Hello! and some questions about a current and former project

[Melanie Rys]

Hello! I guess to anyone who is reading this thread it's no surprise that i'm new here so i'll go ahead and introduce myself and get all those formalities out of the way. :)

My name is Melanie, as you can see from my username. I am an up and coming woodworker, just starting out. I am a horse person. I have a lot of stuff, and think plastic boxes are really tacky and so started my first real foray into real woodworking.

I've never been a stranger to a hammer and so once i needed a box i got some plans from the awesome people at http://elitetackdesign.com/ (hope that plug is not against forum rules but i do love them so much that i'll risk it, if not then mods please remove) and went to work! A very kind person from one of my horse forums pointed me to this place (Jim B.) and so here i am!


My first project is the light colored box in the attachments.... finishing from this first project was a trainwreck. Never again will i use polyshades! It seemed like a really awesome idea in theory and not knowing any better i bought it...... it was so awful. I dont know how this stuff stays on the market. So, that was box #1, my personal box. It was met with such fanfare at my barn that i started tinkering around and improving on my last design and when word got out that i was building a second it was sold before it was even finished.




So, box #2 is the darker one, and sold. I finished the outside in a darker stain and added some "value added" features to come with it like a grooming caddy. So i'm hard at work on box number three. I have a few questions and concerns.... My current project (#4, not pictured) uses 1/2" birch instead of the plain a/c plywood that i have been using, the local lumber mill didn't have any a/c left in stock so i got a "deal" on this but i was completely not prepared to actually work it. I tore up the edges pretty good on that laminate, dont know if it's my table saw of if i'm just sloppy but i can't present it to the person on the waitlist without feeling guilty, and so am going to have to hide those joints with something nicer. So, what do you guys use to finish out the edges? Besides custom milled wood.... i am selling these things at a dirt discount since i'm just learning. Secondly, the first box i sold has had a gigantic gouge in it, a wheelbarrow "bit" it. To be expected when in a high traffic area. It's in a place where brass corners *might* cover it, but i may go ahead and retrofit her entire box with trim since she has bought two and she is a really nice person that i dont mind spending extra time on. In that case, can i just use titebond on top of poly and have it be "OK" or will that be a disaster?



A thousand apologies if this post seems rather..... disjointed. I was fighting for a while with images until i figured out how it worked on this forum and so cheers!! Thanks for reading!

[Scott Holmes]

I'm stealing this line from (Jim K) "PolyShades is the worst thing to ever happen to a can."

As for your torn-up edges...
Is the box already built? If not there are plenty of options.

If it's already put together there are fewer options. Could it be de-constructed?

I can't tell how you are joining the corners. What are you doing to connect the front to the sides?
A solid wood corner with grooves for the plywood panels would be pretty sturdy.

Give us a bit more info and a picture of the damaged area and you will get more people offering advice.

[Tim Howell]

What are you using for a blade? You need a cross cut blade or else you will chip out ply on a cross cut.
Your corners are weak and venerable to chipping off with something like you are making. In and out of a horse trailer a few times and the corners will get banged up bad with exposed plywood. Quick and easy way,just tack on some aluminum angle to the four corner edges. Your box would look better and be stronger if you put some oak on the four corners top to bottom. (see below) It may be cheaper to just buy a foot locker, but then you would miss out on the challenge to build. There are better ways just try to keep it simple.
223586

[Jim Rimmer]

. In that case, can i just use titebond on top of poly and have it be "OK" or will that be a disaster?

Welcome to the Creek. You'll find a lot of good help here. As to the question about glue on poly - nope, won't adhere to the poly.

[Melanie Rys]

I'm stealing this line from (Jim K) "PolyShades is the worst thing to ever happen to a can."

I agree!!!!



As for your torn-up edges...
Is the box already built? If not there are plenty of options.

If it's already put together there are fewer options. Could it be de-constructed?


I can't tell how you are joining the corners. What are you doing to connect the front to the sides?


It is already nailed together, and for the deconstruction, probably not, without destroying it further. As for how they are joined, it's a standard butt joint glued using titebond and then i nail it with 1.5" brads, about a half dozen or so of them per long seam.



