Need box joint jig thats fast 150 boxes

[Craig D Peltier]

I may be building 150 boxes only 3 inches tall and about 18x12 with a sliding lid on top. They will be of 1/4 inch bamboo plywood.

So if I dont miter or even butt joint these boxes I will be box jointing them.

I dont have a dovetail jig , could possibly buy for project though.

So whats faster to do this? Table saw or router? If so is there already made jigs for this?

Dont forget parts are small only 3 inches tall and 1/4 thick.

We are talking 616 box joints at minimum.

I think there going to house a mini dell laptop there coming out with?
There will be a few dividers in them as well.

Thanks

[Bill Huber]

I think I would use a box blade on the table saw and make my boards a little over 12 inches and stack and clamp a few together and do them all at one time. Then just cut the boards to the correct width

There are tons of plans around for box joint jigs for table saw. I would just do a Google search for box joint jig and you will find a bunch of them.

[Jim Kountz]

Table saw with jig. Once tuned you can crank out box joints in no time flat and like Bill said, you can gang several boards together at the same time.
I wouldnt do a router for this. Although it can be done its a little slower and that time would add up quickly.

[Gary Breckenridge]

Wood magazine a while back had a feature on box joints. It can be found on their website.:cool: You should be able to print the article from their website. I use a tablesaw. www.woodmagazine.com (http://www.woodmagazine.com)

[Roland Chung]

I've looked at several great ideas for a box joint jig for a table saw, but have never gotten around to building one. I just picked up a 16" Omnijig at one of the shows, but shortly after saw the Rockler box joint jig for $79. I usually get the 20% coupons by email for Rockler, so it would be a real deal. If I had seen the jig first, I probably would have saved several hundred dollars and would have already built some boxes by now.

Good luck!

RC

[Myk Rian]

Here ya go. http://www.oak-park.com/
Oak Park is in Canada and sells a 3 piece set of box joint jigs. They are mainly for their router table, but can be used with any table.
http://us.oak-park.com/catalogue.html?list=boxj--&product=SF1030

[Rod Sheridan]

For a 3" high box, a stacked set of cutters on a shaper will cut the joint in one pass.

With 1,200 cuts to make in a single pass, it would sure beat doing 10,000 or more single passes on a tablesaw.

Regards, Rod.

[Michael Wildt]

When I tried to make a box (BB ply 1/4") like that using a router jig I had significant blow out. Remember to have backer boards on both sides. Using the rockler jig was easy, but a bit cumbersome to hold it all tight together. Rear backer board is screwed to the jig, but the front backer board and ply still needs to be held tight.

[john bateman]

Seems to me, with this type bit pictured below, you could gang a big stack of your sides together and run them all across the router table at once. Flip the stack over and get the remainder of the 3" height.
http://www.mlcswoodworking.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/smarthtml/pages/bt_box_finger_joint.html
http://www.mlcswoodworking.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/smarthtml/graphics3/boxjoint57.jpg

[Brian W Evans]

I believe that such a task would require some sort of CNC machine - at least that's what I'd tell my wife.;)

Seriously, though - table saw. I have the Freud box joint dado set (http://www.amazon.com/Freud-SBOX8-Cutter-4-Inch-grooves/dp/B000ASGV1E/) which I like very much. It does limit you to 1/4" or 3/8" fingers, but the cuts are excellent. It won't break the bank, either.

[Chris Tsutsui]

This sounds like a great outsource job for an offshore factory. Ningbo haitian has a production capability of 50,000 bamboo boxes per month...

j/k

That shaper bit would have to be 3" high to get it work with one pass right? That's quite a bit!

Is 1/4" too thin for a box construction rabbet joint?

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Why does the jig have to last?
Just make a new one to the same specs when you wear one out.

They will be exactly the same if you are using the same stock as the stepping block. To get that you can run some length of stock through the Planer and just use that. One piece a few feet long might last you ages and ages. Or you can just break out the micrometer and plane fresh each time.

[David Keller NC]

"Is 1/4" too thin for a box construction rabbet joint?"

No, but I would question whether it would hold up well enough for what the OP stated that the purpose was - holding laptops. That's a fair load for rabbet joints to stand up against, and the cargo's valuable.

Plus, I suspect in this one particular instance rabbeting these on a table saw would be considerably less efficient, because at most perhaps 5 box sides could be done on the saw at once as a single board, then ripped into box sides. With a shaper bit, one might be able to do 25 or so at once given a shop-made jig and clamp to hold them still.

My guess is that the requirement for interior dividers will consume most of the time, since the dados would have to be cut one at a time.

[Don Dorn]

I'm going to go ahead and mention this with the expectation that I might catch some flack.

For the purpose intended - I'm not sure that a boxjoint is the right choice. For a box with a sliding lid - you can't help but to have one edge show the groove for the sliding lid, like any through joint would have. That is unless you you offset the joint not to include that area or use a router to stop the groove. However for 150 boxes, that seems like a great deal of work.

