Finally!

Al Launier

Member
Messages
1,683
Location
Bedford, NH
Well, after working on this on & off for over a month, it's finished. It started with two pieces of oak firewood logs from behind our home & ended up as a jewelry box for my wife's birthday yesterday. Thankfully, she was very pleased.

Since you all know how to build a BS box, I'll just note the lessons I learned as a novice from this limited experience as a novice.
1. A simple sled was made to cut the logs into 5/8" thick "slabs" on the BS.
2. Logs had "aged" for a year stacked outside & drying caused splitting from each end, leaving only ~8” usable wood in the center.
3. Jointed the saw-cut face & one edge. I have so far to go to learn how to joint!
4. The face of each piece ended up tapered sideways & lengthwise. Had to alternate positioning the wood for each pass to “average” out the tapering. Next time I will focus on jointing with the grain – perhaps that will help??? Gotta practice more!!!
5. The TS was next to size the boards & to get enough pieces to build up a good size block.
6. Then sanding the cut side to get a reasonable glue surface. MUST GET A PLANER ASAP!!! The DW735 is looking better all the time!
7. Gluing 12 pieces of uneven thicknesses all at once was quite an experience to say the least. They wanted to slide all over while clamping. Did I mention I need a thickness planer?
8. Layout & BS the outer profile, the rear block face, two drawer blocks, four drawer end caps, and two drawer tray contours. Saw ran well, everything square & no drifting – happy camper!
9. Sanded everything on the Ridgid oscillating edge/belt sander. Since I made the block 5” deep, and the sander has a oscillating working range of 4”, the block had to be flipped to sand/blend the excess over 4”. Remind me to keep things less than 4” tall if planning to use this sander.
10. My wife preferred an off-white paint instead of the natural wood grain. I do not like to paint! But……………it’s her preference. The upside is that the uneven thicknesses of the oak doesn’t show with the paint!
11. Cut & glue the velvet lining for the trays & feet.
12. Done! A jewelry box made from a tree from our property. How good is that!
Lessons learned:

  • Practice on the jointer/planer.
  • Get a thickness planer.
  • Plan projects better to be within limits of equipment - unless want to justify purchase of new tool(s). ;o)
  • Get into stains more to appreciate the wood grain.

This is fun! Next project???
 

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That came out great . . . . NEXT!

The jointer and planer are indeed a team. Your whole approach to your material changes one you can confidently "make" the boards you need.
 
Very nice, Al. :clap: I really like the shape of the box. It has a cool "Arabesque" look to it. :thumb: And personally, with that shape, I think the white paint is a great look.

If you are getting uneven results with your jointer, it might be the result of things being a bit out of adjustment (such as the tables not quite being co-planar). I'll let some of the guys with more experience offer specific suggestions, but the problems you were seeing might not all be operator error. ;)
 
Well i will totally echo others comments Al, Vaughn said it best, i think the shape lends itself to being white. One thing for sure it certainly dont look like a novice built that box.

Also the issues you having with jointing, well i have been there myself.
There are a few things happening at the same time.
Part could be technique and where and how u hold the board down and push it across the blade.
Part could be how u have your jointer setup and part could be table alignment.
I would start by getting more familiar with the machine, its alignment and checking the alignment. Get a decent straight edge and check the tables.
Then do a check on the blades and ensure they all set to the correct height.
Getting into these aspects has the effect (well it did with me) of kinda automatically having one understand how to use it.
Then get down to practice with some wood.
Now....a tip i found is we are all taught to plain according to the grain, so as to mimimize tear out. But sometimes you need to focus on first getting the board flat then worry about the tear out. So sometimes u need to flip the board length wise or u will end up with a wedge.
Best of luck with the adventure.
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk 2
 
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