Doug Shepard
07-30-2006, 8:00 PM
First a disclaimer - Kids, don't try this at home. These attempts at toolmaking were done by a professional trained chimpanzee on a closed course and he didn't stay at a Holiday Inn last night.
I've been working mocking up the top till section of a jewelry box and trying out one idea after another of cutting spline slots on the corners. Thought I'd show a progress report with all the dead ends along the way.
Here's the thread with the profile and the top till section drawing
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=27403 The spline slot drawing is down on #14 in the thread. I changed the design a bit though. What looked good in Sketchup just looked too darn bulky in real life. So rather than my original 1.25" wide facets on the profile, I decided to narrow them down to 7/8" wide. That didn't allow for splines of any significant width on each facet so instead of 5, I settled on 3 splines.
Bad Idea Nbr 1
Here's the first jig scheme I came up with
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=29463
The idea was to face the block with thick veneer so I could use it as a shooting board to trim the miters. Then drill holes for guides/stops attached with pins for guiding a router to put the spline slots in. The 2 halves of the blocks were to be held together with threaded rod to clamp the stock into place with cork surrounding the stock. Another couple of holes were to have holes for alignment pins to keep the 2 halves together. So I get the profile laid out, the block cut in half, and the profile cut. Then I inserted temporary dowels into the alignment pin holes to hold the block together while bandsawing the 45 angle through the entire block. So I'm tapping the two halves of the jig together onto the dowels of the first jig and the MDF splits. Not on one of the glue lines of the laminated block, but completely through one of the layers of MDF - right through the two holes. Arrrgg. So I slap on some glue and put it back together. At least it's a nice clean fit and everything lines up good. I get the blocks cut at an angle and am feeling pretty smug. Twenty minutes later I realized I totally screwed one of them up. I either layed out the same piece on both blocks when I traced the profile or I layed out the angle cut line across the wrong corners. Dont know which, but now I'm really peeved.
4364943650
4365143652
Contemplating how much MDF I'm going through to make these I'm having second thoughts with this approach. Not relishing the thought of having to remake the bad jig plus knowing I need to make 4 more similar jigs for the other odd angles on the front of the JBox till, I broke down and ordered this gizmo from Woodhaven to put the spline slots into the profile sections.
http://www.woodhaven.com/detail.aspx?ID=1546
Bad Idea #2
Another couple of projects came up so it's 2 months before I start thinking about working on this again. Now I realize I didn't think through the AngleEase purchase very clearly as I've got no practical or safe way to plunge the work onto the angled router bit. Crud. So now I start looking at those machinists sliding compound tables but realize one of those is only going to get me halfway there. It wont help me with slotting the portion that transitions up and around the bend.
I've been working mocking up the top till section of a jewelry box and trying out one idea after another of cutting spline slots on the corners. Thought I'd show a progress report with all the dead ends along the way.
Here's the thread with the profile and the top till section drawing
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=27403 The spline slot drawing is down on #14 in the thread. I changed the design a bit though. What looked good in Sketchup just looked too darn bulky in real life. So rather than my original 1.25" wide facets on the profile, I decided to narrow them down to 7/8" wide. That didn't allow for splines of any significant width on each facet so instead of 5, I settled on 3 splines.
Bad Idea Nbr 1
Here's the first jig scheme I came up with
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=29463
The idea was to face the block with thick veneer so I could use it as a shooting board to trim the miters. Then drill holes for guides/stops attached with pins for guiding a router to put the spline slots in. The 2 halves of the blocks were to be held together with threaded rod to clamp the stock into place with cork surrounding the stock. Another couple of holes were to have holes for alignment pins to keep the 2 halves together. So I get the profile laid out, the block cut in half, and the profile cut. Then I inserted temporary dowels into the alignment pin holes to hold the block together while bandsawing the 45 angle through the entire block. So I'm tapping the two halves of the jig together onto the dowels of the first jig and the MDF splits. Not on one of the glue lines of the laminated block, but completely through one of the layers of MDF - right through the two holes. Arrrgg. So I slap on some glue and put it back together. At least it's a nice clean fit and everything lines up good. I get the blocks cut at an angle and am feeling pretty smug. Twenty minutes later I realized I totally screwed one of them up. I either layed out the same piece on both blocks when I traced the profile or I layed out the angle cut line across the wrong corners. Dont know which, but now I'm really peeved.
4364943650
4365143652
Contemplating how much MDF I'm going through to make these I'm having second thoughts with this approach. Not relishing the thought of having to remake the bad jig plus knowing I need to make 4 more similar jigs for the other odd angles on the front of the JBox till, I broke down and ordered this gizmo from Woodhaven to put the spline slots into the profile sections.
http://www.woodhaven.com/detail.aspx?ID=1546
Bad Idea #2
Another couple of projects came up so it's 2 months before I start thinking about working on this again. Now I realize I didn't think through the AngleEase purchase very clearly as I've got no practical or safe way to plunge the work onto the angled router bit. Crud. So now I start looking at those machinists sliding compound tables but realize one of those is only going to get me halfway there. It wont help me with slotting the portion that transitions up and around the bend.