Dennis McDonaugh
04-10-2004, 3:23 PM
A couple of days ago I asked about an accent wood for a tool chest I'm making. I decided to go with ebony and maple. The door panels and some of the trim is going to birdseye maple and the edge banding on the drawers is going to be ebony. I have a dozen pen ebony blanks and I'm cutting them up on the bandsaw for the banding.
I've had a few trials and tribulations along the way and as usual its taken me about 3-4 times as long as I thought it should. I routed an edge about 1/8" deep and 1/4" wide around each drawer front. I actually remembered to route the ends first, then the sides to remove the tearout from the ends. The drawers are about 8" wide so I'm having to use two pieces of ebony for the top and bottom and one piece for each side. I am chopping the miters with a chisel and trueing them on a disc sander.
This is the first time I've really used the disc part of my Delta combo sander and as soon as I touched it with the first piece of wood, the disc started to come off the shaft. I retightened it, but every 5-10 minutes it'd come off again. I finally went to Ace hardware and bought a longer setscrew to give it more grip. The original was so short it only had about 4 threads.
The miter gauge that came with the sander was unbelievable cheap and a real PITA to use. I didn't like switching back and forth for each side of them miter so I made a double sided 45 degree miter gauge out of scrap. It works much better and makes sanding the bevels way quicker. I've gotten so good eyeballing the chisel, that it only takes a second or two on the disc sander.
I tried to band an entire drawer at once, but those little pieces were just too hard to hold in place all at once. Even clamped, they'd move if you put pressure on them to add other pieces. Also, I started with spring clamps, but found out that masking tape held fine and was a lot easier to put on. The clamps kept moving the banding. I finally settled on putting on one piece at a time and moving to the next drawer. I'm working on six drawers in the lower cabinet and by the time I got to the sixth drawer, the first one had set up enough to add another piece to it.
I've taken some pictures and will post them as soon as I get them developed.
I've had a few trials and tribulations along the way and as usual its taken me about 3-4 times as long as I thought it should. I routed an edge about 1/8" deep and 1/4" wide around each drawer front. I actually remembered to route the ends first, then the sides to remove the tearout from the ends. The drawers are about 8" wide so I'm having to use two pieces of ebony for the top and bottom and one piece for each side. I am chopping the miters with a chisel and trueing them on a disc sander.
This is the first time I've really used the disc part of my Delta combo sander and as soon as I touched it with the first piece of wood, the disc started to come off the shaft. I retightened it, but every 5-10 minutes it'd come off again. I finally went to Ace hardware and bought a longer setscrew to give it more grip. The original was so short it only had about 4 threads.
The miter gauge that came with the sander was unbelievable cheap and a real PITA to use. I didn't like switching back and forth for each side of them miter so I made a double sided 45 degree miter gauge out of scrap. It works much better and makes sanding the bevels way quicker. I've gotten so good eyeballing the chisel, that it only takes a second or two on the disc sander.
I tried to band an entire drawer at once, but those little pieces were just too hard to hold in place all at once. Even clamped, they'd move if you put pressure on them to add other pieces. Also, I started with spring clamps, but found out that masking tape held fine and was a lot easier to put on. The clamps kept moving the banding. I finally settled on putting on one piece at a time and moving to the next drawer. I'm working on six drawers in the lower cabinet and by the time I got to the sixth drawer, the first one had set up enough to add another piece to it.
I've taken some pictures and will post them as soon as I get them developed.