Curved top box build

[Aram]

Just a question since I do not understand how you did it and tried to do something like this years ago.

How did you hold the piece down and then mark it??  When you did mark it what did you use and how??

Thanks

Hi Arlin,


Let's see if this helps. If not, I'll take better photos that will explain.

The front (or rear) piece is put right side up on the bench. I use my fingers to tilt it up onto the hinge bevel. This lifts the inside bottom off the bench. At this point, I have to keep this finger pressure until I am done marking with the pencil (coming up, next photo). The end piece gets butted up against it like this.



Next is an inside view of the exact same setup. Sharp pencil traces along the edge, as you can see. That pencil line, which slopes from top to bottom to match the tilted piece, defines the tenon shoulder. 




Next step: bevel gauge is placed onto that line (if it was marked accurately, the bevel angle should match perfectly) and it is knifed. Not shown: I use a square + knife to transfer this knifed line across the top and bottom. Then I use the bevel gauge to mark the slope on the outside. If you have marked carefully, the line should be continuous around all 4 sides. Does that make sense?

Note the gauged lines on the end grain in the first photo. That's the end of the tenon. In this next photo, I connect the edges of those gauge lines to the sloping shoulder on the sides. Like this. That defines the sides of the tenon, which I saw and chisel.



A few more photos would make it more obvious. Let me know and I'll take some.

[Arlin Eastman]

OK you used finger pressure to hold it down.   I also see now you used a pencil to make the marks. 

Me and how clumsy I am I would have had to clamp it down so it would not move and tried to use a knife to cut the inside. 

So did you scribe the outside or the ends??  Did you cut to the line or how do you make sure the line is the mark is the exact place the cut is needed??

[Aram]

OK you used finger pressure to hold it down.   I also see now you used a pencil to make the marks. 

Me and how clumsy I am I would have had to clamp it down so it would not move and tried to use a knife to cut the inside. 

So did you scribe the outside or the ends??  Did you cut to the line or how do you make sure the line is the mark is the exact place the cut is needed??

Hi Arlin,

Yeah, it's slippery and the pieces like to move. If I had any brains, I would have put sandpaper down first.

I'm not sure if I get your question. I'll give it a shot. Let me know if I miss the mark. 

It looks like this after marking. Knifed at an angle for the shoulders. (Same on the side you can't see). Square across the top. (Same on the bottom). Tenons knifed from the end grain up to the shoulders. That's it for marking. I marked the lines the way I showed above, and if you're careful, they should be in exactly the right place. 

I added Xs to show what falls off after sawing. I added Vs where I saw. Note that I like to deepen the knife lines, and chisel a vee on the waste side, to guide the saw a bit (not shown in this pic).

I saw from the top at an angle down to the tenon, following the lines. Then flip the piece, and saw the other angled piece off from the bottom. I try to saw close but leave a tiny bit to chisel away.

The reason I still have this piece to show you is I messed it up. I was off a little when I marked the tenon. It would have been too skinny. The saw likes to fall into the knifed lines, which is a good thing when they are marked correctly. But when I mark incorrectly, the saw follows. In this case, I started this piece over.



Let me know what I didn't answer.

[Arlin Eastman]

Hi Arlin,

Yeah, it's slippery and the pieces like to move. If I had any brains, I would have put sandpaper down first.

I'm not sure if I get your question. I'll give it a shot. Let me know if I miss the mark. 

It looks like this after marking. Knifed at an angle for the shoulders. (Same on the side you can't see). Square across the top. (Same on the bottom). Tenons knifed from the end grain up to the shoulders. That's it for marking. I marked the lines the way I showed above, and if you're careful, they should be in exactly the right place. 

I added Xs to show what falls off after sawing. I added Vs where I saw. Note that I like to deepen the knife lines, and chisel a vee on the waste side, to guide the saw a bit (not shown in this pic).

I saw from the top at an angle down to the tenon, following the lines. Then flip the piece, and saw the other angled piece off from the bottom. I try to saw close but leave a tiny bit to chisel away.

The reason I still have this piece to show you is I messed it up. I was off a little when I marked the tenon. It would have been too skinny. The saw likes to fall into the knifed lines, which is a good thing when they are marked correctly. But when I mark incorrectly, the saw follows. In this case, I started this piece over.



Let me know what I didn't answer.

Yes I X out the waste also.

About how you cut it to narrow is what I so wish and need to keep from doing and hence the question of marking it.  So saying I guess I need to mark it correctly and cut close to the line and then use either the chisel or plane to get it right to the fit and not the mark right??

[Aram]

About how you cut it to narrow is what I so wish and need to keep from doing and hence the question of marking it.  So saying I guess I need to mark it correctly and cut close to the line and then use either the chisel or plane to get it right to the fit and not the mark right??

