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.

Smaller is Not Simpler Part II

     Before I picked up the lumber for the table base commission I just received I decided to design the handle for the Maple Splendor box.  Even though it's a small detail it needs to be right to go along with the overall design of the box.  Here's what I came up with:

Maple Splendor Handle

     I like the idea of attaching it without any screws so naturally a mortise and tenon is the way to go.  It's a little over 2 1/2" long with a 1/4" x 1 1/2" tenon.  This wood is pretty difficult to work with, exotics become desirable because of their grain patterns.  The very thing that makes them beautiful also makes them hard to work with.  After cutting the handle to rough shape and forming the tenon I found that the spokeshave I'd made a few years ago was the best tool to bring it to shape.
     Here it is, ready to be glued into the lid:

     Not to sound like a broken record but the grain on this piece is stunning.  You can see in the picture that the ends of the dovetails still need to be trimmed but that can wait.  I'm experimenting with spraying super blonde shellac on some test pieces.  It's pretty hot and above the recommended temperature to apply shellac but I'm thinning it down considerable and using an airbrush to do it.  I'll let the samples cure for a few days and then see how they rub out.

Maple Splendor

Splendorous Don't You Think??

     Wasn't too sure if splendorous was a word but since I didn't get the squiggly line it must have passed the spell check!  I met a man (via the internet) from Virginia who saw my scrub plane on Highland Woodworking's newsletter.  He asked for more information which I gladly gave and in return, he sent me some local wood that he's been harvesting.  They were two beautiful pieces, one Curly Cherry and the other Curly Maple.  The photograph downs't begin to do it justice though, it really is a spectacular piece.  Even with my Lie-Nielsen smooth plane I still got a bit of tear out but the cabinet scraper tamed that for me.  In any case, I've decided to use this piece as the lid for another of the Slanted Dovetail boxes.
     I'm a "tails first" kind of dovetailer and in a previous blog I mentioned how I use the table saw to do the Stanley 140 Trick.  This time around thought I'd do it more safely with a tenoning jig rather than just holding the piece up against the fence and it worked fine.

Safer Way to Cut Tailboard 

     Once that was completed the tails were laid out and cut, again I cut both sides of the box at a time:

     Then before I cut off the outer sides I prefer to make a slight notch with a chisel for the dovetail saw to ride in.  I find that this is a good aid  for the saw.  By cutting just shy of the line you can pare right to your marked line.  A technique I use to refresh the edge of the chisels is one I learned about from Everett Ellenwood.  I rented a DVD of his from SmartFlix and what he does is use a piece of cardboard as stropping material.  Recommended is a smooth cardboard like a cereal box.  It's charged with a white rouge, placed on a hard, flat surface and the chisels drawn across it.

Stropping Trick

     What makes using the white rouge so nice is that you can see the track marks of the removed metal   This will show any small nicks that may be in the blade.  Once the bevel is refreshed the back is rubbed on the cardboard and you're good to go.  What I like about this technique is that it won't matter if you cut the stropping cardboard which isn't good if you're using a leather strop.  Besides, it's keeping with the green movement and recycling (that's a tongue in cheek remark!).  When I taught the dovetail class last summer we just kept some cardboard pieces on a machine top and the students were able to maintain a sharp edge on their chisels.
     One of the small problems of the slanted dovetail box is clamping it squarely when gluing up.  The tails are almost an inch and a half long so need a good caul.  What I tried on this box was to use a couple of pieces of UHMW polyethylene to press down on the tails:

Assembly Clamping Process

     These were then covered with another piece of the polyethylene and clamped to a flat surface.  You can see the try square and it was just a matter of moving the clamps as needed.  I let this dry for a few hours and then used the same technique to attach the other side and bottom.  Next up is work on the lid and trying to fashion a handle that will be functional yet not take away from the beauty of the grain patterns on the lid.

Dovetail Tutorial / Slanted Dovetail Box #2

     The second slanted dovetail box is made of Zebrawood and Walnut.  The length of the tails adds some difficulty to it but I think the final result is well worth the effort.  I can only echo what I said in an earlier post -- smaller does not equal easier!  This seems like a good time to do a tutorial on making dovetails.  There are many ways to do them and like most other woodworkers I've come up with a system that works well for me.  My preference is to cut tails first.

Stanley #140 Trick on Table Saw, not OSHA approved

     Stanley made a skewed plane that could be used to cut a rabbet of sorts on the end of your drawer or box sides.  The purpose of this trick is to create a shoulder that will sit against the front piece and give a clean intersection inside of the box or drawer.  A set of skewed planes was used and Lie-Nielsen makes their quality pair but they are pricey.  This way works too, keep in mind that tails wouldn't be this long in a typical drawer, you'd have 3/4" of blade showing at most.  I suppose you could use a tenoning jig for this as well but this way works, just be careful. Keep a firm grip on the wood and around your rip fence.
     After this step is complete it's time to lay out and cut the tails.