For 150 of them, I'm not sure I wouldn't miter and then build a quick jig to put splines in them (using tape on the corners to fold them up and hold them until the glue dries). That way, you can get them all done, then put all the splines in and your groove can go all the way through the boards and they won't be visible. It would still be plenty strong enough, attractive and in my opinion, far less work - and easily staged for that many boxes.

[Myk Rian]

You might consider a locking rabbet joint.

[Jamie Buxton]

Do you have a shaper? Most in the 3 HP category have more than 3" capacity under the nut. You could stack a bunch of slot cutters and spacers on it, and cut all the fingers in one pass. It'd be kinda like that router bit John pictured, but tall enough to cut the entire joint without flipping. It'd also have the benefit of 3 HP driving the cutters.

[Alan Schwabacher]

I can't compare with a shaper, but for a lot of boxes a tablesaw should be a lot faster than a router because its power allows you to stack parts. I would make a clamping jig to hold a lot (50 parts is only a 12 1/2" cut) of box sides aligned together, and make a sled type box joint jig to cut them all at once. The significance of having a sled rather than just a backer (as on the miter gauge jigs) is that the alignment pin is quite durable, can be very long, and will not deviate sideways. This is what allows cutting up to 50 parts at once. The box joint sawblade also has no problem with the height added by a sled, while a router might.

The limiting factor would be weight to handle and move the jig for each cut. If you are using 3/8" wide cuts in 3" sides, half of them offset by 3/8", that's 5 passes over the saw to cut the joints on one end of up to 50 pieces. (For 1/4" slots it would be 7 passes.) There should be no tearout except on one backer piece. For 150 boxes, that's 600 parts, or 1200 ends. For 5 passes on a stack of 50 parts, that takes 24 clamping jig fills and a total of 120 passes over the saw. (For 1/4" pins it's 168 passes.) It sounds quite doable.

If I were cutting a lot of these, I would make the clamping jig efficiently align half the workpieces sideways by 1 pin width, and build in a clamp to hold them all. I might use two aluminum dovetail templates to provide the variable alignment of the clamped parts to the blade, so I would not need to lift it to shift it sideways for each cut. With carefully sized stock, this might be sufficiently accurate to avoid needing to offset the ends of half the pieces, allowing one fewer saw pass for each group of parts. And I'd put UHMW-PE on the sliding parts to make it move easily and not wear out.

[Eric Larsen]

Even if I HAD a shaper, I'd still use the table saw. I could run a dozen at a time with zero tear-out and zero anxiety.

[Peter Quinn]

Even if I HAD a shaper, I'd still use the table saw. I could run a dozen at a time with zero tear-out and zero anxiety.

For the sake of argument, I don't feel the shaper option is any more likely to tear out than the TS option, just the same operation in a different orientation. The shaper would be the way to go for speed as you can both gang parts AND do it in one pass, then cut the stopped dados for the sliding top with an overarm pin router, and.....

Hey wait, Craig didn't say anything about having a shaper OR a pin router in his arsenal! He didn't mention a 5 axis CNC either.:eek: What exactly is the budget on this project? Client: "What do you mean it cost $28,000 to make $150 plywood boxes?"

I've tried the router method and the TS method, I would go with the TS and stacked parts given those two options. A simple sled can be fashioned to handle parts that small rather quickly. The last finger joints I made were
1 1/4" X 1 1/8", milled into the the first 9" of 24"X36" teak panels to accept aprons on a banquet type thing. Bigger sled, took maybe two hours to build?

[Jamie Buxton]

Didn't Craig (the OP) have a thread recently about acquiring a shaper? I think so....

As for chipout, you do the same with either the shaper or the table saw. You make a backer board which is part of whatever you use to push the workpiece through the machine. On the first pass, the machine cuts the backer board so that it is a zero-clearance backer for the workpieces. It cures chipout.

[Craig D Peltier]

Yes I did get a 3hp shaper by woodtek with a sliding table. Good memory Jamie.

We did a prototype box with miter corners , dadoed bottom , all held together with pin nails an glue. It held well.
Since the corners were mitered the front looked odd cause you had to cut one end down so the lid could slide. What I did was take that cut off piece rip it an glue and pin nail back on. It might be confusing cause it doesnt really show how to open it so we may put a finger pull into it.

Someone mentioned a lock miter joint. I think that will be tough in 1.4" but I will throw it around.

The box purpose is to give to VIPsbuyers in hopethat they will sell this new laptop. Its very small and lightweight. Inside will have a pen, mini drive, M&Ms an charger/paperowrk and Laptop. Why dont I get gifts like this?

Thanks for all the ideas and letting me know whats faster.I know its still up fpr debate but seems like router is out.

[Peter Quinn]

Well, if you have a shaper, especially with a sliding table, that might be the ideal way to go if the tooling is in the budget. Seems it would be doable with standard 1/4" three wing cutters and bushings rather than a dedicated box joint stack. I'm thinking one setup with a shim below the thickness of the fingers to make the matching cuts, like a piece of 1/4" mdf.