Wood for home-grown cases?

Bill Schwab · 2005-12-22T04:20:56+00:00

Hello all,My shipment from Enco has arrived, with lots of imported metal in various shapes. A couple of V-blocks (made in India) are particularly nice, as are the Enco 30/60/90 and 45/45/90 setup plates ($20 or so for the pair). The only thing in the collection that is remotely disappointing is a 90 degree angle plate, slotted with open ends; its finish is not as nice as the other gizmos, but I suspect it will work, and it was not terribly expensive.Some of the items have storage cases, others do not. I would like to avoid putting them away for a while only to discover that they rusted because I did not know how to care for them. Oiling them seems a good idea :) Needing practice with wood joinery, I thought of making wood boxes for them. Do you have any recommendations for particularly good or bad choices of wood? Would it be better to make a "empty" box with some type of foam filler, or is it ok to use wood inside too?Bill

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Ecnerwal 20 years ago

Well, if you're long on money, you can buy a jig. If you're not long on money, spending a little time making some dovetails by hand (on the first 10 or so don't even make a bad box - just make the joint and cut it off, then make another one) and then moving on to making some boxes will mean that you never need to buy the jig, or take the time needed to set the jig up, or find the space to store the jig. It ain't rocket science, but it is a skill, and if you practice the skill, you get better at it. Storage boxes are excellent further practice once you'd done a few joints purely for practicing the joint with no consequences if you screw up. Plus, you can make dovetails by hand which routers cannot duplicate (they need fat pins, because the router bit needs to be able to hold together - by hand you cut with a saw, and can make much skinnier pins).

As for woods, either your wood source is weird, or your location is screwing with the price of wood if any sort of poplar is expensive. Go with whatever is locally affordable or free. Hunt out sawmills for directly buying wood, or cabinet shops which may have "shorts and offcuts" for free, or at a low price.

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Bob May 20 years ago

White oak is a lot better than red oak for the tannin problem. In addition, the tools don't touch the wood so the problem is a lot less than otherwise. Besides, that particular brand is touted more for the quality of the finish than for the good wood that is used.

-- Why do penguins walk so far to get to their nesting grounds?

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Bob May 20 years ago

All of the jigs that I've seen have basically been for 3/4" stock. Trying to do something other than that can bea real bear. Learning how to do dovetails by hand will end up letting you use wood of other thicknesses (try doing a box with 2x8 wood with a jig!) without any problems.

-- Why do penguins walk so far to get to their nesting grounds?

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Gunner Asch 20 years ago

I have a medium power HP laser, along with beam splitters etc etc (anyone want it?) that came in a marvelous fitted fiberglass case

Unfortunately the foam had turned to slime.

The Stuff needs some cleaning.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the s*it out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

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Pete C. 20 years ago

Nifty. How medium power and what wavelength?

Pete C.

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Mark Rand 20 years ago

Knowing Gunner it's 15kW YAG and the beams to be split are I beams

Happy Christmas Mark Rand RTFM

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Bill 20 years ago

Wish I lived near you, I'm in PA, sounds like it would be a nice sized unit to play with, with my kids, for science class. That reminds me I have to start looking for a design for a homemade electron microscope.........

Bill

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Don Foreman 20 years ago

I don't like a router for making finger joints for small boxes of thin wood -- as in cases for tools and instruments. When I was making boxes 25 years ago, I preferred the table saw and a shop-made jig.

I tried an Incra Jig. Didn't like it. Too easy to hit the wrong increment, and there's no fine adjustment -- or wasn't then.

My jig is just a plate with a series of small holes at equal distance, made on a mill for accuracy. Another plate slides on that plate, has a locating pin, so it can move in very accurate discrete steps of 1/8" or whatever. On one end there is a "foot" made of aluminum angle. The foot can be adjusted with a spring-loaded 1/4-20 screw as a "vernier". There is a dial indicator to note how much adjustment has been dialled in.

This assembly clamped to the sliding miter guide on my table saw.

It was both fast and accurate in use. Clamp the piece to the jig with one end butted against the angle "foot". Zing a row of cuts at some multiple of 1/8" apart. Flip the piece around, make a trial cut a bit shy of where you think it should go. Measure the resulting gap or finger with dial calipers, adjust the vernier w/ dial indicator accordingly, and zing zing zing that edge is done. This automatically takes care of blade thickness and any blade wobble or misalignment in the saw. The finger joints assembled with a light tap with a mallet or an easy squeeze in the vise.

The cost is a couple of hours' time, some scraps of wood or metal, and a $15 dial indicator from Enco if you don't already have a buncha DI's laying around.

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