Toy box/chest

[sunnybob]

COR!
Glad I didnt say that! I'd have been told to get my eyes tested (again).

My siltle.... stilli.... My example of chinesium is still out in the field somewhere after I threw it there.

Well, I mean, if I'm strong enough to snap a 4" engineers vice in half with my bare hands, then throwing it 50 yards over the wall into the long grass was childs play. Although we do have some pretty vicious ants, they might have bitten it into small pieces and taken it back to feed the young.

'ang, on, werent we discussing slightly suggestive toy chests? OOPS, I think that was a freudian slip. DAMN!, Slip. must not talk like that on a family site. I can say "family" cant I?
I had a birthday this week, cant even say my age now without lapsing into french. Sacre bleu, Lapsing? is that ok?

Nurse! my vodka tankard is empty again!

 

[memzey]

Lol - we’d better fill your tankard up with efes or kiri come the summer. I don’t even want to think about how messy vodka at 40*c would get....

 

[sunnybob]

I have three fridges, of course 'er indoors keeps trying to take the vodka out to put food in them, but I fool her by keep eating it.
HAH HAH!

 

[memzey]

I have three fridges, of course 'er indoors keeps trying to take the vodka out to put food in them, but I fool her by keep eating it.
HAH HAH!

LOL!

 

[sunnybob]

Memzey, having sunk your very serious thread into the depths of anarchy, smut, and chaos (welcome to my world), no probs here if you ask the mods to delete the "humour" and take it back to its pure and unsullied original condition.

hey, does that mean I'm refurbishing something?

 

[memzey]

I quite like this thread the way it is to be honest bob but wouldn’t be surprised if the mods did some surgery on it anyway.

On a more serious note though; I’m now off to Edinburgh for a week on a business trip so no shed time for me or progress on this for a while I’m afraid. Then next weekend I have Richards’s charity do on the Saturday and Emi has a dance recital on the Sunday. Weekend after that is Emi’s first holy communion. Come to think about it, she might actually be getting this box after she can drive, regardless of how I worked the pin boards....

 

[rafezetter]

Personally.
If you turn the pics 90 degrees.
Quarter sawn looks like a little like a flaming broadsword. He man. Thunder cats. Ninjas. King blooming Arthur. Bosh.
Rift sawn looks like an upper class elephant is making snide comments on your choice of trainers when you wandered into the posh area at Ascot by mistake when you're a bit lashed at your man's stag do but you hit it off with the posh fellas and they end up inviting your mob in and paying for all the booze all day because their dads own Cornwall. And Hereford probably. And the lasses are surprisingly open minded it turns out after all that if you're a bit canny with how you talk to them.
Damhikt. At least not on here.
I got your back Memzey.

HAHAHA that was a remarkably... precise, summation.

Quatersawn for me - even though those defects will be close together, in the riftsawn version they still show it's a bookmatched board, unless there's excess enough to cut them off?

I like a little defect though, just my preference.

 

[custard]

Quartersawn for me. It's customary to put the medullary rays together in the centre, and having the knot in the centre at least draws the eye into the piece of furniture rather than away out towards the edges.

But you're the actual maker and the one that has to live with it, so your opinion is the only one that counts!

 

[memzey]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I think what I'll do when I'm back in the shed is put some meths on the boards to bring it closer to how it will appear once finished. I'll decide then (and probably post up a few more pics).

Just need to make it in to the shed now

 

[memzey]

So I had another look at the boards, this time with some meths on to simulate a finish:

I then decided I preferred Lion-o to snooty Dumbo, jointed the edges with my No. 7 and went for the glue up:

Hopefully I’ll get some shed time tonight and finish that panel off. Apologies to anyone reading this for the slow going. I’m afraid that’s just the way it is at the moment as I have precious little spare time what with work, wife, three young daughters, etc. I will try to pick up the pace this week if I can.

 

[memzey]

I managed an hour in the shed this evening so I took the cramps off and gave the board a thorough sanding at 60g:

I think that worked well as the glue line is not particularly noticeable (it’s in the middle of the pic below). There is an issue that I thought might have gone away with the sanding but didn’t however. Some of the medullary rays appear to be flaking away from the board and I’m not 100% sure what to do next:

If I continue sanding is this likely to go away? I’m tempted to put the sander away and go at the top with my No. 112 or a finely set smoother. What would folks who have experienced this before do (if I may be so bold as to ask!)? I rather prefer planing or scraping to sanding (actually I prefer most things to sanding) so I’m sort of hoping that might do the trick. What do you think?

 

[thetyreman]

try a cabinet scraper or card scraper, that's the first thing I'd do.

 

[lurker]

Time to give your scraper plane a workout, maybe?

 

[custard]

Some of the medullary rays appear to be flaking away from the board....What do you think?

Maybe it's an iron stain, where a flake of rust, a particle of steel, or the metal part of a cramp or tool, has touched the wet timber around the glue joint? The traditional solution, Oxalic Acid, has fallen out of favour on health and safety grounds, and certainly isn't appropriate for a toy chest.

First option is a card scraper.

 

[Racers]

Rub some glue into the splits and cramp them down and re-sand, or rub some glue in and sand and the dust will fill the gaps.

Pete

Pete

 

[memzey]

Thanks everyone. I think I’ll have at it with the 112 and sand again (tonight if I get the chance). I need to re-file the edge as it wasn’t working properly last time I picked it up - think the edge has gotten out of square. I’ll post up pics when I come to it.

 

[ED65]

Hey memzey, are you still debating between PVA or hide glue for the dovetails? Just wanted to mention in case it's any help that you can convert your hot hide glue into liquid hide glue. Only takes one simple addition and it's something you already have in the house: salt. Not only does it make hide glue easier to use day to day (esp. in cold weather) it has an added bonus in that the prepared glue has practically an unlimited shelf life.

BTW I love your definition of "not particularly noticeable" for the glue line above. That's what most would call invisible! =D>

 

[memzey]

Thanks for the tip Ed. I am still thinking about which glue to use but was leaning towards hot hide as I haven’t tried it before. Some quick questions for you on that if you don’t mind; how many projects have you used your home brew liquid hide glue on? Do you find the salt alters the viscosity of the glue? How old a batch have you used successfully in the past? Do you have any pictures of previous projects where the glue line is visible?

Thanks in advance!

 

[memzey]

I managed a quick 45 mins in the shed so I sorted out the scraper plane and went at it:

Seemed to sort out the worst of it. I’ll give it a sanding over the weekend and hopefully make some more progress - opportunity permitting.

 

[ED65]

I don't use it memzey, but if you're looking for an endorsement Joshua Klien (of Mortise & Tenon magazine) and Stephen Shepherd (Full Chisel blog) are/were fans. And Chris Schwarz uses the DIY version sometimes too.

I think I read about this first on Popular Woodworking years ago and promptly forgot about it as I had no interest in anything but PVA or epoxy back then but I rediscovered it recently perusing the My Peculiar Nature blog and went hunting for more on it. Along with all the existing advantages of hide glue not needing to have a double boiler on the go and the longer open time stuck with me this time and I thought those might swing the choice for you here.

If you're interested in trying it the recipe originating with Don Williams (senior furniture conservator at the Smithsonian's Museum Conservation Institute) is given here, the one Joshua Klein arrived at he posted here.