Working with small stock – questions
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Looking for suggestions to work with small stock:
As a going away to college gift, I made my son a small pencil box with his initial “J” on the sides. As shown on the picture, the box has one side with a “J”, one with a simple checked pattern, and then the other 2 sides are repeats. (Picture attached. Maple, walnut, cherry squares and a mahogany base.)
I managed to rip the stock to 3/8″ by 1/2″ with a simple jig on the table saw. I thought that by being very careful on this step, the rest would be easy . . . . But it was not. A couple of problems cropped up and I would appreciate suggestions on how to solve/avoid these problems. This project took way too long! I don’t own a jointer or planar, but these would probably be useless anyway, given the size of the box sides and thin strips.
1. The thin strips of wood had minor snipe from the table saw. Given how many strips there were, it was a lot of work to correct. Would a spindle sander help if I used a simple jig on the spindle sander to “joint” the strip. (e.g. http://lumberjocks.com/projects/765 – I tried a similar approach on using my drill press and a spindle sanding attachment, but getting the sandpaper to stay on the spindle was way too difficult. . . . . Its going back to the store.)
2. After glue-up, the sides of the box were not flat – partly b/c they did not glue completely flat, and partly because of remaining snipe on the ends. Is there a simple gluing jig to ensure they come out flatter? If not, how best can you flatten such a small piece of wood? I ultimately used a belt sander, which worked, but I felt like a bull in a china shop! I don’t own an random orbital sander – would this be a better tool? Bill Hylton’s book “woodworking with the router” has a jig to flatten a board where you essentially float the router on a platform above the workpiece and make multiple passes to flatten the workpiece. Would this work with such a small workpiece?
Thanks!
Replies
Well, I've never made anything like your pencil box, but I regularly cut small strips, primarily for use in pegging mortises in A&C furniture. I routinely cut 1/4" square strips. When doing so, I usually put a featherboard directly before the blade pushing the piece into the fence and one pushing down against the table. I uses a 60-tooth fine blade. You will often get snipe as the last section passes the blade, after it has left the featherboard. Not much you can do about that.
If I was going to make something like you show, I think I would have laminated the squares onto some thin wood -- thin ply or veneer -- that would end up as the inside layer of the box. I'm not sure your box will hold together over time given that there are a lot of endgrain joints, and the natural movement of the various woods you used will tend to loosen the joints which, being endgrain joints, are weak to begin with.
One way this sort of glue-up is traditionally accomplished is to glue several long thin sticks together into larger "logs" and then crosscut the "logs" to yield the checkerboard sub-sections. Kind of like laying sheets of mosaic tile. This way, you never have to deal with lots of tiny units where any cumulative errors are magnified.
Hope that helps.
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
Good suggestions. I like your suggestions about putting it onto a backing - this would help.
To clarify - there are no endgrain joints. They are all edge grain. It was made as you suggested gluing long strips together and then crosscutting. I had to make up 5 "block" patterns to crosscut to get all the vertical pieces needed for the pattern.
"there are no endgrain joints"
Now I'm puzzled. It looks from the pics like the face grain is facing out and in, If so, two edges on each of the small blocks would necessarily be end grain, glued to the adjoing block, no? The only way to avoid end grain joints would be to have the end grain facing in and out.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
You're right - sorry for the confusion. There are endgrain joints. The first cuts and glue-ups are edge grain. The cross cuts then are end grain. I would hope that because there are long strips and not individual pieces, that's still a lot of glue surface for something that does not take any stress, other than wood movement. Your idea of putting it onto a ply backing would eliminate this problem completely.
With regards to the sanding idea you might check this out as another way to thickness thin strips:
http://www.luthiersfriend.com/
I bought one recently but have only had time to test it our briefly. It appears to be pretty high quality and the price seemed reasonable to me.
Chris
Now that right there is cool. Never saw one before. Pretty cheap, too!
I've got a flattop guitar moving up on my "to do" list, and this might come in handy. I'm savin' that page for sure.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
Mike.. Buy if you want to but I have used drum sanders for 'thickness' for years. I usually do it now on a oscillating edge belt/spindle sander. I find the drum is more accurate but the belt quicker. I don't have a drawing but I have a wooden table I bolt to the sander table. It has a fence sort of like a router table and an adjustable stop to set the final depth (exit end) the entrance is just clamped down to make a wedged length of travel for the stick..
This part is sort of hard to explain. The 'fence' has an aluminum channel that holds a length of hardwood with a glued on 'stop' just a bit shorter than the final sanding width. The length of the hardwood that runs in the fence is about a foot longer than the length of the 'sticks' to be sanded. I'd call the hardwood length with its stop.. a Anti-Rocket Launcher! I also put a stop of some type above to prevent the stick being sanded from riding up above the stop.
Pull the Anti-Rocket Launcher! back.. Load a stick, and feed the stick into the sander, while holding onto the end of the Anti-Rocket Launcher!
Works great as long as you do not get to aggressive with the sanding depth for each pass. Big bite may yank the Anti-Rocket Launcher! out of your hand and you have two rockets launched!
At the exit end, the sticks just drop off onto the table below...
I use a safety stop so if the Anti-Rocket Launcher! gets away from your hand it will stop before a hand gets near that sanding belt or drum. You only loose one stick being sanded. Amazing how aggressive sanding belts can be!
Thanks, WG. Saved for future reference.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
Definitely a health hazard (handling small parts).
Now building aluminum (in 1/2" MIC-6) sleds that jam the work, clamp it down and index. Used for sizing down or across grain or any angle. A hell of a challenge too. Wood, unlike plastic & metal has to routed, sawn etc. with respect to which way the grain is oriented. So the fixturing has to accommodate.
Major "snipe" on TS will be mostly solved by a properly set up riving knife; but the best solution (not a replacement for the knife!) is to start with stock that is overlength, i.e, re-order your milling procedure.
Brian
I have not done anything like this and i may be missing something but I often joint thin strips with a plane. If i am joining two thin strips I will joint them both as the same time and it is way faster than any machine set up. With thin strips I will often not even set up my jointer (if one edge is jointed) and use a hand plane to clean up any saw blade marks/flatten. Glue up and then use a scraper or a plane to flatten/finish the faces. A bench hook makes it easier if they are short. I have not jointed end grain with a plane though.
Thanks to all who replied - numerous good suggestions that will help keep me out of trouble next time.
Mervyn
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