I get it now.

For me, if I mark exactly, I'm ok after that. This is the hard step, marking the tenon cheeks.


Bevel gauge has to be in exact position. The marking knife goes into each gauged line on the end grain. Bevel gauge bumps up against the knife. There's not much surface to register against. It's easy to have the bevel gauge off by a hair. That's all it takes to mess up the tenon -- for me, anyway. Once I have the cheeks marked, I make the knife lines deeper to help guide the saw. I'm not the best sawing guy out there, but I can saw just a hair outside the line at that point. Sometimes I go too far outside and it's a little more chiseling later. Those deeper knife lines also make it fairly easy to chisel down to the right thickness -- the edges are clearly delineated. 

So for me, it's all about accurate marking.

[Aram]

Started work on the panel. Listened to Squeeze, Argybargy (always puts me in a good mood) and Simon and Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Water (I'm not much of a S&G guy but there are some brilliant songs on BOTW).

Used the router table to make the panel grooves. The curved ends aren't too bad if you take light passes and keep pressure against the fence, which is set to a very small opening.



Jointer and planer to thickness the top, just over 5/8". Cut to a little over length on a table saw, then shot square.



Used the box end template to mark the curvature on the bottom of the panel with a sharp pencil. (Pic shows afterwards with the template moved out of the way).



For my first practice panel, I planed out all of the waste to get to the curved line. It worked, but that's the harder way. On my second practice piece, and here on the real one, I used a dado stack to get started. This speeds up the planing, but has a second benefit -- the tracks help guide the plane.



I made this round bottom plane for this project. I think that was before I knew my design; I just knew I wanted to try a curved top.



Plane slowly, check frequently to make sure thickness is even across length.



Getting there. Got tired and called it a day.

[Aram]

More scooping out the bottom. Listened to Queen, Night at the Opera (it's hard to listen through Bohemian Rhapsody anymore, but the rest of the album is great) and a live Tom Petty anthology. Mostly with the same round bottom plane, but some spots needed a more precise touch. This is particularly true at the edges. eBay special round helps out here.



Added a couple of curved scrapers to the stable while sneaking up on the final fit. The pencil marks tracing the final curvature are useful through most of this. But at the end, it's best to hold the panel up to the grooves in the frame ends. It's easy to see where the fit is off. High spots are marked and scraped. 



Got there.



Along the way I checked for square too many times to count. This way:



... and this way. It's ok if there are dips in the middle, but the ends need to be coplanar.



High tech tools for marking the top.



Planing to final curvature. Not quite there, but I got hungry and that was it for the day.

[Arlin Eastman]

Wow Just Wow.

I love your hand made tools and how you use them. 

[Aram]

More work on the top, with the goal of having it all fit together this weekend. Listened to Truckin' With Albert Collins (not sure how I didn't know about this guy until last year!), and a couple of discs from the Can You Dig It box set (70s soul collection, possibly the best box set I own).

Slow and careful.

First, I needed to bevel the edges of the panel so that they are perpendicular to the top. This pic is a bit of an illusion. The piece of Douglas fir is a curved standoff I made so I could clamp the panel. It sits lower than it looks. The square is on the panel top, but obviously moved aside so you can see the perpendicular pencil mark. I marked both edges and hand planed them to the line (no pic after planing, too boring, but I swear on a stack of Krenov books it happened).



Next up: making the end rabbets for the curved panel. First, mark with a gauge. Lightly but lots of times.



Very carefully deepened the gauge lines with a knife. Lots of repeated strokes with very light pressure, and a healthy fear of jumping off-line. It came out fine though. This pic is totally posed. In reality I had to hold it much closer to the point to guide it.



Carefully chiseled a shallow -- very shallow! - vee along the gauge lines.



Banged some chisel marks at intervals across the width.



Light cuts with a router plane to define the rabbet. 



Repeated cycles of gauging and/or knifing, chiseling, and routing the ends until I was close to the final fit but not quite there. After that, I used the skew rabbet plane and a shoulder plane to create the edge rabbets. They are wider than I meant. Oops. Not a fatal mistake but I should have double checked. These rabbets were planed to final fit.



I was worried that the top would twist when I assembled it. That's why I left a small amount of wood on the end rabbets. It gave me a chance to partially assemble it and hopefully correctly for any wind I had built in.The ends won't quite go on yet, but I can see where I need to remove wood. This looks promising.



Knocked off some high points with the float and the shoulder plane.



And in one spot, a curved scraper to correct the bottom.



In the end, the slow, methodical approach got me a lot more than a great CD playlist. To my amazement, everything fit together very well and the panel sits flat. I was seriously surprised.



Top view.



Not bad for a weekend.

[Bill Holt]

Amazing build!  Amazing hand work. Amazing patience!  Who will be receiving the box?