mickyd's Woodworking Projects

[mickyd]

Hummmmm, maybe I'll work on this idea... This one looks a little crowded but I think I like the concept of multi scale readings. I'll try spreading it out.
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[ATTACH]9577[/ATTACH]
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[reible]

Ed,
When you cut the groove, you didn't feel the need for a featherboard? I used mine primarily because my 'L' was already cut whereas you cut yours while your wood was still in a rectangular state, as the plan advised.

I did not use or feel the need to use a featherboard for any of the cuts on this project.

Ed

[mickyd]

Completed the tongue on the sliding arm tonight and managed to get it roughed out to shape. Haven't had much time to work on it over the past couple days but found a couple hours tonight.

My first attempt at the tongue a few nights ago was going well until.........my mickey moused, manually clamped down temporary wooden fence moved while I was routing. The tongue went way undersized. Fortunately there was plenty of extra stock so I was able to cut it off on the table saw tonight and start over. Got the idea of the clamped down fence from reible's post above but I used ratchet style bar clamps with the rubber feet and they obviously weren't tight enough. C-clamps would have been a much better idea.

Here's the setup I used. ER10 with home built undertable router, 3/8" straight bit, featherboard, 'high heel' shoe, fence, 12 paper shims, and an axillary fence. This time, I backed up the wooden auxiliary fence with the standard metal fence to reduce the risk of it moving. Also gave a nice nesting area for the paper shims.
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[ATTACH]9613[/ATTACH]
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I didn't trust doing it without the featherboard. Not enough experience.

The plan showed the tongue edge 1/8" from the side of the part. I initially set up the router bit to extend out from the aux. fence visually just over 1/8". I then placed 12 layers of of paper between the regular fence and the auxiliary closing the distance down. I knew the tongue would be too wide at this point but it gave me a safe starting point making sure I didn't cut off too much material. I would make a pass, turn the part 180 and repeat then check the fit into the mating groove. Then removed 3 sheets, repeated and checked the fit. As it visually got to be a close fit (with NO measuring shipwright !!!), I'd remove 1 sheet at a time and run both sides through the router again. Finally, after removing a few more single sheets, the joint went together with a real nice fit.
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[ATTACH]9615[/ATTACH]
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[ATTACH]9614[/ATTACH]
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Next steps will be the quarter round over op, and adding the groove / screw / thumbscrew knob for sliding the arm up and down and locking it in place.

[JPG]

Completed the tongue on the sliding arm tonight and managed to get it roughed out to shape. Haven't had much time to work on it over the past couple days but found a couple hours tonight.

My first attempt at the tongue a few nights ago was going well until.........my mickey moused, clamped down fence moved while I was routing and the tongue went way undersized. Fortunately there was plenty of extra stock so I was able to cut it off on the table saw tonight and start over.

Here's the setup I used. ER10 with home built undertable router, 3/8" straight bit, featherboard, 'high heel' shoe, fence, 12 paper shims, and an axillary fence.
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[ATTACH]9613[/ATTACH]
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I didn't trust doing it without the featherboard. Not enough experience.

The plan showed the tongue edge 1/8" from the side of the part. I initially set up the router bit to extend out from the aux. fence visually just over 1/8". I then placed 12 layers of of paper between the regular fence and the auxillary closing the distance down. I knew the tongue would be too wide at this point but it gave me a safe starting point making sure I didn't cut off too much material. I would make a pass, turn the part 180 and repeat then check the fit into the mating groove. Then removed 3 sheets, repeated and checked the fit. As it visually got to be a close fit (with NO measuring shipwright !!!), I'd remove 1 sheet at a time and run both sides through the router again. Finally, after removing a few more single sheets, the joint went together with a real nice fit.
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[ATTACH]9615[/ATTACH]
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[ATTACH]9614[/ATTACH]
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Next steps will be the quarter round over op, and adding the groove / screw / thumbscrew knob for sliding the arm up and down and locking it in place.

NICE FIT INDEED!!!!!! I REALLY like the paper shim method!! Better than my sanding recommendation an another thread/post!

