A W.I.P. that may take a very long time ...

[Phil Pascoe]

I have two pieces of very nice tiger oak courtesy of Custard to make a box. First job is get a couple of new bandsaw blades and some suede - I'm not sure whether to go for green, blue or red - from a practical point it'll need to be relatively dark because the box is designed to be used.

I need to know the colour of the suede because other decoration will depend upon it. I aim to turn a strip/block or maybe two the length and half the width of the box with four or five turned, lidded bowls (on one) with inset semi precious cabs or possibly dichroic glass in silver bezels in the shallow knobs. I have silversmithing tools, a smith's bench and a kiln for the glass . I've seen some very nice s/s and brass hinges (Andrew Crawford) but not a good s/s lock. I have plenty of oak, but I might use padauk for the lid (I probably will for the insides) depending on whether or how I inlay it - the oak is a little busy for anything complex.
I will deep the longest piece into three as it won't do four safely and two will leave me a fair bit of planing by hand, and if you look at the picures the medullary rays are more pronounced on one side (nearer the quarter) so I'll use the two matched faces of the slices from that side. The edge of the smaller piece has had a couple of coats of TruOil to get an idea of the final colour. I have some laburnum which is large enough to saw down for the insides, so I might decide to go native and forget the padauk.
I think I'll make the insides first and box last - it'll let the wood stabilise after being sawn, and the insides will be more demanding than the actual box.

All thoughts, ideas and (some) criticisms welcome.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

And before some smartarsse suggests it - yes, I know how to make solid silver hinges, but I haven't the inclination. :lol:

 

[marcros]

i have some suede. Over the weekend, i will dig out what i have, although I am not sure what colours I have. What dimensions is the box likely to be?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

About 12" x 8" x 6" - because of the turned elements inside, I'll need to draw the insides to get the dimensions of the outside, though.

 

[marcros]

ok. let me have a look.

 

[Bm101]

Looking good forward to this one Mr P.

 

[SteveF]

Bookmarked and watching with interest
I have a few of Custard's "offcuts" and will make use of them eventually

Steve

 

[ColeyS1]

Watching with interest

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

 

[custard]

I will deep the longest piece into three as it won't do four safely and two will leave me a fair bit of planing by hand

That's always a tricky decision. On the one hand you want to be as efficient as possible, deep ripping as close to the finished dimensions as you can, saving both time and timber. On the other hand it's a risk, go too far and you end up with unusably thin timber so the entire board gets scrapped.

I seem to recall those particular boards were 50mm thick, If you lose 3mm in the kerf and then another 3mm on each board from cleaning up and re-flattening, that means with one deep rip cut your 50mm board has become two 20.5mm boards. But if you go for two deep rips to make three boards you could easily end up with three 10.7mm thick boards, and that might be a little thin for a dovetailed box. Yes, I know my assumptions for clean-up allowances are generous, but it only takes one little wobble while bandsawing and you'd need every bit of that allowance.

If you're in any doubt then practise your two deep rip cuts on the shorter board first!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Certainly, but I wasn't thinking of the three pieces necessarily being equal - I'll probably get one usable thin piece that I can laminate and two heavier ones. A new thin bandsaw blade will minimise wastage. Hopefully I get a leg in a couple of weeks which will make things easier, so I'm going to hold off til then - although as you suggest I'll probably do a test piece. I have a few ideas that I can't afford to try on the real thing so I may make two anyway.

 

[AndyT]

Phil, I can't help but admire the casual way you look forward to your new leg as if it was just for your bench rather than for your body!

I hope it all works out well for you and doesn't delay the woodworking too much.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

It makes the difference whether I can work from a perch/stool or a chair. It's difficult to use a bandsaw accurately when the line you're trying to cut is at eye level. I've got the thing on a trolley set up which raises it four or five inches as well, which is far from ideal. I'll have to devise a way of mounting the wheels that they fold out of the way when not needed.

 

[marcros]

would the wheels on this get in the way of your chair too much http://www.firstcastors.com/en/new-brit ... y-platform?

it is much lower than the 4-5 inches.

 

[custard]

What is the finished thickness of the box sides that you're aiming for?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The thing is a nuisance atm. I might devise something with the wheels inboard of the legs - the thing is only 58kg - and another way of stabilising it.

Custard - I would think about 12mm? I don't want to go too heavy. Possibly a little thinner - it's hard to visualise with having something in my hand.

 

[custard]

I would think about 12mm? I don't want to go too heavy. Possibly a little thinner - it's hard to visualise with having something in my hand.

I seem to recall that you're dovetailing the box? If so I'd say 12mm is the thinnest you want to go. It's a subjective thing but I think dovetails start to look a bit weedy in anything less than 12mm thick stock. Compare these two shots of an Oak drawer, I usually make drawer sides and backs out of 8mm or 9mm stuff, you can see that compared to the bigger, half-lap dovetails at the front, the dovetails at the back just don't have that much visual impact. Incidentally, on really small dovetails I usually bump up the angle a bit, say 1:5 or 1:6 rather than 1:7 or 1:8, otherwise small dovetails end up looking more like finger joints!

I didn't realise you were planing by hand, hang on and I might be able to sort you out some deep ripped, book matched stuff that's finished at around 12-14mm.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I'm thinking I might machine dovetail keys across the corners, so visually it would look heavier anyway. I'll try it on some scrap first, anyway.

 

[custard]

I like the dovetail key idea, that could look very cool.

Incidentally, I found a really nice 46mm thick board end of Brown Oak today, dead on the quarter, with a heavy ray figure, and an intriguing band of darker colour at one edge that would look terrific in a box with a wrap around grain design. I deep ripped it, trued it all up, and the two pieces came in at 19mm. So, working in timber that's very similar to the timber you have, I lost 8mm in the deep ripping process. If I'd have taken even more care that might have reduced to 7mm, but I can't honestly see how anyone could have got away with less...and this still doesn't factor in how much residual movement there might be over the coming weeks.

I'll leave them in stick for a week or so, and then take them down in stages to somewhere around 12 to 14mm thick. If your deep ripping goes horribly wrong you can have these.

Good luck!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

You are very kind, thank you. I've just got the new bansaw blades, but I'm going to leave it until I get my leg (hopefully next week) before I attempt anything. I've cut accurate slices of 7" stuff before on this saw, so with a new blade it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

A start. First I need some idea of size. I want an insert with four turned bowls, and this basically governs the overall size. This gives me four three inch bowls with a 1/4" overlap on the lids giving a 1/4" between them and a 1/2" at either end. It'll make the box about 16" x 8" x 6" - the insert will be about 14 1/2" x 4" x 2 1/2".

And, no, I'm not making it out of shuttering ply. I've got to pin a fence to the bandsaw, as I can't find the ali extrusion the fence fixes to - that shows how often I use a fence on a bandsaw - then I'll deep the oak.