Davids for Tom

[publicIdaho]

After a morning doing battle with computers, I was able to get to the shop after lunch.

First step, take off the clamps holding on the first stage of edge banding. Had to trim the excess solid wood off the edge.

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Now for more tool envy. This one is worth lusting after. After a table saw and the router table, this edge sander gets used a ton in the shop. Really a time saver and does so many tasks so much better than any other method.

Seconds to take off the excess wood hanging over the side and easy to get it perfectly straight.

[publicIdaho]

After the wood edges are flush sanded, it is time to get them flush with the surface. I used fairly wide wood edge material: a healthy 5/8" so I would not have to work too hard to keep the solid wood proud on each side of the plywood. It just means more wood to take off to get it flush with the plywood.

I used a belt sander. I do not recommend this method unless you have a serious amount of time running a belt sander. It is a tool that takes a bunch of practice to master, and even those that are real pros with their belt sander would pause before using it on the thin veneer of plywood. But, this is Baltic birch, which has relatively thick outer veneer layers, and I am painting this anyway.

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Forgot a step - putting the edges on the back panels. Since these panels are 14" wide, they make a nice rigid back to spread the clamping force to the thin wood edge if put back to back.

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Alternate the clamps top and bottom.

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Another way to get the wood edges flush is to get a little less aggressive sander. If you have never used a good air driven random orbit sander, they are the way to go! They need air though. Our 5 hp 60 gallon compressor barely keeps up, and only if the air filter is clean.

[publicIdaho]

After getting the edges flush with the plywood, it is back to the table saw to trim them to finished size - each side that was banded was cut 1/2" short and the 5/8" wood band was glued on. This gives you a chance to clean up the edges in case the clamps dinged them up at all.

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Here are the finished panels with 1/2" solid wood banding.

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Next was laying out the parts that have to be cut out of the sides and the front panels. After getting the layout, the straight cut was made, most of the way at least, on the table saw.

Be careful not to go too far, the underside is cut out farther due to the round blade. The rest is cut out with a handsaw.

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As you can see from the picture above, I am adding a 1/2" wood edge here as well.

The angled cut up to the top of the panel I just did rough on the bandsaw, leaving ~1/8" proud of the line.

I am not making the joint on the angled front/side pieces as it is shown on the plans. The plans call for making 45° cuts on both the front and side pieces, and the angled pieces also have 45° angles on each side and these pieces just sit on the front and side pieces.

I am going to use 22.5° on each piece.

I could have used a jig saw to do this cut, but the bandsaw is there and makes a smoother, faster cut.

[publicIdaho]

The 22.5° is going to be put on with a router bit.

Dad had one of these for whatever reason, but a while back, I found a big router bit set on ebay, it had something like 80 bits, 1/2" shank, all carbide. The quality was decent overall. We buy expensive, high quality bits for the stuff we use all the time, 3/4" straight for dados, etc., but for these weird ones we use every once in a while, that big cheep set of bits comes in pretty handy, and that set has a 22.5° bit in it.

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Time for a joke - dad hates changing router bits and he always said he wanted enough routers so he had a router for every bit he had. He was going pretty good too until I brought that 80 piece set in.

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Neither one of us likes cleaning up much either.

So, can you count all the routers and trimmers we have?

Trick question! We have two router tables too, each has three routers mounted underneath.

So, here is the the trick on making the 22.5° cut on the panels:

The line is made on the front, outside edge of the panel. A fair sized ~ 10" wide board with a nice true edge is used for a bearing guide. Clamp the straight edge right to the line.

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Flip the board over so the guide board is underneath and clamp the whole thing to the work table.

Check the depth very carefully on the bit - too deep and you go past the line and start taking out part of the guide board too. Actually, if you practice on a piece of scrap plywood that is the same thickness as your panels and go a little deep, you will take a bit of the edge off the straight edge which can then be used to hit the lines drawn on you panel.

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Be careful not to go too far and take out anything past the bottom cut out.