Woodworking and carpentry thread

[gregpark]

Splined corners! 👍

[rwest]

Originally Posted by gregpark

Splined corners! 👍

I used 4mm dominos to give it structure. I went with 1/2 Baltic birch plywood for the carcass, so had enough width to use the dominos. I’ve done splines and also lock miter router bit on other boxes.

[gregpark]

Here's some 2mm hard plastic splines I've used for thinner material. Works for ⅜" or even ¼" plywood. If you ever do a thin walled box I'll send you some. I've made my own on the table saw using solid white oak stock too

[rwest]

Originally Posted by gregpark

Here's some 2mm hard plastic splines I've used for thinner material. Works for ⅜" or even ¼" plywood. If you ever do a thin walled box I'll send you some. I've made my own on the table saw using solid white oak stock too

Thanks for the offer, I’ll let you know if I go thinner. My hinge choice dictates the wall thickness unless I just do a drop on top.

How does the plastic glue or do use epoxy instead of wood glue?

[gregpark]

Maybe you can see in the bad pic, they're not smooth but rough for glue adhesion. I use tight bond II, plenty strong. For flush jointed sheets I have a 2mm specialty router bit for grooving but for a small box I'd double up blades in a hack saw, clamp the piece in the vice and hand cut my grooves. You could probably cut them on the band saw, whatever. Lots of ways to skin a cat

[Yorkie]

Can anyone recommend a good book on woodworking? I have a friend that has expressed an interest in making furniture and cabinets in their retirement and I’d like to buy them a gift of a book.

[1990C4S]

^^^ Have a look at Lee Valley's book selection...

https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/tools/books-and-dvds

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by Yorkie

Can anyone recommend a good book on woodworking? I have a friend that has expressed an interest in making furniture and cabinets in their retirement and I’d like to buy them a gift of a book.

Oh, man, there are hundreds. You can go to Amazon and buy used-good as new for nearly nothing plus $3.99 shipping. One that you might look for is all about different joints and cuts. That's a good start.

Your friend has a long way to go before any furniture making is going to occur. Cabinets are easy by comparison. Not much, if any at all is square on furniture. Cabinets are 99% square cuts on flat stock.

[gregpark]

^ yup. You gotta be a carpenter of sorts first and learn wood then graduate to cabinets. And even after years of that most don't even get to the point of furniture. Furniture building requires a craftsman and I believe you're either born a craftsman or not. If your friend is a decent carpenter already he might take right to it

[masraum]

Originally Posted by gregpark

^ yup. You gotta be a carpenter of sorts first and learn wood then graduate to cabinets. And even after years of that most don't even get to the point of furniture. Furniture building requires a craftsman and I believe you're either born a craftsman or not. If your friend is a decent carpenter already he might take right to it

Pshaw! If Homer Simpson can do it...

[masraum]

Well that was bigger than I expected.

[gregpark]

Doh! I will say you're good at following plan and that's the first step 👍

[911 Rod]

Too bad all the used bookstores are gone. I bought a bunch of do-it-yourself books in my early 20's. There is this internet thing now. lol

[gregpark]

For woodworking you tube might be better than books. Sometimes the visual is worth a thousand words. Tons of instruction and very clever ideas on the tube

[Zeke]

And cheaper with a much, much larger selection. That's one of the good sides of the Net.

[rwest]

Originally Posted by masraum

Pshaw! If Homer Simpson can do it...

Now, there’s a man who can follow a set of plans!

[masraum]

My wife had a scraper similar to one of these from an old project. I think we've bought them a couple of times over the years, and never used them more than a few seconds before deciding "this sucks, there's got to be a better way". I've always wondered why anyone would use them because they seem like they don't work for crap. I had to scrape the floors around the perimeter of some rooms where we sanded the original wood. I started scraping and thought "maybe the problem is that they need to be sharpened before you use them." So I thought I'd use basically the same process that would be used for some of the other carpentry scrapers, prepare the edge, then create a lip/burr. It took a few times to get a good, consistent edge, but I'm impressed with the results. Sometimes I have to do it twice to get the edge that I want, but I'm getting better. Who knew!

[gregpark]

That's the basic pull scraper we use on every job. We pull scrape around door jambs and wherever sander can't reach. We have fresh files on the job and sharpen several times a day

[masraum]

Originally Posted by gregpark

That's the basic pull scraper we use on every job. We pull scrape around door jambs and wherever sander can't reach. We have fresh files on the job and sharpen several times a day

Yep, and that's my latest discovery. I know I've seen Paul Sellers, etc... say that when/if you buy a new handsaw, you should sharpen it. It just hadn't ever clicked before that those pull scrapers would be the same. But it made sense (even more than a saw) once the light bulb went off.

[Zeke]

I bought a carbide scraper. Not quite as sharp as that first pull on a freshly sharpened steel blade, but consistent for much longer. Change blades or use a green stone.