight walls.

With the sides and top taken care of, I cut plywood for the back, jig-sawed the top roughly to size, then hand-fitted the curve with a rasp. I drilled a hole to feed the wires through.

The next step will be to make moldings that echo design elements already in the room—in this case, fluting and reeding.

More to come…

The doorbell project

Published on June 3, 2010 in Finishing and Joinery. 7 Comments Tags: .

This is the 5'-tall recess we intended for a nice door chime.

When we remodeled this house many years ago, we framed in a recess near the door for an elegant doorbell. I figured a quick check of a few catalogs (this was pre-internet) and we’d find the perfect item—long tubular bells, like a wind chime or grandfather clock, with a nice wood cabinet for the mechanism.

Keep wishing! Do you know how hard it is to find a doorbell such as this? Me neither, because I haven’t found one. I thought I did recently, a nice-looking German unit in an on-line catalog. But when it arrived it looked tacky, with electroplated plastic instead of brass covers. So I went the do-it-myself route. The next few blogs will chronicle this adventure.

The German mechanism was fine, with a little motor to whirl a disc supporting tubular bells. So I kept that. Everything else went in the parts bin. The first order of business would be to get a functioning mechanism with bells I liked.

I ordered 15′ of 1/2″ aluminum tubing from
 McMaster-Carr and cut it into eight lengths of 18–24″. Those would be the bells. I drilled 1/8″ mounting holes in one end of each bell, then sanded the bells to #600 to produce a satin finish. Finally I wiped on a few coats of Deft lacquer, cut half-and-half with lacquer thinner. I mounted them to the original mechanism’s disc with 10-lb. monofilament, and tried out the chime. It worked, and sounded good!

More to come…