Busy doing Nothing

[gwaithcoed]

After glueing up my latest project I'm at a loose end, so I thought it would be a good time to clean up the workshop (it looks like a skip)

I started throwing odds and ends into a bag to give to a lady who can burn it on her fire.

Then I picked up an offcut of oak and it looked to good to burn so after reading about a Ring Box on the forum I thougth I try my hand at little boxes

I made the small ones first, then after solving the problems I had with them, made the others.

Hope you like them

Alan.

 

[dedee]

They are gorgeous Alan and from firewood too :shock: .

Andy

 

[woodbloke]

A very nice looking set of boxes - what's the construction and how big are they, difficult to guesstimate size from the pics - Rob

 

[Paul Chapman]

Very nice, Alan :wink:

Paul

 

[PowerTool]

Excellent pieces - bet you are glad you never threw that timber on the fire.. :wink:

Andrew

 

[gwaithcoed]

Rob wrote what's the construction and how big are they, difficult to guesstimate size from the pics

I should have made some WIP pics but I only intended to make the one.

The small ones are 3" x 3 1/2" x 2 1/4" high

Timber was 1" thick cut on the bandsaw and planed to 3/8" thick

Table saw set to 45 Degrees and timber cut to length.

Rebate cut in the bottom of each piece to acept the bottom of the box.

Then glued and clamped.

It was then that I found that the angles were wrong as there was a gap at each corner.

To get over this I reset the saw to 45 and made a shallow saw cut through each corner into which I glued a piece of mahogany.

The sides were then sanded and a top and bottom glued on.

The top was then cut away from the bottom on the bandsaw.

I tried to do the same on the second small box which was made at the same time, however this failed so I sanded them round on the bench. sander

The other boxes were made more or less in the same fashion.

The hinges and lining were left over from when I made dolls houses.

The other boxes are 7" x 4" x 2"

9" x 4 1/2"x 2"

and 7" x 5" x 3 1/4"


Alan.[/quote]

 

[woodbloke]

Gwaithcoed wrote:

Table saw set to 45 Degrees and timber cut to length.

It's very,very tricky to cut exact 45 deg mitres on a table saw to make a box. Even the tiniest error in length, angle or if the timber isn't square to the saw blade, gets multiplied by the time all four pieces come together, hence the reason for the mahogany infill which I can see in one of the boxes. I once went into a 'shop where they had a large, very expensive panel saw but to make the mitres for their line in small boxes the operator was sanding the joints in on a disc sander with a very accurately set up fence. Doing a set of deep mitres for a smallish box/frame is IMO one of the most difficult of all the joints to do. If a large box is to be made (eg the corner of a desk or chest or say, loudspeaker cabinet), then its much easier to set up a panel saw to cut the joints 'cos then you have a decent sized lump of material to work with - Rob

 

[Paul Chapman]

Gwaithcoed wrote:

Table saw set to 45 Degrees and timber cut to length.

It's very,very tricky to cut exact 45 deg mitres on a table saw to make a box. Even the tiniest error in length, angle or if the timber isn't square to the saw blade, gets multiplied by the time all four pieces come together

Isn't this a situation where a shooting board would be one of the best options?

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[woodbloke]

Paul Chapman wrote:

Isn't this a situation where a shooting board would be one of the best options?

Morning Paul - a shooting board is excellent for something like a picture frame where the timber is not very deep (say 15 to 25mm) but when you start to get bigger than this, it becomes difficult to phisically fit the timber into a standard type of shooting board, apart from the fact that the iron in a plane is generally 50mm (or my T5 is as you've seen). How for example, could you shoot the corners on a box that was 75mm deep - can't be done on a shooting board ordinaire but it's quite easy, with careful setting up, to do it on a 200mm disc sander. (It could be done of course by making a differently designed board, something like the old 'donkey's ear') - Rob

'Chocs away' at the weekend?

 

[Paul Chapman]

'Chocs away' at the weekend?

Afraid not - Scott's not flying again 'till next week I'll wave next time we fly over 8) 8)

On the shooting boards, I was thinking primarily of smaller stuff. However, I remember Robert Wearing designed some quite novel boards and some of his ideas might be adaptable to larger stuff - will have to try to look them up. I really like shooting boards - they are so simple and so accurate :wink:

Cheers

Paul

 

[craigmarshall]

I think the traditional way to plane a mitred face for box construction would be a "donkey's ear" shooting board:

http://www.amgron.clara.net/planingpoints/donkeysearshoot/donkeysearindex.htm

Never used one myself, but I've seen them in books and on websites a few times.

Craig

PS: Forgot to say - nice work! I want to try and construct some small boxes and things, when I've got my bench made.

 

[woodbloke]

Paul Cahapman wrote:

I really like shooting boards - they are so simple and so accurate

Paul - agreed, there are a number of different set ups for the construction of shooting boards. If I recall correctly, Robert Ingham (now there's a maker - my old boss was taught by him at Parnham and simply referred to him as 'God') has some very clever ideas for shooting boards and the like in earlier editions of F&C - might be worth a look - Rob

 

[Paul Chapman]

Paul Cahapman wrote:

I really like shooting boards - they are so simple and so accurate

Paul - agreed, there are a number of different set ups for the construction of shooting boards. If I recall correctly, Robert Ingham (now there's a maker - my old boss was taught by him at Parnham and simply referred to him as 'God') has some very clever ideas for shooting boards and the like in earlier editions of F&C - might be worth a look - Rob

Thanks, I'll try to get hold of them. There were some of Robert Ingham's boxes at the last Woodworker Show at Alexandra Palace - really stunning pieces :wink:

Paul

 

[woodbloke]

Paul - when you fly over, look out for a big one of these ccasion5: on the workshop roof :lol: :lol: - Rob

 

[Alf]

There's a link to Bob Wearing's modern take on the Donkey's Ear, amongst others, here, fwiw. Also a PDF of an article in the current Popular Woodworking, which is quite good in explaining what boards are used for what, but alas, a design of basic shooting board overcomplicated in the extreme IMO.

Cheers, Alf

 

[Paul Chapman]

There's a link to Bob Wearing's modern take on the Donkey's Ear, amongst others, here, fwiw.

Many thanks, Alf :wink: I knew I'd seen Chris Knight's version of Bob Wearing's design somewhere. I will now write out 100 times "Always look at Alf's stuff first" :lol:

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[RogerM]

Lovely work Alan. Yet more inspiration for future projects. What type of joint did you use for the corners? And how is the top of the lid attached to the lid sides?

 

[gwaithcoed]

As woodbloke says ,it is very tricky to get a perfect 45 degree angle but after failing with the first two boxes I used my plastic set square to set up the saw and got the others spot on. Of course this could have been helped by the fact that the lengths of the pieces were longer.

To RogerM ,the joints are mitred, and the bottom glued into the rebate, the top just glued to the sides.

Alan.

 

[DarrenW]

So thats 5 boxes in the time it took me to make one.

I'll get me coat.

 

[gwaithcoed]

Don't despair Darrem, If I were making mine with dovetails I would still be on the first one.
Mind you I did get top marks for the one I made at school many many years ago, and that was because out of all of the other boys in the class mine was the only one that didn't drop apart when the teacher picked it up :roll: :roll:
and I don't thik i've tried to cut one since

Alan.