Preliminaries - Milling
Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2012 1:23 pm
Once you have a handle on the basic dimensions and configuration on the box, you want to choose material and commence preparing it. For my box, I looked around my shop to see what sort of offcuts might be kicking about, and dug out a couple of 10 / 4 (63.5 mm) thick pieces of mahogany. Not sure if the stock is Honduran Mahogany, or Khaya (African 'Mahogany'), though I'm leaning towards it being Khaya.
There is a wide range of possibilities in terms of materials here. Most Japanese toolboxes are made from softwoods or mahogany-faced plywood. You would really want a medium density material that is reasonably hand-tool friendly.
I invariably choose material based on a grain orientation that minimizes movement, which leads me to look for stock that have growth rings, visible on the end of the board, in a vertical orientation all the way over to about a 45˚ orientation. I avoid flatsawn wood, even for panels. Flatsawn wood is however easier to plane in most species, and is typically available in wider boards, so depending upon the size of your box sides, floor and top, and your skill with a plane, and what you have available, make your choice accordingly.
The two chunks of mahogany I have to work with are at least 6 inches longer than I expect my box to be, at 30" (76cm) or so, and significantly wider as well, at 11" (28cm).
Now, due to the equipment I have in my shop, I am going to make choices as to how to proceed that might not be possible for you. It depends. I have a large resaw bandsaw, so my choice is to take a relatively thick slab of material and slice it into boards. If you lack a resaw, your options are to pay someone else to do it, rip it by hand (have fun with that!), or use stock only marginally thicker than the finished boards are going to be, and joint/plane it down to dimension. In this project, the boards are specified at 0.5" thick. In metric, well, pick 12 or 13 mm. So if I were needing to start with a thicker board and plane it down, I would try and find some material that was 5/8" (16mm) , or 3/4" (19mm) thick ideally.
My choice is to resaw. I start with wood that is 2.5" thick, and allowing for the 1mm blade kerf, I can saw 3 boards out of my plank, each board being roughly 3/4" (≈20 mm) thick. Even if my stock were slightly thicker, I would still tend to resaw boards a fair amount thicker than they will finish out at, unless I know for sure that the material is absolutely stable. When you resaw, you quickly can see how stable the material is by whether it bows and sproings as it is cut.
So, starting with stock jointed flat on one face, I make the first rip cut:
Watching as I go, the stock remains absolutely stable:
The cut is done and as you can see the sliced-off board has remained dead straight and flat:
If the off-cut piece was bowed or warped somehow after the cut, I could decide that the stock is too unstable for this application and go and get something else. If the movement was slight, then probably things will be okay, however I would have to re-joint the other face of the board preparatory to any further ripping.
Then I flip the plank over to lay its remaining flat face against the fence and make rip cut number 2:
That cut also went swimmingly, and I had my three boards all calm and orderly like:
It's often interesting what you discover on the inside of a board - this one has some checks from kiln drying:
Finding internal checks is a whole lot better than rocks or metal, but still, these checks are undesirable all the same. I hope the preceding photo has provided a good demonstration of why I elected to resaw an over-length, wide piece of wood. Imagine if I had cut the stick closer to final length and then resawed - the face cracks would have made for added repair work. By keeping the board longer and then resawing, I am able to simply trim the defect off the board later on.
The middle board has a rough-sawn face on both sides, so I jointed one face:
If you lack a wide jointer, then you have several options:
-joint by hand plane
-joint using a support sled in the planer
-joint using a router in a 'gantry' jig, similar to what people who make slab tables do.
-rip the board in half lengthwise and joint each half on your jointer -later the boards can be glued back together. If any of you have seen the bubinga step tansu that I made, this ripping process is how I prepared the stock as my jointer at the time was 'only' 12". Now I have a 16" (400mm) jointer and would very much like a 20". I wanna be friends with Martin or Hoffman.
Anyway, with one face flattened, I then I jointed an adjacent edge on each board:
Then I put the boards aside, spaced to let air circulate, to let them sit for a day or two prior to doing anything else to them:
Letting them sit a while allows for any follow-up movement to take place. The boards are still plenty thick enough to allow for further adjustments. I now have the two long sides of the box, and the third resawn stick I will cut in half crosswise to form the end boards of the box. Trimming these boards to width will produce material for interior partitions, tray sides, etc. I'll need to find some stock next for the floor and lid.
