This commissioned Gift Box was all-together after "Just for Fun #5"... After making sure that the inside "Riser" was removed, the Box is closed up for good in the usual fashion using 1/8" dowels... Here, the excess doweling is being trimmed and filed flush in the Vise... When the inside dadoes were cut out with the Rotor, a decision was made to go back to the old ways... Before Rotors, Woodworkers used Plow Planes to cut dadoes, and generally didn't worry about Stopped-dadoes... The plow-outs at the ends of the small channels were filled as part of the routine with "chinking blocks"... All of my first boxes were done this way! It is a very simple process... The Pile of Cut-out Fingers makes an ample supply to split out fillers... Sanding or filing the pieces to fit the various gaps is very easily and quickly done, and they're tapped and glued into place... Which leaves another clean-up of the excess of the little blocks... The new Sander made very short work of cleaning up the four sides! Next, was to part the top from the bottom using the Band Saw... Rather than marking a line where the cut is to be made, the masking tape itself marks the line, nice and straight... After cleaning THAT up, the Riser was test fitted... The parting cut, top from bottom, exposed small gaps in the corners where the dowel pins are... Since adding some rare earth magnets to hold the lid on was being considered anyway, those little voids decided the issue... And also made it very easy by "pre-marking" the locations for them! After some final sanding, the box found its way to the Finishing Department where it's about to receive its third coat of 'Warm Gloss' Wipe-on Polyurethane... When this is all dried and cured, the Riser and the Earring Holder will be glued in... But that will be a few days yet... Thanks for following along, I hope my Old Friend likes it! :)
10 November 2025
Mike, in Concord, NH - A candle loses none of its flame by lighting another candle...
Good call on the dowels, you can even avoid the glue up pains that finger joints provide and just hit the outer pins. The dowels add plenty of strength.
The chinking blocks are a blessing when dealing with those gaps, sure easier than fretting over the stopped dados!
SG: I've never glued box joints, ever, have always connected them mechanically with dowels... It HAD to have been done before, but I never saw it and dreamed the idea up for use in my own work... And it was exactly because of that, the thought of the messy squeeze-out of the glue and the vision of the resulting clean-up, that made me wonder if dowels, pre-drilled and sunk in, would be a viable option... Dozens of boxes later, with no failures as yet, I'd suggest that it works! I've done stopped-dadoes many times too, and that works, but I can't shake the feeling there's something fragile about the corners done that way??? The chinking blocks fill in the voids completely! And without even attempting to "match everything up", so long as the grain orientation is maintained, they are virtually invisible... And even if somebody goes over the work with a fine-toothed comb, and notices them, the blocking will stand testament to the builder's care and attention to details!
Mike, in Concord, NH - A candle loses none of its flame by lighting another candle...
