Cutting small trim

[Bumble]

I'm on box making practice and using construction waste. It's some sort of decorative cladding and when I cut off the tongue, I'm cleaning it up to reuse on the box lids.

I was using a small block plane but struggled to get a uniform cut so am now using the router first to get a flat surface, fixing down the piece with tape and CA.

It was about minus seven degrees in the workshop this morning and CA was failing (not setting) and I was wondering if there was a better solution. How would you cut this?

I am also having difficulty with getting a good 45 degree cut leading to small gaps/bad fits. I'm taping the pieces down in a scrap wood cradle and after scoring first with a knife putting it under the mitre saw or using the hand saw but think this maybe should be a job for a plane. How do I get a clean and accurate 45 degree cut on 4mm trim?

Thank you for any help and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

 

[Fred48]

Hi Bumble
The dovetails are looking nice and neat
I sorry I cannot help with the issue you have raised.I

I hope it's okay to highlight this point but if you are adding lipping to end grain it will soon fail when the warmer /dryer weather arrives and the wood shrinks.

An alternative could be to use your router to shape the top edges.
Happy New Year to you as well.

Fred

 

[Bingy man]

Hi there , 1st off at -7 I don’t know of any glue that won’t have issues. 2nd is your mitre saw set up correctly and or adjustable? 3rd could you cut your piece's slightly longer then use a low angle block plane in conjunction with a shooting board to plane to the final dimension. A little practice and some accurate marking out will go a long way towards your goal .. @Fred48 makes a good point about the lipping as again -5 or -7 will always be problematic.. good luck .

 

[joshvegas]

Gents saw and a shooting board for something that small.

And a little jig for your blockplain will help getting even thickness. Block of wood with a fence on either side to set the thickness.

 

[Bumble]

Thank you all for the advice; I have plenty to think about and now I'm pointed in the right direction!

I will rethink the box design so the lipping is not to end grain.

I will try making a shooting board so I can plane/shave down to the correct length and also make a jig for the block plane so I can get uniform thickness on the trim.

 

[mark w]

Hi Bumble, a 45 degree shooting board is ideal for shooting those mitres, it's sometimes called a donkeys ear.
As for the superglue failing, just use a double-sided tape. I've never really understood the benefit of gluing two pieces of tape together?
Regards Mark

 

[JSW]

Easier to remove, double sided tape usually is a pain to remove, and leaves a sticky residue

 

[Bingy man]

Easier to remove, double sided tape usually is a pain to remove, and leaves a sticky residue

Electrical contact cleaner makes short work of that sticky mess left by some tapes and labels . It evaporates quickly and doesn’t damage the surface it’s sprayed on …

 

[Bumble]

Just a courtesy update; I made a shooting board and a 45 degree shooting board

which I used to make a 45 degree magnetic saw guide

which I used to make a small mitre box for what I think is the closest saw to a gents saw that I have (0.3mm blade width 30tpi).

I used all of the above to make a new design box lid

which has a 5.5mm cross strip fixed on the end of the 8mm thick lid to reduce the amount of fixing to end grain.
The lipping has a much cleaner cut but still more practice is needed.

I am also using the double sided sticky tape but unable how to figure out how to make a jig for the block plain, simply stuck to 4mm strips to either side of the sole... The double sided tape *is* easier and I found a 25m roll for GBP 1 at the DIY store.

Thank you @Fred48 , @Bingy man , @joshvegas , @mark w , et al for pointing me in a good direction!

 

[Bingy man]

Just a courtesy update; I made a shooting board and a 45 degree shooting board

View attachment 195394 View attachment 195395

which I used to make a 45 degree magnetic saw guide

View attachment 195396

which I used to make a small mitre box for what I think is the closest saw to a gents saw that I have (0.3mm blade width 30tpi).

View attachment 195397

I used all of the above to make a new design box lid

View attachment 195398 View attachment 195399

which has a 5.5mm cross strip fixed on the end of the 8mm thick lid to reduce the amount of fixing to end grain.
The lipping has a much cleaner cut but still more practice is needed.

I am also using the double sided sticky tape but unable how to figure out how to make a jig for the block plain, simply stuck to 4mm strips to either side of the sole... The double sided tape *is* easier and I found a 25m roll for GBP 1 at the DIY store.

Thank you @Fred48 , @Bingy man , @joshvegas , @mark w , et al for pointing me in a good direction!

Glad to help and decent of you to feed back your results.

 

[Bumble]

Update (part 2)

I ended up making a small shoe for the block plane so I can consistently get the same size lipping (3.5mm).

The green stripe is for two reasons; one because I used a drawer front with a groove that held the base without thinking that once made the piece it would only be held together by three and a half millimetres of wood...
The second is just to make fun.

