Lid for drop lid box will not lie flat, it “rocks” slightly in one direction
user-7827847
| Posted in General Discussion on
Hi,
I’m building small decorative boxes and sometimes the lid which insets into the box will “rock” on one side. Lid bottom has been sanded flat, and the rabbeted lid support appears flat and uniform and the mitered corners appear flat, no stepping, etc.
What would be a good way to approach fixing this? Degree of rocking is about 1/32nd of an inch, possibly a tad more. Several of my other boxes lie flat- I cannot see the difference.
Thanks for your suggestions.
Peter
Replies
Apparently, either the lid support in the box or the lid itself or both are not flat. I would start by laying the lid on a known flat surface like your table saw top and check it for flatness. You say that the lid was sanded flat. How was it sanded? If sanded by hand or with a hand held machine, I would be suspect. Even it it was perfect after sanding, it could have warped a bit since.
1/32" is not much. You could possibly fix that with small shims or felt "bumpers". The best method to actually flatten either the support or the lid depends on the tools and equipment you have and where the pieces are out of true flat
Remove the lid and check top edge of the box for flatness on your table saw. If this is OK, then the problem is in your lid. Your question was not entirely clear, but if you have a rabbet around the sides of the lid, so it is inset into the box, then the rabbet surface is what you need to adjust. I would check the lid for rocking, and then use a rabbet plane to carefully take the high spots off. Do this slowly with thin shavings without the hinges attached. When you get this right, then reinstall the hinges and check again. If you're like me, the lid will rock again because I suck at making hinges fit perfectly.
Thank you all for your suggestions. I discovered that my initial preparatory sanding which was done with a hand random orbital sander and I had taken down the edges a tiny bit too much, leaving a small high spot in the center of the lid- hence the "rocking". Once I placed the lid on a belt sander, I could see that only the center/high area was sanded off (it looked rough instead of more shiny/buffed edge areas. I placed pencil marks across the lid and only the center marks were removed.
Draw some pencil lines on your tablesaw and rub the box and / or lid around on the iron, the highs and lows will be apparent very quickly.
Does the lid drop in easily or does it take a little push?
Just drops in, doesn't get hung up
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