A solid wood corner with grooves for the plywood panels would be pretty sturdy.

Give us a bit more info and a picture of the damaged area and you will get more people offering advice.

I like the idea of a solid wood corner, in the fashion you mentioned and that Tim posted a picture of. I think it would be a lot more sturdy and look a lot better than what i am currently doing. How would i go about cutting those grooves? It seems like that would be quite dangerous with a table saw. Would a router be an option? That's on the list of things to add to my growing shop, the funds from these two (and future boxes) are partially going to buy new tools so i could get something fairly nice.

I'm not opposed to the idea of just rebuilding both boxes from scratch. It would take a bit of time, but the lady who bought them is extremely nice and i know that having it in the barn where it is at i will get more business the better things look. Most importantly I want her to have a long lasting, beautiful product. I am still learning but I do take pride in my work and I don't want to sell "junk".

Here are some pictures of the damage to the current box with the birch.


Thank you so much everyone for the helpful replies!!

[Melanie Rys]

Welcome to the Creek. You'll find a lot of good help here. As to the question about glue on poly - nope, won't adhere to the poly.

Thanks! I was afraid of that. And a fellow horseperson i can see by your avatar. Hopefully i can get this all worked out and make some better quality boxes. :)

[Scott Holmes]

Melanie,

Yes cut the grooves on a table saw it is not difficult two cut 90 degree to each other use a well aligined fence. A router can also do the same thing. Another option would be to cut the grooves down the center of the "leg". This can be done it one cut on the table saw with a dado blade. This will hide your cut edges completely.

Another technique is to use a crosscut sled or a zero clearence insert on your table saw to eliminate the tearout on your ply wood.

You may want to consider using an exterior rated plywood. Wood for the edges/corners could be a darker wood to add contrast.

[Tim Howell]

Get a plywood blade and if your using a table saw be sureyou cut with the outside (face – side that shows) up. Ie blade enters face side– exits backside. You may want to startout with a Freud Diablo blade until you get rolling. Here is an example if youhave a 10” saw w/ a 5/8” arbor:





D1090X


10"


Miter / Slide Miter Saw, Table Saw


Ultimate Flawless Finish


90 ASFG


5/8"


.087"


10º



I use a 7 ¼” blade w/stablizers (Diablo D760x)to cut miters in a jig with a 12” Radial arm saw. I know strange,but it cuts like glass and its only $20. With the stablizers, I have 1 5/8” ofdepth, more than enough for ¾” stock and the stablizers keep it very true.
Look for high bevel 30 degree ATB to fit your saw. In yourphoto, you have very bad chip out on the ply edge. You are cutting the wrongside up and looks like the wrong blade too.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Welcome to the Creek Melanie! Any friend of Jim Becker's is a friend of ours!

[Jim Rimmer]

And a fellow horseperson

I do love horses and had one growing up but don't have any now. The one in my avatar is actually made of fiberglass and is outside a BBQ joint in Pasadena, TX. :D

[Jim Becker]

Melanie, welcome aboard! I'm glad you joined SMC and are diving right in.

Plywood is a wonderful product for constructing many types of projects, including the tack trunks that you're tackling. I'm glad to hear you moved to the birch plywood from the AC...much better stuff and it will also provide a better surface for finishing.

Relative to your questions, getting a clear cut on plywood can be a challenge sometimes. The surface veneers are very thin and as you have noted, can tear out easily. There are several things you can to to help minimize the rough edges. They include using a sharp blade that is appropriate for cutting this material and having a "zero clearance" insert in your saw to provide support for the bottom side of the material. A ZCI basically has a slot created by your blade and is exactly the same width as your blade. There is no open space for fibers to break off as the blade enters from the top and leaves through the bottom of the material. Sometimes scoring the cut line can help as can running some painter's tape down the score on the "good side" to help keep things in place. All these things are necessary because "American" design table saws were not really designed to be ideal for cutting plywood like a sliding table saw with a scoring blade is. The scoring blade, well...scores...the bottom cleanly before the main blade cuts down from the top, leaving perfectly clean edges. If you want to see how this works, you are welcome to come down to my shop sometime. There are also other tools that are really good at cutting sheet goods cleanly...a track-saw like Festool provides excellent support for the material edge on top as the blade cuts up from the bottom.

