Small Precision Neander Work.... (help!)

[jamie shard]

I bumped up against the limits of my ability over the last few weekends, not sure how to proceed...

I'm trying to make a stacking oil stone box:

stacking oilstone box.png

The oilstones are held into place with a hardwood mitered moulding:

Bottom Moulding.png

...which is giving me trouble. How to make it?

The stock I need to create looks like this:

Moulding.png

The widest dimensions are 1/2" x 3/8". The flats are 1/8". The slope is 45o. It needs to be accurite to about 1/64" or so, because the bottom moulding "locks" into a mirror image top moulding on each section of the oilstone cover.

Yesterday I played with plow planes and scratch stock, but couldn't quite get the profile uniform enough.

(I think mitering and fitting the corners will be the easiest part, using a miter a shooting board, but if I get the moulding figured out, that will be the next challenge!)

Any suggestions?

-jamie

[David Keller NC]

I'm guessing that the issue is that you need to cut a 45 degree on the back side of the molding that you pictured so that the moldings with stack. If I was doing that by hand, I would probably cut the backside 45 degree first (on square stock), then hot-glue several precision-made 45 degree wedges on the back of the stock so that I could clamp it upright in my sticking board.

If the issue is just straight-forward "how do I cut this" on the face side of the molding, I'd cut two rabbets in the square stock - one to the finished depth of the front fillet, and one to the finished depth of the 45 degree chamfer. Then I would use a wide shoulder plane to cut the 45 degree chamfer. Precision would be achieved by accurate marking of the back-side flat, and by accurate creation of the full depth of the front fillet. That gives you 2 lines to plane to, and you adjust the slope of the "45" by tilting the shoulder plane so that you will hit these 2 lines equally on the last pass.

[jamie shard]

Thanks David, you zoned in on the difficult cuts.

It's interesting that you are essentially saying slowly work to the lines. I got sidetracked building jigs that would take me right to the line, but errors kept creeping in. (e.g., using a plow plane to cut the rabbit right to the line, and invariably some part of the cut would wander just a little... or e.g., putting a 45o guide block on my shoulder plane)

Now I'm realizing I need to work away from the line (e.g. cut away most of the rabbet away from the line) and then tune the cut with a fine set shoulder plane. I suspect it's that simple.

And I need to work on better clamping, thanks for the hot glue suggestion! I can already tell I'm going to be doing that a lot.


-j

[jamie shard]

I figured I would post a final version of this project. Cutting the trim pieces was difficult, especially because I didn't have "extra" wood. If I was doing this again, I would make the trim pieces longer and cut off the ends. The ends are where the errors seem to show up the most.DSCF1242.jpgDSCF1243.jpgDSCF1245.jpg

[Lloyd Robins]

Very Nice! It certainly beats the plastic box that I keep my oilstones in.