Then it is back to the drawing board to work on the design a little more. Every maker here should be drawing their own box and figuring out the dimensions and arrangements of drawers, tray, partitions, etc. At this point I'll give you all a few days to get things rolling. once you have your design more sorted, please post up pictures on the forum so others can see what you are up to. If you're confident in the overall dimensions of your box, it would be time to go looking for materials. let us all know what you go with.
For Now,
Chris
There is a wide range of possibilities in terms of materials here. Most Japanese toolboxes are made from softwoods or mahogany-faced plywood. You would really want a medium density material that is reasonably hand-tool friendly.
I invariably choose material based on a grain orientation that minimizes movement, which leads me to look for stock that have growth rings, visible on the end of the board, in a vertical orientation all the way over to about a 45˚ orientation. I avoid flatsawn wood, even for panels. Flatsawn wood is however easier to plane in most species, and is typically available in wider boards, so depending upon the size of your box sides, floor and top, and your skill with a plane, and what you have available, make your choice accordingly.
The two chunks of mahogany I have to work with are at least 6 inches longer than I expect my box to be, at 30" (76cm) or so, and significantly wider as well, at 11" (28cm).
Now, due to the equipment I have in my shop, I am going to make choices as to how to proceed that might not be possible for you. It depends. I have a large resaw bandsaw, so my choice is to take a relatively thick slab of material and slice it into boards. If you lack a resaw, your options are to pay someone else to do it, rip it by hand (have fun with that!), or use stock only marginally thicker than the finished boards are going to be, and joint/plane it down to dimension. In this project, the boards are specified at 0.5" thick. In metric, well, pick 12 or 13 mm. So if I were needing to start with a thicker board and plane it down, I would try and find some material that was 5/8" (16mm) , or 3/4" (19mm) thick ideally.
My choice is to resaw. I start with wood that is 2.5" thick, and allowing for the 1mm blade kerf, I can saw 3 boards out of my plank, each board being roughly 3/4" (≈20 mm) thick. Even if my stock were slightly thicker, I would still tend to resaw boards a fair amount thicker than they will finish out at, unless I know for sure that the material is absolutely stable. When you resaw, you quickly can see how stable the material is by whether it bows and sproings as it is cut.
So, starting with stock jointed flat on one face, I make the first rip cut:
Watching as I go, the stock remains absolutely stable:
The cut is done and as you can see the sliced-off board has remained dead straight and flat:
If the off-cut piece was bowed or warped somehow after the cut, I could decide that the stock is too unstable for this application and go and get something else. If the movement was slight, then probably things will be okay, however I would have to re-joint the other face of the board preparatory to any further ripping.
Then I flip the plank over to lay its remaining flat face against the fence and make rip cut number 2:
That cut also went swimmingly, and I had my three boards all calm and orderly like:
It's often interesting what you discover on the inside of a board - this one has some checks from kiln drying:
Finding internal checks is a whole lot better than rocks or metal, but still, these checks are undesirable all the same. I hope the preceding photo has provided a good demonstration of why I elected to resaw an over-length, wide piece of wood. Imagine if I had cut the stick closer to final length and then resawed - the face cracks would have made for added repair work. By keeping the board longer and then resawing, I am able to simply trim the defect off the board later on.
The middle board has a rough-sawn face on both sides, so I jointed one face:
If you lack a wide jointer, then you have several options:
-joint by hand plane
-joint using a support sled in the planer
-joint using a router in a 'gantry' jig, similar to what people who make slab tables do.
-rip the board in half lengthwise and joint each half on your jointer -later the boards can be glued back together. If any of you have seen the bubinga step tansu that I made, this ripping process is how I prepared the stock as my jointer at the time was 'only' 12". Now I have a 16" (400mm) jointer and would very much like a 20". I wanna be friends with Martin or Hoffman.
Anyway, with one face flattened, I then I jointed an adjacent edge on each board:
Then I put the boards aside, spaced to let air circulate, to let them sit for a day or two prior to doing anything else to them:
Letting them sit a while allows for any follow-up movement to take place. The boards are still plenty thick enough to allow for further adjustments. I now have the two long sides of the box, and the third resawn stick I will cut in half crosswise to form the end boards of the box. Trimming these boards to width will produce material for interior partitions, tray sides, etc. I'll need to find some stock next for the floor and lid.
Then it is back to the drawing board to work on the design a little more. Every maker here should be drawing their own box and figuring out the dimensions and arrangements of drawers, tray, partitions, etc. At this point I'll give you all a few days to get things rolling. once you have your design more sorted, please post up pictures on the forum so others can see what you are up to. If you're confident in the overall dimensions of your box, it would be time to go looking for materials. let us all know what you go with.
For Now,
Chris