Federal Document Box (pat 2)

James Stewart

Oct 30

For the first time in many weekends we had a relatively light schedule. That gave me some time to work on the finishing details of the federal style document box I've been working on.

First I needed to lightly shave off the excess or proud areas where the banding was glued to the edges of the box.

Then I needed to prepare for the inlaid fans. I started by using blue tape because it's easier to see your lines when you cut them with a knife or blade and then remove the blue tape on one side of the line. I started by setting the marking gauge just shy of the width of the banding to set the line where the fans will start.

The fans were provided as a kit in the class just like the eagle. You can buy these commercially, but the school has their own laser cutter. There is a face side and an ugly or glue side. In the case of a laser the rough side is where the laser lightly burned the shapes. Because the kit comes with the pieces assembled to clear shelf paper I used blue tape to hold it together from the face side so I could remove the shelf paper.

Then I used a razor knife to gently cut the shape of the fan into the blue tape and then ran the razor 4-5 more times down the line cutting progressively deeper each cut. You don't need to cut deep, just the thickness of the veneer. Then I used a small router plane set to teh thickness of the veneer to remove the veneer to a consistent and flat depth.

I then prepared the surface and glued the fans into the corners applying even pressure with clamps and cauls so that the entire fan was adhered evenly.

After the fan glue dried I did the same technique with a marking gauge, razor and router plane to remove the area of veneer where the banding will go around the edge. I then cut 45 degree angles in the banding at each end to make a mitre. Marking with a razor and then using the razor indentation to index your chisel blade for a quick snip seemed to work well.

The first strips of banding just go on in a pleasing way to center the bands on the edge with a pleasing and consistent pattern on each end. It doesn't really matter, but it's impossible to center them exactly on the band beneath because each band has minor differences in the widths of the patterns in manufacture, so they will never match up perfectly.

On the two remaining faces I decided the best way to make sure the miters fit well was to cut the banding in half and work from each end towards the center. By aligning the miters tight the center had some overlap.

I then used a razor to mark the cut line where the center would meet and cut the pieces to match at that razor line.

Then I glued for the evening to end my Saturday.

On Sunday I removed the tape to admire the banding and used a low angle block plane again to lightly shave the banding down to the same plane as the box in multiple passes making sure to stop when I reached the background veneer.

After a light sand it looked amazing.

To fill any small gaps in the dovetail joints I used a slurry paste of 2 - part epoxy mixed with fine sawdust of cherry.

I then let the epoxy paste dry before sanding it off in the afternoon.

Just before lunch I started to mortise the hinge pockets using a razor to mark out the hinge dimensions, a drill to pre-drill the screw holes, a marking gauge to mark the depth, and a chisel and router plane to remove the waste.

Unfortunately even though I checked everything twice I somehow rushed the top and put the hinges on the incorrect side even though I had the hinges on the correct side for the bottom. In the picture below the top is 180 degrees off. I blame myself, perhaps I should have had lunch first.

Fortunately the nice thing about wood is there is always a way to make a repair. I could have probably made this repair absolutely invisible if I was really worried about it, but I figure sine this is on the inside of the top most people will be looking into the box instead of the top. And if I wanted to make the repair absolutely invisible it would have taken a lot more wood removal and at this stage of the box that adds a lot of risk. So in this case I simply glued in a new piece of wood in each mortice and then planed them flush with a low angle block plane.

The last bit of joinery was to take the feet assemblies that we glued up in class and glue them to the base. We also glue in a few little blocks as extra glue surface.

Now it's time to apply finish. This is cherry and will gradually darken to a deep rich red so I'm not going to add any stain now. I am simply finishing with 3-4 coats of General Finishes Seal-a-Cel thinned 50/50 with mineral spirits so the coats go on very thin.