HiHo, HiHo, and ,huh, uh oh!
I'm still working on Christmas presents. My present present project (ha ha, I made a funny) is a scrollsaw chest. If anyone want to see what I'm talking about, you can see and order plans for the project here
First things first. I've been wanting to build my daughter (17 years old) a cedar chest for some time. I wanted something special though. So, I seen and ordered the plans for this chest well over a year ago. I have spent the time since then snagging up aromatic cedar a board at a time of I had to every chance I got. It's been in the rafters of my shop until I saved up enough of it to do this.
So, my older sons helped me by pulling it all down yesterday. After doing some figuring, I have went overboard as usual. I could actually make three chests out of this wood if I'm careful with my waste. That's a good thing though. There's always mistakes and I have a feeling my wife will want one too.
Ah! Did I mention there's always mistakes? The plans say to build the panels out of quarter inch plywood. I don't care for plywood and I wanted this to be completely made of cedar. So, I started with my idea od making the panels out of cedar. There are six panels, two across the front, two across the top, and one on each side with scrollwork in them, thus the name, scrollsaw chest. These panels measure twelve and 3/4" square. Of course, I don't have any cedar that wide, so I have the idea of gluing up some panels and planing them down to a quarter inch.
After over two hours at the planer, I came to the conclusion that these quarter inch cedar panels were way too fragile for the panels. So, I sit for a bit and thought of a solution. My idea was to glue up another set of panels and face glue them, two strips vertically and two horizontically. That ought to give it the stability I need, right? Wrong.
After gluing up all this, I don't know what was worse, the warpage or the brittleness while cutting them on the scroll saw. I thought about it. Then I went back and read the instructions, which clearly has a whole paragraph about using plywood for these panels because of the size of them. That makes sense. Too bad I didn't read the instructions first.
So anyway, this cedar chest will have plywood panels. The plywood doesn't warp and give problems cutting like large, glued up, solid cedar panels do.
The pattern on the left is for the front and sides. The pattern on the right is for the top.
Stay tuned.
I'm still working on Christmas presents. My present present project (ha ha, I made a funny) is a scrollsaw chest. If anyone want to see what I'm talking about, you can see and order plans for the project here
First things first. I've been wanting to build my daughter (17 years old) a cedar chest for some time. I wanted something special though. So, I seen and ordered the plans for this chest well over a year ago. I have spent the time since then snagging up aromatic cedar a board at a time of I had to every chance I got. It's been in the rafters of my shop until I saved up enough of it to do this.
So, my older sons helped me by pulling it all down yesterday. After doing some figuring, I have went overboard as usual. I could actually make three chests out of this wood if I'm careful with my waste. That's a good thing though. There's always mistakes and I have a feeling my wife will want one too.
Ah! Did I mention there's always mistakes? The plans say to build the panels out of quarter inch plywood. I don't care for plywood and I wanted this to be completely made of cedar. So, I started with my idea od making the panels out of cedar. There are six panels, two across the front, two across the top, and one on each side with scrollwork in them, thus the name, scrollsaw chest. These panels measure twelve and 3/4" square. Of course, I don't have any cedar that wide, so I have the idea of gluing up some panels and planing them down to a quarter inch.
After over two hours at the planer, I came to the conclusion that these quarter inch cedar panels were way too fragile for the panels. So, I sit for a bit and thought of a solution. My idea was to glue up another set of panels and face glue them, two strips vertically and two horizontically. That ought to give it the stability I need, right? Wrong.
After gluing up all this, I don't know what was worse, the warpage or the brittleness while cutting them on the scroll saw. I thought about it. Then I went back and read the instructions, which clearly has a whole paragraph about using plywood for these panels because of the size of them. That makes sense. Too bad I didn't read the instructions first.
So anyway, this cedar chest will have plywood panels. The plywood doesn't warp and give problems cutting like large, glued up, solid cedar panels do.
The pattern on the left is for the front and sides. The pattern on the right is for the top.
Stay tuned.