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We are at the point where we have to stop what we are
doing and plan this project with more details. There are several things we want to
incorporate in making the Tansu Step style jewelry box. Beth and I went over them
together.
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First,
we want to use the spalted maple board and accentuate its grain pattern by
"wrapping" the grain over all the outside and make it look like it is one
continuous piece. The miter cuts will be tricky on this size board. Beth is holding the
small box she made a couple of weeks back. She had made that with the continues grain
effect. (click here for how-to on this.)
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Beth holds up a
small drawer of the type we will be making for this special chest. It has tiny little
through dovetails. The drawer front will be glued on the front of the box with a slight
overlap.
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We will make the
drawer fronts out of a single piece of Brazilian Rosewood. Beth, Gail and I have sliced
more than a dozen pieces from a block I purchased months ago. (Click
here to go to that story.)
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It's
another day and Beth starts by solving a problem — which comes first, the dimensions
of the internal case, the outer wrap or the drawer fronts. In this case, since we want to
have the finished chest look like it was one piece, Beth is carefully using the calculator
to see what the drawer front sizes can be. It is tricky in that she has to figure in the
width of the kerfs and the degree of drawer overlap.
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Before
she makes the individual drawer cuts, she has sanded the square to 400 grit and then used
the Menzerna process to give this piece a mirror like shine. It is beautiful. She will
have to guard against marring the finish as she saws it into the individual pieces.
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Beth has installed the CMT thin kerf cabinetmakers
blade. This will give her very clean cuts in both directions. She carefully measures for
her first cut. Some of these cuts are "rip" cuts and would be easier with
the fence, but making all cuts with the Incra 5000 Miter sled will work fine and keep
things simpler.
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Beth
makes the cuts having set a clamp in the T-slot to hold the front of the board. She has
set the fence stop to keep the bottom of the board from moving. She eases the piece
through the sharp blade. It leaves a square and clean cut.
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At the
third cut, the piece is very narrow so in addition to the top clamp, Beth uses the square
to hold the piece exactly where she wants it.
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To cut for the drawer heights, Beth measures very carefully and sets the fence stop block
to use with all the cuts. This view also shows the positioning of the T-track clamp. The
piece is too small to have fingers holding it.
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Beth has
placed all the cut offs in the order that they were in the board. The arrow points to one
that was "folded out" from the 2nd from the top row. It becomes the bottom far
right drawer front. Turned around the grain matches surprisingly well. Beth has marked the
back of each of these pieces. It is so easy to get them out of order, and that would mean
all her hard work would be for naught.
Next, Andrea will be here to cut drawer sides and use the WoodRat to make the
tiny little dovetails. Before she arrives, I will make the internal case so that we can
make the drawers to fit. This is a fun project.
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