Like to have YOU follow my NEW BLOG

     I've checked out my stats on the new Wordpress platform I'm now using for my blog and website.  When I compare the number of followers I had on this site to the number on the new one I'm feeling lonely!  I'd love to see all 35 followers from Blogger sign up to follow the new site at:

http://woodworksbyjohn.com

     I've been pretty involved in getting everything organized for our Craft Show application but will resume more active blogging soon.  Thanks all -- John

I'm Moving !!

Well, I'm not moving physically but my blog is:

http://woodworksbyjohn.com

Please keep following me on Wordpress, my new blog address is:

http://woodworksbyjohn.com     

     This is post number 408 that I've made using the Blogger platform.  It shows that I have 35 followers on here and this makes me feel pretty darn good!  I really enjoy writing this blog and sharing my passion and experiences with you.  I always welcome your questions and thoughts.  So maybe you're thinking; Why move?
     There are a couple of reasons but here's the main ones:

• Lots of spam has been coming across the Blogger site, everything from diet to sites I'd rather not see linking to mine -- you can imagine what I'm talking about!  Daily I need to weed out 5-6 of these things
• I want to put everything on-line at one address, the one above.  Anyone should be able to put Woodworks by John in a search engine and have me pop up
• My goal is to not only have the blog at Wordpress but also my on-line portfolio of previous work and projects rather than having a separate website to showcase my work
• Your comments and requests for custom work can be accessed from this one site

     I'd really appreciate it if you would visit my new site and click on the "Follow Blog" button on the right hand side.  It's a work in progress but I'll keep on top of it.  Should you run across any problems on the new site please contact me to let me know.  Also, feel free to offer any suggestions to make it user friendly.  Diane has been great in helping me set this site up, couldn't do it without her!  Here in Las Vegas it's been getting pretty darn hot -- predicted highs for the end of the week range from 110-114 so once the shop hits 100 or so I'm heading in doors!  That's supposed to be my computer time so I'll work on the new site then.

     In the meantime, thanks for following me all these years and I hope you continue to do so on the new, Wordpress site.

Thanks, 

John

Craft Fair Display Shelves

     In my last blog I gave a tutorial on how to make the torsion box shelves we'll be using in our display for the craft fair we're hoping to be juried in to this fall.  One of our main concerns is  making them light in weight and easy to get from the parking area to wherever our tent is located.  Here's a picture of one of Diane's units temporarily set up in our living room!

Clamps, no Hinges!

Glued & Clamped

     The framework is made of 3/4" Baltic Birch plywood so the height is five feet.  This is a totally utilitarian project and the emphasis was on being able to construct them quickly without a lot of fuss or time.  For that reason I chose to use biscuit joinery.  There are a total of 4 of these units that measure about 20" wide by 5' tall and 2 units that measured 20" wide by 30" tall.  As always in my desert shop, heat is a big consideration when it comes to gluing or finishing.  I had enough large bar clamps to assemble two of these at a time so that was the first step of the past couple of days.




Oh boy, do I dislike power sanding and especially MDF!  It leaves a super fine dust all over the place.  I figured that since I will be spraying these at the side of the house I may as well sand them there too.

Wish Those Sawhorses were Taller!

     This is the west side of our house, notice the sun on the fence?  It's around 7:30am in this picture and the sun is just beginning to light up the tops of the wall.  As you can tell, with all of the pieces that go into this project there's a lot of sanding to do.  Ditto for spraying on the waterborne lacquer I'll be experimenting with.  The specs for the General Finish lacquer suggest a temperature no higher than 85 degrees, our predicted lows are in the mid to upper 70's so it's an early spray session to be sure!  Look at the sun on the wall around 10:30,

     I'm starting to feel the heat already as it's reflected off of the wall.  Thankfully the lacquer will dry very quickly so I'm hoping to apply the initial coat on everything, allow it to dry, and then sand with 320.  If all goes as hoped, I should be able to shoot a second coat on everything and then move it into the garage to bake; uh, I mean dry for the remainder of the day.  Then the next morning will see the third and final coat and we should have this phase of the shelving complete.  I had to order a smaller needle to spray the lacquer and it's scheduled for delivery this afternoon.  All of the wood will need to have the grain pre-raised with a spray of water then block sanded to be ready to apply the lacquer first thing tomorrow morning.  Glad my next door neighbor is out of town so the sprayer won't disturb his sleep!