Cutting the Tails

          I generally cut both sides of the tail boards at one time, before transferring the tails to the pin board you should check them for square:

Checking Tails for Square

     If the sides aren't square you'll have a real hard time fitting them into the pin board.  In case you're wondering what the green tape is for I found it pretty confusing keeping track of which end is up so this was just a way to mark them.  After these edges are square it's time to remove the waste between the tails.

Removing Waste

     A small section is removed right on the scribed line to give the chisel back a flat surface.  I'll generally enlarge that until I'm half way through.  There's really no reason to remove all of the waste to the end of the board.  By leaving it, there is more support and less risk of a ragged cut when the tail board is flipped over to remove all of the waste.
     Now it's time to transfer the tails to the pin board.  To hold the beveled sides for this box it's necessary to either use the cut offs or make an angled jig like the one shown here:

Jig to Secure End Pieces

     Transferring is done with a marking knife and due to the length of these (1 1/2") I make about 2 additional cuts in the waste area to make removing it a bit easier.  In the above picture the pin board is almost complete but the jig is also used for the initial steps of chopping out the waste.  Notice the additional cuts made in the waste area.

Holding Jig

Holding Jig

     A complication with this box design is keeping everything square during glue up.  The small size makes it tricky to check for 90 degrees because the clamps take up a bit of room.  If the box wiggles when it's on a flat surface here's an easy method to make it sit flat.  I'm using decorative screw hole buttons for feet, these are glued on into 1/2" holes.

Decorative Screw Hole Feet

     Next you clamp a piece of 100 grit paper to a flat surface, I'm using the tablesaw and by putting weight on one end of the box and rubbing it back and forth on the sandpaper it's a quick process to remove any slight wiggling:

Taking Care of the Wiggle

     This box has just been oiled so it's on to the next one.  I'm planning 2 more of the Slanted Dovetail boxes as well as 2 more of the Urban Ranch design.  I have a beautiful piece of curly Maple that I want to showcase for some other boxes, right now I'm leaning towards a sliding top design similar to the style of boxes the Shakers made to hold candles.

Dovetails with a Slant

     In previous posts I've mentioned a plan to create a line of boxes to hone my skills and to market as well.  You know, have to make some money to feed my wood addiction.  In any case, here is an almost completed box I've been working on the past couple of days:

Design by:  Seat of the Pants!

     It still needs a handle of some sort, a sliding tray for the inside, and final planing, sanding, and finish.  I've been intrigued by cutting dovetails and then putting them into a piece that has some angles to it.  The dovetails themselves are in line with the side piece but by placing them in an angled block they appear to be slanted -- interesting optical illusion.
     The size of the box was determined by what I had laying around the shop:

Material Used & Practice Piece

     I had a small amount of Spalted Maple left from a stand up desk I built years ago which is what's used for the sides.  The Walnut is some of the scrap from the elliptical shelf project last month.  For starters, the 8/4 piece of Walnut was cut at a 15 degree angle with the panel raising jig.  I didn't realize it at the time but it's important to keep the off cut from that process, it's behind the practice piece.  The box is approximately 3" tall and 6" x 12".  The first step is to cut the tails for the dovetail joints.
     There is a technique called the 140 trick.  It's named that because a Stanley #140 skewed rabbet plane was used to cut a slight shoulder on the inside of the piece.  Not having one of those or the funds to purchase a pair of them from Lie-Nielsen I use this technique which I'm sure isn't OSHA approved:

Pay Attention = Very Doable

     I set the height of the blade on the tablesaw to the length of the dovetail.  Usually that's less than 1/2" or so and then it doesn't look quite as scary.  Because of this design the tails needed to be an inch and a half long.  This is cut on the inside of the board.  It'll help when you transfer the markings to the tail board and also hides any discrepancy you may have cutting them out.  My preference is to cut both sides at the same time:

Cutting Tails

 
     Even here you can see how the shoulder you created with the 140 trick gives you a definite stopping point.  Once the saw cuts were made it was on to the chisel work.

Removing Waste Between the Tails

  
     I was really surprised to find how hard the Spalted Maple is!  I figured that since the word spalt means diseased it would be fairly easy to chisel but not so!  Actually created a burr on the back of this chisel that needed to be honed away.  Once the tails were cut on all the sides it was time to transfer them to the sides and lay out the pins.

Transferring Tails

     Here's where keeping the off cut is important.  Since the piece now has one side flat and the other comes to a point you won't be able to secure it in the vise.  I've put chalk on the off cut piece to illustrate why it's important to keep.  Same goes for when you chop out the wood, that cut off piece is crucial for securing it to the bench while you work the chisels.
     Another thing I found to be helpful is to make a series of cuts in the waste part between the pins:

Extra Cuts Between Pins

     This made it a bit easier to remove the Walnut.  That's a lot of end grain to chop away!  Once the dovetails fit a groove was made in the sides to hold the plywood bottom and the box was assembled with Liquid Hide Glue.  The top is fairly complicated with several different levels rabbeted out.  So far, so good.  I used to always tell my students that you learn from your mistakes and I'm a bit smarter now!  The next one should go easier.  Here's another photo of this box with the lid removed so you can see all of the rabbeting required.  They were roughed out with a dado head then fine tuned with a block plane.

Parting Shot