The Rusling Box, Part Five...

I had a doctor appointment right after work today, and then had to do the usual cooking and eating of supper, so I didn't get a chance to do some work on the box until later this evening. I honestly didn't get that much more done on it, unfortunately, as I finished up one thing and then ran into a problem.

I started off this evening by fitting the hinges to the mortises. In general, I find it easier to mark these by eye than to use a centering bit or some such method. The tool I use is an awl I picked up off of eBay a few years ago. The handle is Osage Orange or hedge apple. I mostly picked this wood to match the carving mallet I'd turned a few months before in that same year. It is comfortable to hold and does its job (marking screw holes) well.

After that was done, I took them over to my drill press and bored the holes. I'm always sure to err on the side of caution and I drill my pilot holes just a hair deeper to the inside of the box than I should. This pulls the hinge tight into the mortise. Aside from the fact that my drill press is a great old 1950's Rockwell I bought from the original owner, I didn't see much need in taking pictures of that part of the process. I can talk about my drill press later, if you really want to hear more about it. There is something puzzling about it, as the ID plate says the model number is 15-000 and when I called Delta/Rockwell to find out the manufacture information, they told me they had no such record of a 15-000 model number drill press. So I don't know if their records for this time period are incomplete or what, but I did find that interesting.

With the holes drilled (to pretty much the size of the screw and its threads), I inserted the screws without the hinges in to cut the threads in the holes and make sure inserting them later would be easier. A small chunk of paraffin wax helps to ease the screws into the holes. I usually like to drive the holes with a steel screw and then back it out and insert the brass one, but I couldn't seem to find my #6 steel screws this evening, so I had to skip that part.

After I ran the screws through the holes, I attached the hinges for a test fit. I was very pleased with the end result of using my new jig! That should make this part of the process go a lot faster in the future.

(Ed. Note: Looks like there is a slight pixilation issue with the image to the right; the line between lid and bottom is not at all jagged.)

Finally, I turned my attention to the lock. That is where I hit a snag. The description of the lock said it was 1/4" thick with a selvedge that was 5/16" wide.

They were right on both accounts. But what they failed to mention is that the top and bottom strike plates are NOT 5/16" wide; they are 3/8" wide!

So I didn't have a router bit that was the right size and couldn't get started on that part like I wanted to. I decided to mix up a batch of garnet shellac (which I'm periodically swirling as I write up my blogs) before I headed up for the night.

Dana is going out of town tomorrow, so I'll have much of the evening free for trying to make as much headway on the box as I can. Of course, before I go home tomorrow afternoon, I'll have to make a trip to Woodcraft to pick up another router bit.

The Rusling Box, Part Four...

After the miter keys had dried, I used a Japanese flush-cut saw to bring them to level with the sides of the box. I never realized how much I missed having a solid workbench to work off of as when I was trying to cut these keys with that saw. I can't wait to have everything back in order so I can start working on my new bench.

When the keys were all trimmed, my next step was to cut the lid free from the base of the box. I did this with the table saw and a small amount of painter's tape. First I cut the long edges, making sure the blade was raised higher than the thickness of the box. I used painter's tape on the cut line to minimize tear out. After the long edges are cut, I use shims to wedge the lid open and then tape up the sides around the shims. This prevents the edge from binding when I make the cuts to free the ends. At this point, I'll admit, the box does look something like a large turtle...

But after the tape and the shims were removed, I was left with a box that had a not-so-bad looking cut line. Of course, I still needed to use a block plane to clean up some of the saw marks, but that, followed by a little bit of sanding with the ROS 125, left a very clean cut line with just the right spacing between miter keys.

Over the years, I've tried a few other methods of cutting the lid free from the bottom, but this seems to work the best and leaves me with the least amount of clean-up work to do.

I was going to end the evening cutting the hinges and trying to mortise the lock, but, as previously mentioned, I got somewhat distracted with making a jig. Here is the culprit. It is simple in concept - a piece of MDF with a notch cut in it that exactly fits the part of the hinge I want to inlay and then two more smaller pieces of MDF acting as stops. The notch starts at 3 1/2" from the end, which is an appropriate distance for this size box. I wasn't quite as precise as I wanted to be with the opening, so I tightened it up with blue painter's tape. Then I ran packing tape across both faces of the board to make sure the router didn't get caught on anything as I was routing out the hinges. Next, I glued and screwed a small piece of MDF to the end of the face for the side of the box to reference. Finally, I glued and screwed another small piece to the edges of both boards for the front/back of the box to reference.