How to Make a Torsion Box Shelf --- Not Unplugged!

     In my last blog I talked about the drudgery of doing work on a production basis.  For the life of me I could never understand why the junior high school shop curriculum suggested we incorporate a mass production project in our classes.  With my classes limited to a semester in length I never included a mass production unit in my curriculum.  I always thought it was better to challenge my kids to be creative and explore what the tools could do rather than limit them to being the second sander on the third shift --- boring!
     That being said, to produce the required number of shelves needed for our craft fair display, mass production was the only way to go.  Here's the start of the process:

Parts is Parts

     These are the required pieces to make two displays that will be 4' wide and 5' tall.  The Baltic Birch pieces on the right side and top are for the hinged ladder assemblies that will hold the unit together but more on that in another blog.  For this blog we'll concentrate on making 8 shelves, 11" wide and 47" long.  They'll be made of the MDF you see on the left side.  A number of years ago,  Larry of  A. G. Yule and Sons Custom Woodworking here in Las Vegas gave a demonstration at one of our monthly meetings on how to make a torsion  box.  These are great ways to make light weight and stable shelves or table tops.  The process is similar to how wings for airplanes are constructed.  You'll see some pictures of my assembly tables which I made after his demonstration.  This was the perfect solution for what we needed; fairly quick, fairly cheap, light in weight, and stable.

   
     Here's the process to make one shelf, many people are always curious to know how long a process takes.  I didn't bother keeping track of the time required to cut all of the pieces to size but a couple of hours would be a good guess.  To assemble and clamp one shelf took less than 10 minutes so it's not bad at all.  First up was to glue/nail one long piece to the edge of the shelf skin.  It helps to secure that piece between bench dogs, you know how slippery the glue can be.



 

   After that, the end pieces were glued/nailed on one at a time. It helps to have the back of the skin supported, I used the other long rib you can see at the lower left.


















     Part of the initial preparation was to layout the locations of the crosspieces (inner ribs) on the outer edge of the long pieces.  Those lines are drawn on the face of the shelf:

     The next problem was how to hold everything in alignment while gluing and nailing those inside ribs to the shelf skin.  I solved that by drawing the center line for those pieces on the underside of the shelf skin.

Then glue was applied to the rib and "eyeballed" to center on that line.  

   



     This is probably not OSHA approved but by putting pressure on the inner rib against the long rib already attached to the shelf skin and positioning the gun as shown I was able to set that first nail.

   Once the first nail was shot in, the whole assembly is laid flat on the bench and the remaining nails are shot in.   This process was repeated until all three of the inner ribs were attached.

    Next up was adding the final long rib to this assembly.  Again, it helps to clamp that between the bench dogs.  Once the glue is applied things get pretty slippery!

      Finally, the entire piece is flipped over and the lines locating the inner ribs are drawn on the face of the second skin.

     Glue is applied to every rib.  I tried to keep the glue line closest to the inside of the structure to (hopefully) control some of the squeeze out.  Thankfully, it just got into the low 90's this morning so I had plenty of time to nail things down before the heat caused the glue to skin over.  As insurance though I decided it would be prudent to clamp every one of the shelves together as soon as they were nailed up.  This meant removing the clamps as each new shelf was complete but I believe this will help everything stay glued.  It was good to see fresh glue ooze out of the seams as the clamps were applied.

It Is Finished!

     Here you can see my assembly table also made torsion box style.  The beauty of having two of them is not only that they're lighter but mainly having the flexibility to separate them as needed for clamping is great.  This also comes in handy when you're clamping a face frame to a cabinet box.  No nails in my work!
     Well, hope this helps you should you ever need to make light weight shelves.  These are going to  be paint grade so MDF was a good choice for the skins.  You could use the MDF and veneer them if able to do that technique.  Another option would be to use a good grade of cabinet quality plywood to make these.  To clean up the edges these will be run on the tablesaw, that way I can true them all to the exact, same size.

