Glad It's Not a Production Job (yeach!!)

Interior Almost Done

     Since today is Sunday it was an easy day in the shop between church and working out.  You can see in the picture above that the interior is almost complete.  All that's left is to cut slots in the uprights about every inch to put dividers.  These will separate the various game cards required.  The center section is space for 6 petri dishes and there'll be two dividers there that they can use to contain them, that's an option but seems as if it'll be a good thing so they don't move around when the box is carried.
     Whenever I work on a project it's the thinking and planning part that is the most intriguing.  I'd hate to have a job where I'd have to perform the same task over and over and over .............. yeach!  I've talked to several custom woodworkers that feel the same, what we do is more about the process and figuring out how to accomplish it than the final product.  Years ago Diane and I were talking about her approach to completing a painting.  What she told me is that basically she works on a painting until she encounters a problem, then she solves that problem and continues on until the next one comes along. That's stuck with me and really makes a lot of sense.  Even though my work is pre-planned before starting there's always that part of the work where you have to stop and think it through.
     As you can tell, the box and miters are fitted and ready for glue up.  That's on hold because I'm finishing the top and bottom panels before glueing the box together.  In the mean time the dividers and interior partitions needed to be done.  I had thought of mitering them but decided against that for a couple of reasons.  This box is leaving the dry desert climate and headed east to a more humid one.  Everything needs to float and be able to move with the atmospheric changes.  I decided to use interlocking joinery instead.  The only piece that will be attached to the box itself will be the front and rear inserts.
     The first step was to notch the ends of each piece.  This was done with a dado blade on the table saw.  A stop block was attached to the fence to control the width of it on each end.

Initial Steps for Notches

     Notches were also cut on the ends of the center dividers.  Since the blade couldn't cut the entire required size, the pieces were clamped together and marked as needed.  In this instance I used a Japanese razor saw to complete the cuts, first in one direction:

Increasing the Depth

and then the other way.

And the Length 

     Even though this saw leaves a pretty fine cut a quick pass with a paring chisel brought it up to par.

Joint Details

   





     When you look inside of the box this joinery won't be evident, it'll just appear to be butted together.  Here is is mocked together, now you can tell that the front and rear pieces will lock down the side ones.  They also lock down the two dividers for the card sections.










     Tomorrow will be time to lay out the slots for the dividers.  Seems like a good thing to do first thing in the morning when I'm fresh.  It'll probably take some work with dividers to get them as close to evenly spaced as possible.  Glueing the box together is in the plans as well, don't think I'll have any problem meeting the November deadline.