 

[Eshmiel]

I'm on box making practice and using construction waste. It's some sort of decorative cladding and when I cut off the tongue, I'm cleaning it up to reuse on the box lids.

View attachment 195062

I was using a small block plane but struggled to get a uniform cut so am now using the router first to get a flat surface, fixing down the piece with tape and CA.

View attachment 195063

It was about minus seven degrees in the workshop this morning and CA was failing (not setting) and I was wondering if there was a better solution. How would you cut this?

I am also having difficulty with getting a good 45 degree cut leading to small gaps/bad fits. I'm taping the pieces down in a scrap wood cradle and after scoring first with a knife putting it under the mitre saw or using the hand saw but think this maybe should be a job for a plane. How do I get a clean and accurate 45 degree cut on 4mm trim?

Thank you for any help and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

For the most accurate joints - especially mitre joints - on small things like those boxes, a shooting (chuting) board is the best option. If you can make one, include a 90 and 45 degree fence for planing ends of pieces held flat but add a "donkey's ear" 45 degree slope to the side that supports pieces planed along a long edge at 45 degrees.

You can go mad and make a variable-angle shooting board (I did) but for the usual rectilinear little boxes and other four-cornered stuff, the 90 and 45 degree fixed fence versions are enough. It doesn't hurt, though, to have a means to make very small adjustments to the fence angles - a pushing-bolt or three. You can change the angle of cut by a fraction of a degree if your fence or other support can be altered at a rate equal to a small turn of a bolt with a fine thread pitch.

I haven't got any full photos of my shooting board just handy but I can take some at the weekend, probably.

Whilst you're at it, why not make your own shooting plane? You can use a standard plane but one with a low cutting angle and dedicated knobs/totes for shooting with deals with end grain best, especially in softwoods. Its not hard to build a shooting plane as a sort of slightly scaled up block plane that's configured for use on its side when shooting. You can also include a very fine adjuster, so that the shavings you take can vary by just one or two thousands of an inch.

Alternatively, buy the rather expensive Veritas version and the dedicated plane. They do a mini version that might suit small box work.

Here's some pics of a small shooting plane I built and use. It has a Veritas blade and fine-pitch adjuster, as well as one of their side handles made for use with shooting planes. (I'd carve my own handle if I was making one today).

Other tool-types useful for small work are scaled-down versions of planes, for trimming very thin shavings from small pieces, improving the fit of box tray inserts and so forth. Veritas do a few scaled down planes, including a wee router plane. There are also lots of small Japanese planes for such work.

https://www.axminstertools.com/instantsearch/result/?q=veritas mini

 

[imageel]

For the most accurate joints - especially mitre joints - on small things like those boxes, a shooting (chuting) board is the best option. If you can make one, include a 90 and 45 degree fence for planing ends of pieces held flat but add a "donkey's ear" 45 degree slope to the side that supports pieces planed along a long edge at 45 degrees.

You can go mad and make a variable-angle shooting board (I did) but for the usual rectilinear little boxes and other four-cornered stuff, the 90 and 45 degree fixed fence versions are enough. It doesn't hurt, though, to have a means to make very small adjustments to the fence angles - a pushing-bolt or three. You can change the angle of cut by a fraction of a degree if your fence or other support can be altered at a rate equal to a small turn of a bolt with a fine thread pitch.

I haven't got any full photos of my shooting board just handy but I can take some at the weekend, probably.

Whilst you're at it, why not make your own shooting plane? You can use a standard plane but one with a low cutting angle and dedicated knobs/totes for shooting with deals with end grain best, especially in softwoods. Its not hard to build a shooting plane as a sort of slightly scaled up block plane that's configured for use on its side when shooting. You can also include a very fine adjuster, so that the shavings you take can vary by just one or two thousands of an inch.

Alternatively, buy the rather expensive Veritas version and the dedicated plane. They do a mini version that might suit small box work.

Here's some pics of a small shooting plane I built and use. It has a Veritas blade and fine-pitch adjuster, as well as one of their side handles made for use with shooting planes. (I'd carve my own handle if I was making one today).

Other tool-types useful for small work are scaled-down versions of planes, for trimming very thin shavings from small pieces, improving the fit of box tray inserts and so forth. Veritas do a few scaled down planes, including a wee router plane. There are also lots of small Japanese planes for such work.

https://www.axminstertools.com/instantsearch/result/?q=veritas mini

@Eshmiel That looks like a really useful setup - thanks for sharing!
I'll be adding that to my future projects To-Do list which is already very long, however 1st on that list is a workshop since having moved late last year from where I had a purpose built 4 x 5m 'shop at my new place I have nothing at present so what few hand tools I kept are currently residing in the packing boxes I moved with and are presently 'decorating' a corner of my living room...!

 

[Eshmiel]

PIcs of me shooting board in another thread about making small boxes:

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/small-box-making-methods-tools.151709/#post-1801142