Almost a Production Shop (Yikes!!)

     Let's start with the end product of the production work and go from there:

Di's Rag Dolls, My Display

     I may have mentioned that Diane and I are gearing up for a Craft Fair that's held here in the fall.  The location is fairly close to us, they will allow two people to share a both, and since we've always considered giving this a try we're on our way!  Diane's RagDollsRising with the emphasis on her new line of eco friendly dolls and my boxes and exposure for furniture work in the future will be the theme for our booth.  Diane has done tons of research on the internet regarding displays and this is the smaller prototype for what I'll use for mine.  I'm in the process of making two units for her that will be about 5' tall by 4' wide.
     The requirements we decided on were portability, light weight, easy to store, and, of course the cost.  What you're seeing are materials that I had and it turned out to be just enough for what was needed for my display.  Right now we have a 10'x10', Easy-Up display tent sitting in our living room --- doesn't everybody do that?  Part of the process of getting juried into the Craft Fair is that you need to submit photographs of your booth.  We decided that rather than setting it up outside in the wind and current temps of 110+ we'd just push some furniture aside and set it up.  We're hoping that we'll be able to get decent pictures indoors.  If not, we'll need to disassemble and set things up outside for the photo shoot.
     The display you're seeing consists of two, hinged, ladder like pieces made of Baltic Birch and simply biscuit joined together.  The shelves are torsion  box design made out of strips (1" wide) of 3/4" Ultralite MDF and some 1/8" Birch ply I had.  Worked well so we decided to buy the same type of material and make the units for Diane.  That's were the production process came in!

Ready For Assembling 

     First up was to rip the MDF into 1" wide slats to form the inner structure for the shelves.  These were then cut to a length of 47 1/2" and the required measurements for the cross pieces were laid out on them.  For eight shelves that means 16 of those.  Next were the cross pieces, each shelf requires 5 so that meant 40 of those about 9" long.  Then I ran into a snag!  The 1/8" Birch ply which is an import was pretty waffly but I thought that by cutting the sheet into pieces approximately 12" x 48" things would be fine ---- WRONG!

Waffled, Imported Plywood (yecch!)

    I called a friend of mine and he suggested weighing it down which I accomplished with a building block and a bucket of water.

Somewhat Better

Yep, almost 95 at 10:35am

     I had hoped that this would flatten them out enough so that after each shelf was assembled I could clamp it to the assembly table with cauls and all would dry square and flat.  The picture above shows my assembly table so what I did was separate the two halves and securely clamp the shelf in eight locations.  Did I mention it's hot?  Because of that I knew I needed to move as quickly as possible.  The process is to first glue and nail one long edge and the two end pieces to one of the skins.  Now, the three remaining ribs are attached one at a time followed by the second long edge.  Now it's crunch time as every piece needs the glue spread so the second skin can be attached.  Because the Birch ply was so warped it was impossible to lay things down tight, it was like fitting a leaf spring!


     After a struggle things were assembled and taken to the assembly table to be clamped down.  The idea was to clamp the first one with cauls and then the other shelves would be clamped on top of the stack until all were done.  Since I was having such a difficult time of it decided to just complete the one and see how it turned out.  Well ----- not too good:

Part of the Edge

Warped & Waffled End

      When I was talking to my friend about the plywood he mentioned that Peterman Lumber has 1/8" MDF sheets that he uses for patterns.  Gave them a call, lamented about the quality of the Birch, and yes, they do stock the 1/8" MDF.  Unfortunately they closed at 11:30 today but it's too hot to work any more today anyway.  Monday morning is soon enough!

The Question is not ……..

    …….. what's it worth?  Rather it's this:  what is the public willing to pay during these economic times?

