OK, this was the last day. With all the work to do, I didn’t truly expect to get finished. I didn’t get to the following:
- Put a coat of finish on the outside (this would have been the last step and would have been done an hour before leaving).
- Put the hinges on the top (almost got to that, I’ll discuss a bit below).
- Completely clean up the box (this is sanding, scraping, planing, patching dovetails with patches and in limited cases epoxy/sawdust to match)
We started the day by starting patching. Many of us had gaps in our dovetail joints due to ill fitting dovetails (I had quite a few). The notion behind this is that the best patches are made so that they match end grain or long grain. A little glue is put in the hole and a patch piece is hammered into place then excess is cut off, chiselled flat, and maybe sanded. Sometimes the hole has to be enlarged by many different means depending on the desired look. Last chance is to add an epoxy/sawdust mixture. This will fill limited spaces but is darker so doesn’t match as well.
We could have spend all day on this but after lunch we cut the top off. I used a table saw and remembered why I don’t like them (glad I got rid of mine).
After that, we had to clean the edges where the table saw cut off the lid. This was to prep it to route out for the hinge. We did this and at the end, we discovered that last cut (in my case the last 2) had the router bit slip a bit and make too deep of cuts. Gary gave us a way to patch and repair which we will do at home.
So when I get home, I’ll fix the hinges. Then I’ll decide whether to fix the dovetail joints more and do the finish (planning on shellac to match earlier pre-finish). I’m leaning towards using this as a traveling tool box though it may be too big (unless I’m taking a lot of hand planes, saws, chisels, measuring/marking, and other misc tools).
Overall, this was an awesome experience. Gary is an outstanding instructor as long as you can take critisicm. Given that we are trying to learn, I’m not sure I’d recommend any class, in any subject, for someone who can’t take critisicm. Any time, Gary criticised me, I took mental or real notes.
I was originally planning on taking a separate 1-day dovetail class but after talking with Gary, I felt that I could practice on my own at home. I think I will do 5-minute dovetail excersices and make a few small boxes and see how I can improve from there. I’m looking forward to using more dovetails.
