Holly

[marcros]

could you:

use the table saw with the blade height the depth of your holly inlay, and instead of your rectangle, make a design that is # shaped on each side. You could use the fence and do each line all around the box before moving it. You would then need to make the stringing/inlay the width of the kerf, glue in and trim the ends.

 

[devonwoody]

Yes that would cope with horizontal stringers OK, its always been the cross grain ones that have given me complications, not much good at hand work these days, acute sight and the less firm hand is not my thing anymore.

 

[dm65]

Thanks Den, its needs to be more mobile because my boxes are never exactly the same size because they are controlled by timber available at the time of machining.
That's why I went for the workmate with the moveable jaws, the triton is heavy so I don't think doublesided tape has enough grip. Spent the past hour doing more mock ups on the workmate.

The idea was to run the router round the outside of the template and ds tape sticks quite well (I got that idea from the many times I've seen N. Abram use it

 

[devonwoody]

OK Den, that might be workable to hold guides, don't like some tapes these days on the actual work, it leaves some difficult deposits when pulled off, going to fit some cleated boards to the workmate later today and then find a method to fit the guides.

 

[devonwoody]

During the afternoon I got back on this inlay idea and cut two equal boards of some faced chipboard ( from a skipping trip ). The inside edges have had facing boards glued and screwed at marks with those crosses. (the marks z will be fitted with cleats later too stop board sliding along the workmate) This has held the tissue box to a fixed location.

Two guide runners have been clamped to the face boards at a set distance to allow router and bit to proceed along a designated path.

Cuttings were made and box removed and box position changed to do the other groove, the result is as picture below. The result is not 100% accurate but can be refined to better accuracy with more work done to the jig.

Since this work early this afternoon I now recall there is a fence somewhere in the WS for this router and I could most probably do away using those guides for the horizontal cuts, but will need guides for the vertical ones later.

I would not actually like to use a lightweight router after the trial run this afternoon, the running and control was very smooth with the Triton, afterall it has got all the gidgets like plunge and height controls that you could call for plus it felt very stable.

The B & D workmate was certainly a very versatile tool and never designed with this operation in mind, and I can recommend this method if you have existing tools so avoiding having to carry another tool in the WS..