First Coat of Watco

      This morning I did the final sanding and applied the first coat of Watco to the four boxes in the current Lidded Finger Joint series.  The wood is Macacauba and I really think it contrasts nicely with the brass pins in the corners of the joinery.  Here's a close up of that feature:

Brass Pinned Finger Joints

     I've been involved in a forum thread about how to price your work.  Even a small run of boxes such as these take an enormous amount of time to produce.  Add the hardness of the wood and the time it takes to complete the joinery you're looking at boxes that should sell in the $300-$500.00 price range but the question is, would there be a market?  Prior to 2008 or so I would say definitely yes.
     On the pricing forum there is much information and formulas for calculating your overhead, material costs, and then paying yourself a salary for your efforts.  Even if you have a  home shop and don't have a huge overhead for that like me, you'll still be hard pressed to sell an item like this and make tons of money!  On Etsy these will be around $200.00 and the same at a craft show I may participate in this fall.  The disposable income that craftsman such as myself could tap in to before seems to have dried up!  I haven't had a furniture commission all year and marketing attempts have not resulted in any leads.  The past two months have seen the Etsy market slow as well and it's not just me.  Others on the various teams and forums report the same thing.
      So, what's a guy to do?  I can't lower my quality standards -- couldn't live with myself then!  Use cheaper materials -- wouldn't have the same market appeal.  Sell out to an off-shore concern (China) to produce my work at a pittance and then just market it?
     Neither of these are options in my book so I imagine I'll just keep on doing what I'm doing.  Stretch my creativeness and produce furniture and boxes that hopefully will sell.  I know I have the abilities, getting that Sapele Hall Table accepted into the Design in Wood show seems to prove that out.  I suppose it's just a matter of waiting it out, things are bound to get better aren't they?

Lidded Finger Jointed Box Assembled

     One of the things that sets these boxes apart is the brass pins in the fingers.  These are quite time consuming but I think, they're worth it.  The process begins with pre-drilling the fingers on a special jig I made for the drill press.  After the box is glued up and assembled those pre-drilled holes have brass screws put into them.  This can get tricky!  The screws need to be inserted far enough to completely conceal the threads but not so far that they break off.  Inevitably, if they break it'll be below the surface -- don't ask how I know that!  That requires carefully drilling out most of the screw and then putting in a new one.

Two Down -- Thirty-Eight to Go

Almost There

   




      Next is to clip off the heads from each of the screws with a pair of nippers, notice how it leaves quite a pointed end sticking up.  This can't be sanded so a file is used to work each screw until it's almost flush with the surface.  If you try to sand the pointed piece you'll not only tear the paper it will also ruin your sanding pad!

Yes, That is a Power Tool!

     Those of you that follow my work know that I pride myself on the hand tool usage but also that I'll refer to myself as a Hybrid Woodworker.  In other words, although hand tools are preferred there are times a power tool does the work much quicker and more efficiently.  Hard enough to make a decent hourly wage on these as it is!  I'm using a Bosch, 6" random orbit sander which is a fantastic machine.  I initially purchased it in the late 1980's to wax a fiberglass boat we had at the time.  It's probably the best r/o tool out there.  A hand tool choice would have been a plane to flush the ends of the finger joints but the addition of the brass changes that.  I begin with 100 grit on the r/o, then 150 grit on a finish sander but do hand sanding with 220 and a cork block prior to applying the finish.   That's work for tomorrow as it approached 93 degrees and I was starting to sweat on the wood!
     I was able to set the power tools aside to cut the chamfer on top of one of the lids.  This is for the box that "flipped its lid" and had to be modified.

Chamfer on End

     This is an example of that quiet hand work.  Simply draw a line for the width of it, hold the block plane at what seems like a proper angle, and plane until you hit the line.  Always do the end grain first as it'll have a tendency to split.  After both ends are done you can do the edges.  The angle I chose was just one that looked right to me. Instead of using a protector to lay it out I locked my hand to the angle I felt was "just right" and chamfered each edge.

Meet at the Corner

         Once the lines meet at the corner that's your clue  telling you that you're done!  The object is to have a single chamfer all the way around the edge of the lid.  A router bit would probably do it quicker but, in my opinion, it would need to be planed smooth to eliminate the chatter marks so why bother setting up the router and creating all of the noise and dust?