Now I had a jig to cut all four hinge mortises and was able to do so in just a matter of 20 minutes or so (including cleaning up the cuts with a sharp chisel). Because the jig is referencing the side and front of the box, and not a measurement from the center, I can use this on other boxes with similar dimensions. If I wanted to place the hinge closer to the edge of the box, I could always place spacers between the box and the side of the jig, but I'll probably end up making a jig for smaller boxes. I marked the brand and model number of hinge this jig uses so I'll know which jig to use with which hinge if I do get around to making more.

I ran out of time at this point and didn't have time to work on the lock. But, as luck would have it, I didn't have the right tools for that job yet, anyway...

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...

It's About Bloody Time!

Does it ever seem like you just can't find the time to do the things you REALLY want to do? Between the regular job and the part-time job and getting ready for Christmas and trying to take care of all the house chores, it seems like I haven't done any woodworking in forever!

But over the past few weeks, I've been able to sneak into the shop (and garage, since the "shop" doesn't really exist yet and I'm using the space in the basement where the previous owner had his shop situated) to work on some Christmas presents. One of them is a present for someone on my wife's side of the family, so I can't really talk about it yet (per some of them read my blog...). I'll be sure to post some pictures of that post-Christ's Birthday. The other is for a guy in Alabama who was directed to me, either by searching and finding my old website or through an acquaintance in Scotland who has directed people my way before. He wanted me to make a sgian dubh box for someone for a Christmas present (I suspect his father).

It was a bit short notice, but I figured I'd be able to fit it in, since I would already be making something for the aforementioned family member and it's easier to work on two projects at once when you have all the tools out and the shop-time motivation going at full steam.

I struggle with in-process photos and for that I do apologize. Even if I remember to bring the camera into the shop with me, I usually forget to pull it out until after I've completed most of the process. I do, however, usually get a few shots off before I send the box to the new owner.

This latest project was a sgian dubh presentation box for a Rab Gordon sgian dubh. The completion of this box makes it my third Rab Gordon sgian dubh presentation box and I always look forward to the next one!

Lately, I've been trying to do what I call "recycled" woodworking. All of the wood in this box was reclaimed from other sources. The white oak sides, bottom, and lid are all 100 year old sheathing from an old house my brother and I dismantled on the family farm. A friend of mine dimensions it for me, which he doesn't mind doing because this wood was found between the framing and the clapboard siding and thus protected from the elements. Before it is cleaned up, it really just looks like old wood - no graying or weathering of any kind.

The other wood I used in this box is reclaimed bog oak from England. This wood comes from Roman-period Londinium (present day London). It is oak that was used by the Romans to make piers along the Thames river. Since then, the river has shifted course by several hundred yards and the wood was preserved in a bog-like atmosphere. The tanic acids in the oak react with the chemicals in the oxygen-poor bog and preserve the wood while turning it a wonderful dark black.

It is hard to come by and expensive to ship over from England and Ireland, so I use it sparingly. In this case, I used it in the mitered keys and the lid lift. I would have liked to inlay some into the lid, but I just ran out of time.

Although I use some power tools for things like dimensioning the wood and cutting the grooves for lid and bottom, I used hand tools for fitting the hinges (Brusso butt hinges with 95 degree stops) and the lid lift. I recently picked up a Record 043 and a Record 044 plough plane, so in the future I'd like to cut the grooves by hand, as well. I just haven't had time to get the blades sharpened up and play around with them a bit to make sure I'm good with the techniques. You don't want to practice that on a time-limited project!

But I did try out something new I've wanted to do for a while. The sgian dubh is the small knife worn in the kilt hose, generally going along with a full kilted outfit. I usually line my boxes with suede cloth or green felt or some such thing, but recently I thought of lining them (especially when they are sgian dubh presentation boxes) with tartan material! This ties in well with the Scottish theme.

So I contacted Kathy Lare, a kilt maker living in New Mexico, and asked her if I could purchase several larger swatches of Universal tartans (tartans that can be worn by anyone without much contention, like Pride of Scotland, Royal Stewart, Irish National or Caledonia). She agreed and ended up sending me a generous amount of tartan that should keep me happy for a while.

I told the good doctor ordering this last box about my idea and asked if he would be interested in having a tartan lining. I indicated what I had available, but had a last-minute epiphany and also suggested if he had some of his own family tartan laying about that I could use that, instead!

He said he would be able to get some of his family tartan and forward it on to me tout suit!

Though I wish I'd had a bit more time to work on some additional features, like an inlay of some type in the lid, I'm quite pleased with the end result. Plus, it felt REALLY good to get back in the shop, even the freezing cold periods of working in the garage.