Ya COULDA miked(measured) them in process to determine number of sheets to remove to sneak up on the final fit with less iterations(or just eyeballed it closely):D

Looking real good!!

[mickyd]

NICE FIT INDEED!!!!!! I REALLY like the paper shim method!! Better than my sanding recommendation an another thread/post!

Ya COULDA miked(measured) them in process to determine number of sheets to remove to sneak up on the final fit with less iterations(or just eyeballed it closely):D

Looking real good!!

I committed to going by eye and feel to break my time consuming measuring habit. I just had to show shipwright I could do it. On the first tongue I made that I screwed up, I was spending too much time measuring and not having any fun with it. I was noticing that there was poor correlation between paper shim removal and resulting dimensional change. Paper measures ~.003" so I'd expect ~.006" change for each sheet removed. NOT!!! Sometimes it was .010", other times .001". There were other process gremlins in there accounting for variability (including the measurement process) and rather that see it and try to fix or understand it, I figured what I don't know won't hurt me. Another factor that made me comfortable with not measuring was the fact that on the first tongue where the fence moved and made it undersized by about 1/32", it really wasn't that sloppy in application. A 32nd" gap over a couple of inches (with gage in fully up position) really doesn't trig out to be a large angular variation. I almost decided to just live with it as is BUT, the quality control angel got the best of me.

p.s. I measured it just now and the groove measures .516" / .523" and the tongue measures .509" / .511". (sorry Paul but it was an after the fact thing vs. real time so I am making progress.)

[dusty]

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p.s. I measured it just now and the groove measures .516" / .523" and the tongue measures .509" / .511". (sorry Paul but it was an after the fact thing vs. real time so I am making progress.)

Are you sure that your measurements are real accurate. The gap looks to be tighter than your measurements would indicate.

[charlese]

You have really made giant steps on this project, Mike!

In the past several posts, I've read where you have discovered one of the benefits of having extra wood on hand - Plus - you have found "eye and feel" work a lot easier (and often better) than measuring.

I only wish that many other woodworkers could learn these lessons as easily as you! CONGRATULATIONS!

I can look back only a short time ago when you were convinced to very closely predict the amount of wood needed for a project - and the measurements and frustrations ensued.

[JPG]

Are you sure that your measurements are real accurate. The gap looks to be tighter than your measurements would indicate.

Methinks you are trying to make Paul's point. They look a lot better than his measurements indicate. It IS after all how well it slides when used that counts and the eyeballing during processing makes that more likely.

That said, if yer gonna make multiple iterations of the same pieces, the measure as you go IS a good thing to do as a double check(and to prevent 'surprises')!

[mickyd]

Are you sure that your measurements are real accurate. The gap looks to be tighter than your measurements would indicate.

Oh dusty, you hurt me to the bone!!! Not only did I use a caliper from work traceable to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, but my entire profession is based on ensuring the use of an accurate, repeatable, stable measurement system. I don't know how long it's going to take me to get over this but I'll start right now. Maybe by tonight, I'll feel better.

Here's a dead on shot showing the 'chasm' which surrounds the tongue. The gap is much more obvious in this shot. In the photo I posted last night, I had just disk sanded the two halves as a pair and I don't think I even took them apart before taking the pic. I was so awesomely impressed with how nice it looked, I put it down on the benchtop and shot it. Maybe (most likely) sawdust masked the 'chasm' to some degree.
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[ATTACH]9625[/ATTACH]. . . [ATTACH]9627[/ATTACH].
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And FYI.....a localized measurement right at the face shown in the photo is tongue .510", groove .521".

[pennview]

Just a question, and I'm not trying to start a long discussion on the subject, but aren't you indeed measuring each time you removed the sheets of paper that were behind the auxiliary fence? If the sheets were about .003" thick and your remove one, then make two passes to remove material from both sides of the gauge, aren't you taking off approximately .006" and isn't this the same as measuring? I don't see how that differs from using a dial indicator behind the fence to measure it's movement and moving the fence .003" away from the cutter, after measuring the width of the tongue with a caliper. What you end up doing with the paper is measuring in fixed steps.

There are time when precision in cutting parts is important (like when cutting the tongue and groove) and not so important when cutting the height of the gauge.