New Box Series -- Lidded Finger Joint

     As I was wrapping up the Slanted Dovetail series of boxes I was also beginning work on another run of the Lidded Finger Joint series.  I'm not kidding, I need to get to an easier, less time consuming series to clear my head just a little bit!  Here's the end result of the first assembled one:

Clamped Up -- Fingers Crossed

     In case you're wondering why I say "fingers crossed" it's because this is a difficult glue up.  All of the finger joints need to be glued (obviously) and the lid has to be aligned on the hidden brass pin hinges and then kept square.  Looks okay but the proof will come when the clamps are removed and I can see what I've really done.  This one has some doweled joints that will be added once the glue has set up and the clamps are removed.
     The wood I used for these is Macacauba, if you'd like to know more about it go to this LINK, it's a pretty awesome wood but these particular boards were difficult to work with.  Like any project we started out planing an edge.  Prior to that though I did run it through the planer to get a 1/2" thickness.

Establishing a Working Edge

     When I build these boxes I let the size of the boards I have determine the dimensions of the boxes.  Once the pieces were ripped and planed to width they were cut to length as required.  Since it's a good design element to have the grain follow the boards around the box you need to cut a front, then a side, then the back, and finally the other side.  My system is to first set a stop block for the long dimension and cut the front:

Cutting the Front

     Next I'll insert a spacer block to cut the side piece.  Just for an example it the length of the box is 10" and the width is 6" this spacer block would be 4":

Cut With Spacer in Place

     As the pieces are cut to size, I lay them off to the side in the order they're cut and then mark them with a piece of tape to keep track of how to reassemble them:

Marked for Re-Assembly

     This Macacauba seemed to be harder than the previous batch I've finger jointed.  You could hear and feel the resistance as the dado head worked to cut the wood.  I suspect that the hardness of this material will require sharpening the blades!

Finger Jointing

     Steps that followed for this series of boxes were to cut a groove for the bottom and then cut a piece of plywood to fit.  Some of these boxes will have brass screws in the fingers so I needed to pre-drill for them.  This creates an interesting element once they're filed smooth and polished; did I mention this project is time consuming?  The lid and carefully drilling holes for the 1/8" brass pin is next.  Unfortunately, one of the lids slipped a bit so there will be a different style lid for that one!
     After the drilling is done, the hinged edge needs to be shaped so the box opens:

Fitting/Shaping the Lid

     This is a combination of a quarter round router bit and then hand planing the opposite edge so the lid will open as you see it.  Now a lid lift needs to be crafted and again, that's a combination of hand and power tool work.  After forming the piece of Walnut for the lift the process begins by using  a hinge template to remove some of the under side of the lid:

Router Work

     This is followed by carefully fitting the piece in by hand -- so much nicer and quieter!

Fitting the Walnut Lift

     Now, before assembling the box I'll plane the inside surfaces as well as both sides of the lid to get them smooth:

Smooth Plane Work

     My preference is to use liquid hide glue for these types of glue-ups.  I like the longer open time it gives me.  Unlike PVA glue, the wood doesn't seem to swell up and make assembly more difficult.  Old Brown Glue is my choice of liquid hide glue.  It also cleans up easier than PVA glues.
     I have an idea for the next series of boxes using Baltic Birch plywood cut so to emphasize the various layers, something done years ago for decoupage plaques.  Honest, these will require less hand work with just simple miter joinery, dado for the bottom, and a tinted shellac finish.  Hobby Lobby has a bunch of interesting imported knobs that will finish this series off.  Probably get started on them next week.

It's Been a While!

