Compound angle joinery by hand?

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

For some reason I've a hankering at trying my hand at making a tool tray type thing. I'd like to do one with the compound angle joinery, like a grain hopper, sort of a section of a pryamid type of thing. I saw some tips in a silly online video for laying out the actual dovetails, but it precludes having first made a compound angle butt joint. That's the part I'm trying to wrap my head around. Obviously, posting here, I'm interested in doing it by hand, but I don't have any real power tools. I also don't have anything like a fancy Nobex compund mitre box.

Obviously, it just boils down to mark out the line, cut to the line, and pare or plane to perfection. I'm reasonably confident in my ability to cut to a line at weird angles. It's the marking part that's got my head confused, although I also haven't sat down and fooled around with much it yet, either. All the layout techniques I've seen are more for aiding in setting up a tablesaw to keep the mitre gauge and bevel setting proper.

I'm thinking the easiest way to start is to do something similar to what some of the tablesaw techniques do, and make a large solid block with the angles of the finished joints, and use this to aid in marking the lines. But this might be more convoluted than I need to be; perhaps I'm missing something obvious? I figure there ought to be a way to figure this out so I could do my marking with a couple of of bevels.

Everywhere I've searched, I either end up with the same helper ideas for setting up a tablesaw, or lots of messages about what to angle to hone your plane blades at and stropping. (Wrong "compound" in the search results, I guess!)

I have no doubt I can figure out a way to do this, I just didn't know if any of the more experienced folk here had any tips or tricks to share. I'm not afraid of math, or buying a proper book. I'm thinking this may very well be the kick in the pants I need to finally pick up my own copy of Tage Frid's book?

[Steve Branam]

I would highly recommend Roy Underhill's book "The Woodwright's Apprentice: 20 Favorite Projects from The Woodwright's Shop". Project 2 is a tool tote of the grain hopper shape (as he says, an inverted frustum of an irregular pyramid), using rabbeted compound corners. Project 4 is a sailor's sea chest, same shape but inverted, with dovetailed compound corners (project 3 goes through normal 90 degree dovetails), much like "Hand Dovetails with Compound Miter" in Chapter 5 of Frid's "Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking, Book 1: Joinery".

In fact, I would say Underhill's book represents a complete project-based course in hand tool work, because each project builds on the skills from previous projects. If you built every one, or at least practiced some of the joints from each one, you would acquire an amazing breadth of hand tool skills.

You can see my build of project 1 from the book, portable workbench, at www.closegrain.com/2010/08/portable-workbench.html.

[Pat Barry]

Tommy MacDonald had one episode of his Rough Cuts program that made serving trays similar to what you describe although hhe didn't do dovetails in the compound joints that I recall. You could check out the Rough Cuts website. They have supporting info. PBS will be re-running the episodes - you could check to see if there is a schedule. Anyway - he had some blocks made as reference angles to aid in making the cuts and aligning the joint.

[Chris Griggs]

I made a handful of boxes for a client (actually my only client) a while back that taper inward in the way your describing.

I think this is what you're describing...???
187440

Here's a few things I learned in the process.

Depending on the amount you want the tray to taper inward you may not actually need to worry about the compound angles. The boxes I made taper inward at about 7 degrees, this is small enough that you can get away with cutting the angle in the other axis at 90 degree

Don't try to measure or mark the compound angle perfectly, use trial error. Here's the process I use to do this by hand.
1. Plane the bottom edge of the side piece to the angle at which you want it to sit. This is not a compound angle, it is simply the angle that will place the bottom edge in full contact with the bottom of the box

2. Cut the sides (the part that the dovetail, butt joints, or rabbets would made on) to this same angle. This will eventually become your compound miter.

3. Set you shooting board so the it matches the angle you just cut. However, when you shoot the piece instead of laying it flat on the shooting board lift one edge so that the angle you planed on the bottom edge sits flush against the shooting board fence. This will automatically place the work piece so that the second angle on the joinery edge is offset from 90 degrees the proper amount. This will take some trial and error, but it worked really well for me. You know its right when you can butt the piece up against another and they form a 90 degree angle while slanting inward at the angle you wanted. I've also applied this same concept to work using power tools.

I hope what I just explained makes some sense. I should say this is just what worked for me. I have no idea if its the "proper" way of doing it. Try it, I've done it several times now and it works quite well. Seems far easier than trying to do all the trigonometry involved with marking out the exact angle.

