Craftsmanship in Wood

Jon, I was wondering the same thing, and thinking it must be fit into a housing to have the connection watertight.

I have been thinking making a sharpening pond for some time now so I was happy to see this topic brought up here. I have also been thinking of a way to make a wedged box joint. I knew I could not use the same joinery used in the wedged miter that Chris did. I decided to use some time between jobs to explore this. I chose to use a through mortise and tenon, leaving both sides of the joint long to house the wedge and enough wood to support the forces exerted by the wedges. I kept the wedges in place by under cutting the dados for the wedges at 5 degrees. I could have made the angle greater and used a dovetail bit to cut the joint which would have been faster than using an angled chopping block. I had originally planned to use a single double tapered wedge per corner but knew that wouldn't work because when one side "bottomed out" the other side would be ineffective. I used a two wedge system for each corner so I could tighten the joint in both directions. The project was successful with some short comings (failures is too strong a word) and I would change a coupe of things on future versions. I incorporated a mitered aspect to this joint on the inside of the joint. My thought process was the wedges would force the mitered area together. It worked, but not as well as I had hoped. Please feel free to add comments, suggestions, and critiques.

I would use the mortise and tenon on future versions, but I would not use the miter instead I would use a shallow tight dado to house the bearing surface of the tenons.

The pond went together well and held water. I would not use pine for the wedges again, instead I would use a harder wood for the wedges because I experienced some crushing on the pine wedges. I don't want to cut off the wedges yet because I like the way they look. I may use this pond for something completely different and make a future version for sharpening.

I still need to trim/plane a lot to finish this. I also need to make movable platforms for the stones.

Interesting idea, cleanly executed.

Awesome work Paul. I never see much about the bottoms on these, but I assume getting that dado right is pretty key to success. Do you allow room for the panel to expand, or butt it up tight and the side grain compresses enough to absorb the bottom panel's expansion?

Brian wrote:Awesome work Paul. I never see much about the bottoms on these, but I assume getting that dado right is pretty key to success. Do you allow room for the panel to expand, or butt it up tight and the side grain compresses enough to absorb the bottom panel's expansion?

There is video of Ben Thresher making a round water trough and the bottom is fitted in a dado groove. The bottom is beveled (as in a raised panel) to fit tight but not all the way to the bottom of the groove. The video can be found by Googling Ben's Mill. The video is of a water powered mill shop in Vermont.

here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2KJbRHO76s
Jack

Brian (and everyone else)
I fit the bottom pretty tight along length/width although I think it is more important to have a snug dado. The next one I make I won't fit the bottom as tight. Since the bottom is a rift sawn board there has been some distortion after soaking and it may be because it can't move. Does anyone have a suggestion for a non-glued edge joint that would be watertight.?
Since this project is in my brain I think I will go ahead with another one.

Great work Paul, will you be trimming the pegs flush with the rest of the pond/box? I would imagine them getting in the way of movement with chisels?

Is there a reason people don't want to use a marine epoxy to seal up the joints after assembly? Is that a sort of 2nd tier or 3rd tier-type work? Is that the Wal-Mart or Harbor Freight approach to water ponds?