     Since Diane and I are planning to try a craft fair I need to focus more on building inventory.  Doing the boxes is different from building furniture on a custom basis because you really have no idea of who your customer will be.  I must admit that I prefer furniture but this keeps me in the shop and makes me self-supporting so to speak!  The fair we're going to try to get in is held in Summerlin, during the fall, and there is a jury that will determine whether or not we qualify for a space.
     Part of the process is that we take photographs of our booth and submit them.  Hmmm, since this is our first endeavor we don't have a booth or pictures of it!  Diane does such a good job researching different booths on the internet and always has a sense of what's needed, sure do appreciate that.  We did purchase a 10'x10', white, Easy-Up shade structure that was offered by Big 5 Sporting Goods.  Didn't have any luck on Craig's List finding one in white as is required by the fair.  Next up is building the displays to hold my boxes and her dolls.  It's a process but we're up for the challenge and interested in seeing how our work is accepted by the public.  Both of our Etsy stores seem to be on a slow streak right now.
     Here are the three boxes I completed this week.  They're all of the Slanted Dovetail series and pretty darn labor intensive.  I like how they turned out though.

Sapele and Lacewood

Walnut and Curly Cherry

Walnut and Lacewood

     Looking at the photographs I'm reminded of my saying: "it's all about the wood", doubt I'll ever get tired of the beauty and variations of this material.  The two boxes with the Lacewood have a bottom  lined with a piece of 100% wool while the Curly Cherry box is lined with brown leather and features a sliding tray for more storage options.

What's a Bench Hook? 2nd. Meeting of the Hand Tool Class

     You may recall that the first project for the class currently held at Wooditis Studio and School is a bench hook, a project I refer to as Project Over-Kill.  Why you may ask, well I've taken this fairly simple shop made appliance and added dovetails, tongue and groove, and dowels to its joinery to make it something that that will be useful but also remind the students of the struggles they may have had making it in class.
     Basically a bench hook is something you hook over your bench, picnic table, truck tailgate, etc. which allows you to secure your wood while you work it.  It works because your hand that is holding the board is putting pressure against the part hooked over the working surface.  Below, I'm putting a chamfer on the bottom of a lid with a block plane.  Other uses are for sawing and chiseling -- they really are a great addition to any woodworkers tools.

Bench Hook in Action

     Although two students were unable to make it to class Thursday those who were here accomplished both parts of the dovetail and will no doubt be gluing up next session.  There is much that goes into making dovetails.  The process begins with carefully transferring the tails onto the pin board:

Transferring Markings

     Something anyone who's done dovetails probably realizes is that since the joint is hand cut and the two parts make a perfect match you need to label the pieces.  I'm sure I'm not the only one to cut a perfect joint only to find out I used the wrong end of the board!  Well, in a class situation you also need to make sure it's your board and not a classmates -- note to self for next class.
     Once your marking is done it's time to make the cuts:

Saw Cut Straight Please

     Here's where we learn that the success of sawing really depends on the body mechanics we use.  Here we see some good form with a Japanese style saw.  The handle is nestled next to her forearm, the saw is parallel to the board, and it looks like she's on track.
     Once the saw cuts are made to separate the pins it's time to chop out the waste between them:

Chopping Out the Waste

     This is the part of the work that takes time and requires a sharp chisel.  We had a session on sharpening to underscore that.  As I told them, sometimes you're lucky and the joint goes together easily but other times you may have to fiddle around with it for quite some time to get things to fit.  I know that there are furniture builders who make this joint on a daily basis and theirs will almost always drop right into place.  For most of us though, it's a bit more effort.
     Just a reminder, next week we'll meet on Wednesday instead of Thursday.  I'll be there shortly after 5:00 in case you want to catch up or get some extra help on your project.  We'll be cutting the material for the tool tote and give the dovetailing a rest while we start with lap joints.  See you then.

Summer is Here -- 99.3 Degrees in the Shop @ 5:00pm

     Oh boy, I think it's pretty early in the year for hitting 100 degrees in the shop but Mother Nature probably doesn't care what I think.  Now comes that crucial time where any glue ups will need to be done first thing in the morning or else inside on the kitchen island.  I'll work out there until my sweat causes the woods grain to raise or I fear rusting my tools!  Time to get my habit of drinking at least 70-80 ounces of water to make it through the day that's for sure.  The important thing I needed to get done today was to replace the cane in the Star Jasmine table that was accepted into the Design in Wood competition, the table needs to be delivered on Thursday, 5/23.
     The upside of doing one of a kind work and not pigeon holing myself into the same work processes is that it keeps me motivated.  The downside is that I need to re-train or familiarize myself with a process every time I do it.  Caning is no exception!  I've done a number of jobs using pre-woven cane and some requiring hand weaving but not enough to feel 100% proficient.  Diane and I both find that when we blog our work we will go back to it to jog our memories on a process.  With that in mind, here's a pictorial essay on how to cane with pre-woven cane.  I get my supplies from Frank's Cane & Rush Supply and found him to always be helpful either by phone or email so he's recommended by me.