Relative to the edges, how you construct your box is going to make a difference. If you are using butt joints (the easiest method) you are left with a visible view of the plywood core unless you cap them with either solid stock or edge banding. If you choose to leave them as plywood, they need to be carefully sanded until they are absolutely flat and smooth...and up to higher grits to help insure that your stain/dye will not absorb too much more than on other surfaces...this is pretty much the same situation as with end-grain solid wood. You do have other options for building the visible corners, including miter joints which is harder to execute, but leaves no visible "sheet end" at the corners. Another method would be a modified frame and panel that uses solid stock for the corners and the plywood for the trunk body. The method I use is a combination of butt joints for the case which are glued and screwed and the I put a 1/4" thick overlay around the edges to simulate a frame and panel look, with mitered corners on the thin stock. The downside to some of these other methods is time and cost...if you are selling your trunks inexpensively, they are not going to be a good choice for you.

Just for grins, here are a few photos that illustrate the "premium" method I just described.

1/4" stock milled for trim work
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v646/a-j-adopt/Woodworking/Tack-Trunks/trunk-1.jpg

Carcass construction started with ends and interior partition glued and screwed to bottom. Note that ends will be a butt joint with the front and back
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v646/a-j-adopt/Woodworking/Tack-Trunks/trunk-2.jpg

Case corners are glued and screwed...the "end-grain layers" of the plywood front and back are visible at this point on the ends of the case. I apply glue, tack in place with a few brads and then pre-drill for the #7 trim-head screws I use for these projects.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v646/a-j-adopt/Woodworking/Tack-Trunks/trunk-3.jpg

After application of the 1/4" trim (including mitering the corners), the "ugly" case ends are gone and the carcass takes on the look of frame and panel. The solid stock is also more durable than bare edges of veneer plywood.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v646/a-j-adopt/Woodworking/Tack-Trunks/trunk-4.jpg

[Melanie Rys]

Thanks Jim! It was yours i was thinking about stealing the trim idea from. :D

So, i can finish out the current box that hasn't been poly'd yet, but am at a loss for how to retrofit the broken box. I guess i could get a 80-ish sandpaper and take the poly off the edges? What do you guys think would be the best way?

Also, is there a "cutting miter joints for dummies" website/book etc that you guys can recommend? I've done it a few times but never at this level so i'd like to read up on it before i start burning through the more expensive woods

[Tim Howell]

It looks to me like the trim that Jim put around his box was re-sawn on the band-saw. Note, that is where they are stacked, on the band saw.. Re-sawn means you cut a 1x4 in half and make a 1/2" x 4 minus a kerf(actual = about 5/16"x3 1/2"). Using full thickness boards (3/4") doubles the cost and changes the look.
Can you cut the first box apart (nails??) and use my method. You would have a clean edge and the inside to glue to. Are these boxes for the barn or will they be transported in a trailer to shows and events. If they will be mobile you should keep the corners smooth and flush so if they get banged around the corner lip want snag on something and tear out a chunk.

[Melanie Rys]

Everything is already nailed, so i dont know about disassembly. I was looking online at lowes, they seemed to have some 1/4 inch solid trim? I am going to check on that tonight when i finally get away from the barn.

They aren't going to be very mobile. The lady who bought these two doesn't show, so there is no need to be transporting them unless she moves the horses (unlikely). The only real way they would get annhilated is by getting beat on in the aisle, but i am guessing the solid wood trim would hold up better to little nicks and dings than the ply would?

Thanks so much for all the help guys. I really appreciate it!

[Jim Becker]

Tim, my trim is indeed re-sawn and then thickness planed to 1/4". This particular batch was created from nominal 4/4 stock which after jointing flat and initial thicknessing was about 3/4. Re-sawing down the middle after cutting to width and then planing to final thickness happened after that.

