The Rusling Box, Part Two...

I had a little less time that I would have liked to work on the box this evening. Unfortunately, several weekends of rain meant I had yet to cut the lawn this year and it was starting to look bad. So after three nice sunny days, and rain scheduled for tomorrow, I had to spend several hours mowing the lawn after work. Fortunately for me, I was smart enough to "winterize" my mower last fall, so I didn't have to do anything but put new gas in the tank and start it up (on the first pull, thank you Mr. Toro!)

After that was done, and supper was made and eaten, I was able to get back into the... oh, let's just call it the shop... and work on the box again.

By this time, the glue had dried and I was ready to level the inlay. I pulled out my 60 1/2 block plane and went to work on it. I do enjoy planing... I did have a little bit of tearout in one or two places, but I got rid of most of it and there will be additional inlay put into the bog oak, so I'm not too worried about it.

After planing the inlay to almost level, I finished off with the ROS 125. I also sanded the insides of each piece and both sides of the bottom and top before assembly. I didn't take any pictures of that; I figured you would know what sanding looks like... but the end result is a nicely fit, flush piece of bog oak inlay.

Again, I'm quite pleased with how this is turning out.

The glue-up used to be a hectic time for me. Now, I take my time with it, lay out the sides end-for-end and tape them all up with painter's tape before I start, so it really is pretty simple anymore. It seems less stressful every time, anyway, so maybe some of that can be chalked up to experience, too.

After the glue dries, I'll be reinforcing the mitered joints with bog oak keys, so I'm not too worried about applying more clamping pressure at this point. I've found I just start pushing things out of square, anyway.

By the way... sometimes it is good to be square.

I'm at another glue-drying-point, so time to call it a night. My wife is a twitcher (bird watcher), so tomorrow morning we're going out to a state park to see what we can see. It is a good time of year for bird watching; different species are starting to migrate through right now and there are still very few leaves on the trees (easier to see the birds) and bugs in the air (I hate mosquitoes).

I'll be back at it tomorrow afternoon, though, and I'll have the camera handy...