Board thickness
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I was wondering what original stock size people use to get 1/2″ thick stock. I can easily get my hands on 1″ stock from the big box store or 4/4 from my lumber store but these need resawing and given the saw thickness, more than half of the original stock will be “lost” (or quite thin after planing).
Getting 6/4 stock could be an option but again, that would mean a lot of waste.
Am I missing something? How you guys do it?
Is there a specific reason that you MUST have half inch stock? Normally I would flatten the boards, cut them to length and width, and then set gauges to the thickness.
If you do re-saw the one inch stock, so that you are cutting a half inch piece and a ‘thin’ piece, then I would guess that you can still use teh thin piece for making internal dividers, or a sliding lid…Colin, Czech Rep.
Thx Colin,
For your question, it’s just that the project calls for 1/2″ thick stock for the sides and 3/8 for the bottom.
Assuming I can resaw straigt, I guess I could reuse the “thin” piece for the bottom.
I was mostly asking how people waste as less as possible.
Blaise
Pretty much through planning, forethought, and not being afraid to move away from the drawing specs sometimes. Several of the older series, dovetail boxes included, that are available here and on the youtube channel are there as skill builders, where you would expect to make the same or very similar pieces several times to, well, build the skills.
If you watch the process more than the plan, you learn how to adapt and progress the build to suit the material you have to hand.
A lot of my little projects like this I make with fence slats from the local big box. Clean up the end, divide the length roughly by seven if you want a box with a base and a lid, or by five if you just want a base. One of those pieces will then get cut in to two equal pieces to make the ends, the others are the two long sides (which you would trim a bit to allow for the extra length of the base) and the two pieces you would edge joint for the base (and lid).Colin, Czech Rep.
With really poor spatial visualisation I usually have difficulties envisioning an item from the cut lists or introductory videos. As for the dovetail box things were helped by the Robert Sorby chisels (the ones with red handles), as I have a set of those, though rosewood handles. To check how the ½” stock looks, I yesterday made a box.
Perhaps around 10 mm (3/8 – 7/16″) would be an alternative, allowing to get two set of boards out of 1″ thick stock (with a 1/8″ resaw kerf). Please see attached photo.
Sven-Olof Jansson
London, UK; Boston, MAThere is no “one thickness will fit all boxes”; it has to be in relation with the box size and maybe what one intend to put in.
Although a box is much more strong than single boards.
A French wine crate for twelve bottles ( a mass a little more than 16 kg) is made with rather thin maritime pine.
long sides and bottom 10 mm thick;
short sides 12 mm thick (but with two vertical 5 mm deep dados for separations);
top 7 mm thick.
I would never put 16 kg on a 10 mm thick shelf.I made a first “desktop organiser” from the picture shown on the blog before we could see the video. I used 3/4 pine to do it.
It is nice and sturdy but there isn’t much room in it. I made a second one in sapelli with the recommended thickness; it is much better proportioned.Thanks for the advice!
So I’m no professional, but at my first attempt, I knew I did something wrong somewhere. Hope I’m not the only one this happened.
Jokes apart, I did get a decent chisel box (still some glue needed to be removed here.
But I had a hard time to have a snug fit. I found them either loose or so small it broke
How do you guys check for fitness without breaking anything?
Regards
BlaiseMake the tails a bit smaller next time, it leaves a bit more meat on the pins. You can also try a little soft lead on the edges, of the tails, and gently fit them to the pins, that will show you where to pare. If the joint cracks and you want to repair it, put some glue on either side of a shaving and work it in to the crack, and clamp it, and then make sure you fit the tail/pin better.
There are quite a few ways to ‘fix’ joints, but it’s always better to get it right first time, so, you are now under starters orders to produce 3 more boxes 🙂
And if you do cut another Z piece, just take one side off, glue it anyway, make sure the joint is at ninety degrees, and you have a very useful little jig.Colin, Czech Rep.
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