[Jim Koepke]

Chris has described the path I am taking to making an 8 sided pyramid roof for a bird house in my shop.

For the sides of the house a donkey ear kind of shooting board was made. This worked great for the base that is just straight sided. For the top, I was just doing it by eye. I found some calculations and spreadsheets on line but these were either very confusing or for table saw only. There isn't a TS in my shop.

The triangles for the top are coming out pretty good so far with just a little final adjustment needed.

One of my set ups that is in the works is based on a coopering method of using a plane fixed in a vice and moving the work over the blade. My plan is to make a piece to clamp in the vise next to the plane with an angled piece on top to use like a fence. This will work kind of like a bass ackwards, upside down shooting board.

My shop time has been diminished of late due to the arrival of spring chores.

Here is the post on the donkey ear shooting set up:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?157217-Eight-Eared-Donkey

When it gets done, the other shooting set up will be posted.

jtk

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Wow. Thanks guys.

Steve;
thanks for the book suggestions. I'll look into both of those. I probably should be more well read than I am on some woodworking tasks. I stumbled into woodworking as a hobby sort of accidentally, and have learned what little I know by trial and error. I like the idea of going through the projects in a book as if they were a course.


Pat ;
yeah, I've actually seen that episode of Rough Cut (one of the few I've seen) and that was one of the couple of tablesaw techniques that I was alluding to in my original post, and his setup block was what I was thinking off; I imagined planing that taper on the four sides of the block, and then using it to mark my lines from. Somehow.

Chris and Jim talk about what I originally thought was the best approach - taper the top and bottom long edges of the board (these are the easy ones, not compound) Make the angled cuts, and then plane those to fit. And then I started overthinking it seeing what folks do with setting up TS and such. I guess I was hoping there was some way I could make my marks perfectly, and then have the line to perfectly cut to. Obviously, unless I'm flawless, (I'm not) I'll be planing to finesse those cuts anyway, so it's not really a huge issue to spend a little more time with the plane. I was obviously overthinking things.

I need to find more time to get into the 'shop' and do, and less time for the internet and overthinking how to do everything. Work is weird lately - they want us here for lots of hours, without much to do. The power outage that screwed everything up the other day certainly didn't help.

I wonder if I could set up portable-fold-out woodshop in the back of my hatchback; I certainly have enough time on lunch break to get a few things done...

[Pat Barry]

I can't figure out why someone would need a birdhouse in his shop.... but I think you could adapt the setup block approach to hand tools. I wish I had taped that episode.

[Steve Branam]

Steve;
thanks for the book suggestions. I'll look into both of those. I probably should be more well read than I am on some woodworking tasks. I stumbled into woodworking as a hobby sort of accidentally, and have learned what little I know by trial and error. I like the idea of going through the projects in a book as if they were a course.

I prefer Underhill's book for it's simplicity, but Frid's book is excellent because it covers many techniques, and shows both hand tool and machine methods.



I wonder if I could set up portable-fold-out woodshop in the back of my hatchback; I certainly have enough time on lunch break to get a few things done...

You could definitely do that! Here are pictures of simple portable worktops I built on pieces of 4'x2' CDX plywood, using T-track system. They have 2x4s screwed to the front edge and one end (left end so a left-handed woodworker can set it on the corner of a table or other stable support and do hand-tool operations, or right end for a righty). The 2x4's act as both stiffeners and cleats to catch on the table top, plus the front T-track fits in the front one. The battens on top are side and end planing stops. The various front and top hold-downs use T-bolts in the front and top T-tracks.

Make it a little shorter, with some kind of drop down legs, and it would fit in the back of a car for a simple mobile setup (you would silence the snickers of your coworkers by letting them play with it to make a few cuts and shavings, after which you'd have to fight them off to get it back!).

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_6qAGOXP58V0/TOHtk3sOBFI/AAAAAAAACQk/Ox9n6PLdvJQ/s640/img_0927.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_6qAGOXP58V0/TOHtmN6K1RI/AAAAAAAACQo/i2MS-qKUb30/s640/img_0928.jpg

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_6qAGOXP58V0/TP7cizBrEZI/AAAAAAAACWI/D4uvhfQbQsE/s640/img_1006.jpg