Arbutus Box Photos

Photos by Ingeborg Suzanne.

preped for finish

As the project gets closer to a glue up the visual changes become smaller and often the prep is a lot of the same procedure for most of the pieces. This isn't bad of course but a bit on the boring side for stories and photos of which I have few this week.
Here chopping the corners flat, square, and consistent. I put a couple locator dowels in the bottom piece and put the op over that so the horizontal pieces would align the way they will with the sides in place. Then clamped a corner chopping block I made to the top where I could get a thin but clean chop.


Hinge mortise. I'm always amazed at how many chisels I use for such tasks. But this work isn't really about making do.


Set up for edge treatments. A seemly small step but they take a while to do. I hear that in some traditional Japanese woodwork the edge treatment is one of the most important features and only highly train craftsmen perform the treatments.

Doweling

This week's update is a little late but here it is.
Finally doweling the vertical pieces. seeing as how 2 of these parts are rather wide I used 2 rows of dowels where I could. First the holes were mapped out on doweling jigs, which are used as a guide for the actual hole boring.

After the holes were made, or wasted rather, I transferred the jigs for an MDF template that would then act as a jig for the horizontal pieces. The paper that is taped onto the MDF was a full sized drawing I used to figure out some of the curves and angles I wanted for the side pieces... why mess with more measurements when I already have it traced out?


More holes!


After I could get the cabinet to stand it was one to some initial surface prep. The Chinese Elm isn't the easiest to plane though you can do it. I have found that a high angle plane is safer for this log but it still gets a little dusty when planing and certain grain lines are left a little more fuzzy than sheared.


Later on it was time for some flattening and surface prep on the larger surfaces. Turn up the mood lights get a good grip on the planes and work up a rocking and sliding sweat but I still have a little more to go.

slowly

Progress is happening, but slowly. I can measure it by beard as I haven't groomed my face since I got the main substrate together... I think.
Here are the substrates for the main vertical pieces. Since they are shaped I'm using lumber-core. Glue up a bunch of slats orient the grain so that pieces opposite of their neighbors, and put a cross-band of veneer over them AFTER shaping and they you go. Easier said than done of course.



This would be the form for the back panel(s) before shaping.


Drawer partition substrate to get a thickness I fell was right I had to modify the 1/8" 3-ply that we had with 2 more plys. Though after Ian's mentioning I'm now considering doing web frames instead. Hmmm.


This is basically what I have so far. The main surfaces have been veneered, received bake-ins, and applied edges on the front and back. The vertical members have been shaped, veneered, and currently have applied edges as well. The panel underneath was made with 3 layers of 1/8 plywood. Then there is the Euro Cherry leg stock taken down to pre hand work thickness and width.