Melanie, my trunks are also not designed to be moved around...they are more "tack room furniture"...although one did have double-locking casters at the request of the owner. Wrapping the edges with solid stock will definitely help with normal wear and tear since dings will not likely penetrate to lower layers like they will with plywood veneers. Plywood edges are actually pretty brittle. You could also consider doing the corners in aluminum or brass angle stock. It can be very attractive if you're careful with spacing your countersunk screws to adhere the angle to the case, although it's a more "industrial" look. Doing the three sided corners is also quite challenging.

[Melanie Rys]

So i went and got a bunch of molding and figured out how to do miter cuts. I tried for a little while using my table saw, but that was just not really working very well so i sucked it up and went and got a miter saw. I burned through quite a bit of wood "figuring it out" but did the long sides first so that if they did turn to "scrap" i could just keep going until they were correct for the short sides.

The corners aren't 100% perfect, but I do have some brass corners that i am going to slap on the box to hide any minor imperfections. Overall i wouldn't say i'm completely happy with the job (there are a TON of things i'm going to improve for the next version, including using tim's corner picture, etc) but i'm a thousand percent happier than leaving as it was with all the chipout and ugliness that was all over when i first put it together.

Still have to sink nails, sand, stain, etc, but here are some updated semi-finished pictures.

[Jim Becker]

Looking good, Melanie! Time to do some finishing...after all, you're posting this in the Finishing Forum. ;) (My latest Tack Trunk is in Woodworking Projects, in case you missed it...going to a gal up your way, actually)

[Tim Howell]

Get yourself the correct blade for cross cutting plywood on your table saw.Take a read here about blades. Many people end up using the wrong blade and get bad cuts and there is a big safety issue too. ie - NEVER use a table saw blade on a radial arm saw or your new miter saw! Note: you may be able to use the miter blade on your table saw for ply cross cut though. Don’t know what you have for a saw.
Your miters- Don’t try to cut 3 corners – you end up with a point. Cut the upright square – both ends. Then miter the 2 top pieces. I don’t have a mitersaw and never used one, but on a radial I would use a 12-18” piece to set the corner angle wood you have on it. Example – if your angle is ¾ x ¾ stock, then a piece of 1 ½” x ¾” as a holder w/ 1 ½ side down, put the ¾ angle on top to the outside. Clamp the whole mess to the fence and cut. The blade will then cut downward on the top and inward on the outside face giving you a clean cut and the holding board underneath will act as a backer board and you should get a clean cut all 4 edges.

http://www.rockler.com/articles/saw-blades-101.cfm (http://www.rockler.com/articles/saw-blades-101.cfm)



http://justsawblades.com/ten/choosing_the_right_blade.html (http://justsawblades.com/ten/choosing_the_right_blade.html)

[Scott Holmes]

Hi Tim,

"NEVER use a table saw blade on a radial arm saw " Never is too strong of a word...

I've had a Forrest WoodWorker II 40 tooth blade (also have a 72 tooth) on my radial armsaw since before neg or zero hook blades where invented. Going on 30 years without any issuses. Proper technique and following all safety rules is MORE important than the design of the blade.

[Tim Howell]

Scott,
“Never” seemed like the best term when talking to an inexperienced newbie. I too use a Freud LM 74 RO12 rip blade w/40teeth and a 12 degree hook on my radial, but only for ¾” stock as I couldn’t find a reasonable priced rip blade for my 40 year old Craftsman 12” radial arm. I always use a homemade 4 roller tension board on the front side and tension rods on the top w/ a splitter. Safety is upmost on a radial or anything for that matter. Note: Scott the pro, and a good one too, using a radial to rip??
Poor me – that’s all I got – but I can rip any width from 0 – 49 ½” wide and cross cut to 17 ¾”, and discharge the saw dust out the back w/ my home made blade guard right into the vacuum hose.
By the way – I filled the red oak ply by padding ( like shellac) with Sherwin Williams Fast Dry Oil Varnish , then spraying the top coats – worked good - and thanks for all your help!

[Scott Holmes]

The last time I used my radial arm saw to rip was 1983... It's cross cut only. Ripping on a RAS I would propably use a neg hook good point.

My 5HP left tilt Delta Unisaw can rip anything I need ripped.