COMP063 Competition WIP Pictures - Poker Chip Box

[stewart]

Hi all
I'm setting myself a challenge seeing as I've only made one thing with handcut dovetails which was a cd rack made of two pieces of wood and one joint made at the woodwork course I started in September.

My box will have the front joined to the sides with curved dovetails :shock: and to make it harder I'm thinking of making the sides and front from contrasting wood - at the moment I'm toying with the idea of maple and purpleheart or jarrah, as these are the woods i have at the moment.

If I go the contrasting wood route then the front will also have an insert to make the front look like a stretched poker chip. As pictures speak louder than words here's a rough idea of what I mean:

Not quite up to some of the CAD i've seen in other posts (in fact I put it together in an image editing program instead) but I hope that it gives some idea of what I have in mind.

The top will also have an inlaid poker chip design with an overhang to act as the handle to open the box:

Hopefully I'll be able to make the real thing a little more symmetrical than the picture

Inside the chips will be housed in six curved channels. Haven't decided if they will be lined or left as bare wood.

All that needs to be done now is lose myself in the workshop and hope that my family don't forget who I am . . . or do I mean the opposite :wink:

Cheers
Stewart

 

[dedee]

Stewart,
you have better drawings than I - I do not even have a *** packet sketch.
Curved DTs sound interesting.

Andy

 

[stewart]

Thanks, Andy
I'm off to search for hinges tomorrow - fancy some nice brass ones with stays to keep the lid open.
Hopefully I'll also get into the rafter space in the garage to find some wood to use so I can bring it indoors for a while.
Cheers
Stewart

 

[stewart]

An update...

No hinges today as no one who was open had any quadrant hinges. I'll have to go along in the week when they're open.

I had a quick go in some nasty pine (just getting my excuses in ) of the joint I have in mind to join the sides to the front of the box. It won't take the eagle-eyed to see that I have a long way to go! Still, it's important to set oneself challenges...

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I should really spend Sunday doing some marking and stuff for school but you know what's really going to happen :wink:

On a steep learning curve,
Stewart

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Stewart

Thank you for sharing your wip photos with us, I'm looking forward to the next instalment.

Cheers
Neil

 

[Chris Knight]

Stewart,

That is an interesting challenge! Do you have a gouge with the right sweep (curvature) for the dovetail sockets?

A fact I only just appreciated is that the pins themselves are going to be parallel or even tapered the "wrong" way. Of course this is a function of the curve and the angle selected for your tails and the joint can still hold together perfectly - it just seems strange at first to see a pin that shape.

 

[stewart]

Isn't sleep a wonderful thing - woke up this morning with a new idea for cutting the joint. I don't have any gouges, so this might be a bit of a problem with making curves! I might have to get the plastic out :lol:

I made the wonderfully botched job posted yesterday using the woodrat and plunge cut the socket. Later in the day I finally got round to setting up the centre plate and using the spirals - I think the spirals will be a better way to control the cut and make it easy to repeat. I'll have a bash and post my pictures later.

Stewart

 

[dedee]

Stewart,
i can;t wait to see more, intriguing.

Andy

 

[stewart]

Some progress today, though slow...
I'm trying to find a way to control the way the router cuts the joint as much as possible. Me efforts yesterday relied a lot on moving the work piece under the 'rat's plate and freehand cutting. It made rather a mess as yesterday's picture shows.

I thought that I could use the spirals on the 'rat to cut a controlled curve in the end of one of the sides. I could then use the spirals to control where the three sockets went and make the whole process repeatable.

Unfortunately, the spirals and the opening in the base plate did not allow a tight enough arc to be cut but it did show that it was possible, although I made one socket twice the size of the other two for some bizarre reason

I could then either leave the sockets rounded or challenge my handskills and square them up. My cunning plan is to cut the socket deeper than I need it so that I can cut the end off and use it as a template to trace the outlines of the pins onto the adjacent side.

After a few attempts changing the spiral settings I decided I would have to make a custom base plate and make a circle cutting jig so that I could cut a much tighter arc. No pictures of the set up as LOML quite reasonably began to make noises about time spent in workshop over weekend. I did get a picture of the much tighter arc I could cut though:

Much better and much neater than yesterday's freehand. I suppose I could have used a large forstner bit but my experiments with making the chip trays showed me how inadequate they were at drilling into end grain.
Plus, it's been quite fun drilling new base plates and the like.

Hope my update hasn't been too rambling!

Cheers
Stewart