Today, I finished all the dovetails. According to Gary (instructor and owner of school) “it looks good, except that it doesn’t.” He’s a funny guy and makes many “smart” remarks throughout any day. From this statement, I read that it’s good that I have the dovetails done but that there is a lot of work that will be needed to clean them up.
I also cut the grove for the top and bottom. The design is a simple enclosed box that we will cut the lid off and then put hinges on. We had an issue with the router bit that Gary had who unfortunately had a personal appt so Zach was in charge and couldn’t find alternatives to the router bit. Fortunately, we had a close woodworking store where one of our fellow students ran out and got a new bit. After that, everything went well.
The groove is very tight though and my dry fit is still not quite fit. I am going to have to seriously chamfer the bottom edges of both the top and bottom pieces (which are cherry ply).
In working, I really leveraged the graphite coating the edge of the tails to fit the pins to the last 2 edges I finished. The results were much tighter though still quite a sight different that what Gary or Zach have samples of.
Today was much more encouraging though I had hoped to glue up before we left today.
Tomorrow should be putting a coat of finish on the inside and glue up. I may even get to the cutting the lid off. Once that is done, it’s hinges and finish (maybe not in that order). One benefit of the dry and hot weather is that glue and finish sets up very quickly (of course, one bad thing about the dry and hot weather is that glue and finish sets up very quickly).
Depending on tomorrow, Friday could be a short day off. I do have Saturday off (and the family may come down for the day and play – or not). Sunday is a dovetail class so I can practice dovetails more (and maybe other types of dovetails).
UPDATE: I forgot that I also got a couple of tips.
- Gary recommends 1 1/2 lb cuts when mixing shellac.
- To mix 1 1/2 lb cut, take 4 oz of denatured alcohol and add 1 1/2 teaspoons (it could be tablespoons but in reality it is supposed to be ounces so which ever of teaspoon vs tablespoon of flakes that ways an ounce) of shellac flakes.
- Gary prefers a polishing motion for applying shellac.
- A fellow student recommended Camilla oil to coat chisels and planes to eliminate rust. Another student had some and I got to smell it – a fairly pleasant smell.
