Upcoming Schedule
April
6: Tour of DMT facility in Marlborough
April
16: Turning, demonstrations with Devon Thibeault at his shop in Medford.
May
21; Working with hinges at Cliff Clarke’s in Boston
May
?; Workshop, Plane making with Peter Wilcox in Boylston.
June
19; Fine tuning your machines
Box making
Phyllis Jaffee led the meeting in February at
her shop and showed the group some of her box making techniques. Phyllis makes jewelry boxes in a variety of
shapes, sizes and woods. For the meeting
she showed us how she creates her designs, makes full sized CAD drawings of the
parts, cuts the material and assembles the box.
In particular she demonstrated building a concealed hinge pin lid using
a simple scrap of papers as a template.
We were also given a demonstration on making a
band-sawn box. Phyllis started with a
glued up block of wood that was about 4” X 12” and 4” thick. Using the bandsaw with a 1/8” blade, Phyllis
went through the sequence of cuts to make saw the outside shape of the box, the
front, back and drawer parts.
The meeting concluded with a discussion about
website sites and marketing. Phyllis
does much business through her web site and has plenty to offer those members
who are considering the internet as an avenue for sales. One of the most important things she stressed
was being able to accept credit cards via PayPal or similar service.
For those who could not make the meeting, you
can see some of Phyllis’ work at www.29designs.com.
Cope and stick doors
In January we covered cope and stick door
construction. I went over some of the
basic do’s and don’ts of cabinet door
construction and demonstrated some of the methods and jigs I use. The most common type of cutters you will
encounter will be matched sets for a router.
They cost about $70 to $100 per
set. Here is a quick list of important
things to remember when using these cutter to make doors.
1)
Mill all of the stiles (vertical pieces) and rails (horizontal pieces) at the
same time to ensure that all pieces are the same thickness. Mill a few extra
pieces for practice cuts and replacements if
needed.
2)
Cut the rails to finished length, but leave them about 1/4” wider than the
finished dimension, don’t forget to include the length of the tenon, typically
3/8” but sometimes 7/16”.
3)
Mill stiles 1/4” wide and about 1-2” long.
4)
Mill the cope on the ends of the rail using a sled to hold the piece perpendicular to the fence. This is a very dangerous cut if done without
a sled to support the workpiece.
5)
Change cutters to the door profile bit and mill the profile on the stiles and
rails. Two separate set ups is ideal in
case you have to make a new part.
6)
Run the profiled edge across the jointer to clean any tear-out that may have
occurred. Make a second pass on the
router table. Since you are removing
very little material there should be less tear-out and a smoother, chatter-free profile.
7)
Once all the edges have been profiled, mill all parts to their final width and
length. This will remove any tear-out
left by the coping cutter on the rails.
Be sure to use your
practice pieces to set the height of the cutters. The better the fit, the less sanding you will
have to do in the end.
We also covered raised
panel bits and my most important message with regard to raised panel bits is
safety. If you are using a router, be
sure to adjust the speed to its slowest setting (less than 10,000 rpm). Because of their size, raised panel bits have
a lot of steel beyond the fence and I like to have the cutter completely
covered with some type of guard to prevent my hands and the cutter from coming
near each other. On my shaper, I use a
box guard that I built from The Shaper Book. On a router set up, make multiple passes to
limit the chance of bogging down your router.
This is safer and will yield better results.
Next meeting
We will be touring the
Diamond Machining Technologies facility on April 6 at 4:00. DMT manufactures diamond sharpening stones
for various industries including woodworking.
The facility will be busy with work when we visit, so we will get to see
the manufacturing process first hand.
The tour will take about an hour and should be very interesting.
If you can attend,
please try to arrive before 4:00 so the tour can start on time. If you can bring the confidentiality form
that would be great, if not, there will be copies available at DMT.
Here are the
directions:
Diamond Machining
Technology, Inc.
85 Hayes Memorial Drive
Marlborough, MA 01752
USA
Tel: (508) 481-5944
Toll-Free:
1-800-666-4DMT
Fax: (508) 485-3924
www.dmtsharp.com
From the East:
Travel
West on Mass Pike or Route 9 to 495 North or Route 2 West to 495 South
From
495 take exit 24B for Route 20 West, toward Northborough. Proceed approximately
one mile from exit through three sets of lights. At next intersection, turn
left onto Hayes Memorial Drive,(a sign for Metropolitan Corporate Center is on
the left and Country Villa Restaurant on the right). DMT is the second building
on the left hand side of the road, approximately one mile from Route 20.
From
the West:
Travel
East on Mass Pike or Route 9 to 495 North or Route 2 East to 495 South.
From
495 take exit 24B for Route 20 West, toward Northborough. Proceed approximately
one mile from exit through three sets of lights. At next intersection, turn
left onto Hayes Memorial Drive,(a sign for Metropolitan Corporate Center is on
the left and Country Villa Restaurant on the right). DMT is the second building
on the left hand side of the road, approximately one mile from Route 20
From
the North:
Travel
South on Rt 495 South to exit 24B for Route 20 West, toward Northborough. From
495 take exit 24B for Route 20 West, toward Northborough. Proceed approximately
one mile from exit through three sets of lights. At next intersection, turn
left onto Hayes Memorial Drive,(a sign for Metropolitan Corporate Center is on
the left and Country Villa Restaurant on the right). DMT is the second building
on the left hand side of the road, approximately one mile from Route 20
From
the South:
Travel
North on Route 495. Take Exit 23C (Simarano Road/Marlboro exit). Follow ramp
over highway to stop light. Take left on Simarano Road. Follow to traffic
light. Take right on Cedar Hill Road (ball field is on left and Rich's is on
right). Proceed to end. Take right onto Bartlett Street. Take first left onto
Hayes Memorial Drive. DMT® is on right.