     Here's the completed project:

Shelf Re-Caned (whew!!)

     I have to admit to some apprehension starting this since the table has already been accepted, just adds a little more stress to not slipping with a chisel and gouging the work.  The main difference is that this Radio Weave is actual reed whereas the other was paper.  Don't think I'll be using the paper product again although it's held up fine in a wine cabinet.  The process begins with soaking cane and the spline for at least two hours in room temperature water.

Pre-Mitering Reed

     Before I put the spline in to soak, I generally cut the miters but leave it slightly over-sized.  For that, a bench hook and Japanese razor saw it perfect.  Final fitting is done with a utility knife but I like having that first miter cut somewhat accurately using the bench hook as guide.

Beginning Step

   



     After the cane has been in the water for at least two hours it's laid onto the frame.  The process begins by pressing it into the groove using a wedge and working it in a little bit at a time. At this point, it's good to use your other hand to pull the overhanging piece up a little, this allows you to press it further into the groove.

     As you work your way around you need to anchor things into the groove.  You can use wedges for this but in my experience cutting short pieces of cane and lightly tapping them in place works better.  I'm using a wide wedge made of MDF which is nice for the width but the MDF begins to deteriorate in a fairly short time, better to make it out of wood.  I saw one video on YouTube where a large, metal one was used for this step.  My plan is to make one from wood and add a thicker section on top, maybe a dowel.  Really hard on the palm of your hand as you continually work the cane into the groove!

Trimming the End

     Although this looks rather unsafe it's okay if your chisel is sharp and you keep things under control.  Having those fingers on the outside isn't the safest but I keep them "out of the line of fire" of the chisel.  What's happening here is that now that the cane is pressed into the groove it's time to trim the pieces on the outside.  It begins by pulling out the strands that are parallel to the weave.  Most tutorials I've seen on this show using a utility knife which to me is more dangerous and much harder to control.  The goal is to trim the ends just below the top of the groove.  The slicing motion with a utility knife is hard to control and there's a definite risk of slipping out of the groove and slicing the wood.  It also has the tendency to pull and distort the weave.  You can rest the chisel on the inside edge of the groove, angle it downward, and trim them off without the risk of slipping out to cut the frame.  The chisel does have to be very sharp for this though.

Final Trimming

     Just about done trimming the ends of the cane.  Palm of my hand getting kind of sore by now!  The piece of spline is in temporarily for now on the right, long side.

Putting Glue in the Groove

     Finally time to glue the second piece into place.  Michael, from Frank's Cane recommends ordinary PVA glue like Elmer's Glue-All.  According to him the drying time for it and the cane is the same.  Previously I used Liquid Hide Glue which he told me dries slower than the PVA so the cane maybe dry but the glue isn't fully cured and that could result in the cane pulling loose.  Made me wonder if that's what happened with the previous cane and was the cause of the waffling.

See the Mallet?

     The longest sides are glued in first.  The tricky area is the miters at the corners.  If you undercut them it's easier to get a good fit.  As I mentioned, I precut them before soaking to give me an accurate angle then trim them with a utility knife to fit.  I use a rubber, dead blow mallet which is blurred in the picture but you get the idea.  Don't beat on the reed spline too hard because you can deform it.
     All that remains is to let it dry thoroughly for a couple of days inside the house and then re-apply the top coats.  I plan to do another coat on the top of the table and it'll be ready to take to the Design in Wood competition next Thursday.

     By the way, I just gave the panels a little tap and they sound as if they're as tight as the proverbial drum!