I was commissioned to make six longcase clock cases in zebrano, lacewood (2), bird's eye maple, African satinwood and pippy oak. I bought all the wood sawn from Whitmore's but had to make a trip down to Yandles to get some 2" zebrano.
This is what we're aiming for.
First thing was to make the back boards. None of the wood was wide enough and so I either had to rip thick stuff down and treat it as a bookmark like this lacewood
or thickness it down equally on both sides.
The former turned into a bit of a nightmare as ripping down released all sorts of tensions in the wood which then proceeded to cup, twist and generally misbehave. My conclusion was (and born out in discussion with Peter Sefton at a later date) that you just had to bite the bullet and accept that even though you might have some timber that was, say, 45mm or 50mm thick that you could not expect to rip it down and get two pieces that would plane/thickness down to 18mm. If 50mm was all you could get then realise that you're going to 'waste' timber and thickness equally off both sides removing enough from each to get you down to your finished size.
Then you discover that a lot of this wood has cross-grain and you learn to dread that horrible 'snick' sound as your blades rip out a chunk. Even with sharp blades. Even taking a smidgeon of a cut. I never got round to trying a back bevel on the blades simply because (a) I'd have to go and get someone to do it and (b) I'd have to spend time replacing the existing Barke blades and re-aligning the back bevel blades because (c) I am lazy. So in the end it came down to thicknessing by drum sander which took forever and a day and has to be the most mind-numbingly boring job.
Anyway, back boards finally made and glued together in the wall-mounted Plano clamps. Ah, thereby hangs a tail. They do the job extremely well but loading up the boards while simultaneously holding back the clamps...all four or five of them..needs the patience of a saint lest the air grow blue with profanity. In the end some judiciously placed elastic straps saved the day. I also use these blocks - recommended by David Charlesworth - to maintain an even pressure across the board regardless as to how square the clamps are (usually not).
And because I needed a top piece I made sure that the lengths I was cutting were long enough (wherever possible) to extend the cutline and grain through from back board to top.
The tops are fixed to the backboards with large dovetails and because (a) I was making six in one go and (b) I got suckered into thinking that there would be more clocks to come, I made a jig and also sourced a dovetail cutter with the right shallow angle.
More to come
This is what we're aiming for.
First thing was to make the back boards. None of the wood was wide enough and so I either had to rip thick stuff down and treat it as a bookmark like this lacewood
or thickness it down equally on both sides.
The former turned into a bit of a nightmare as ripping down released all sorts of tensions in the wood which then proceeded to cup, twist and generally misbehave. My conclusion was (and born out in discussion with Peter Sefton at a later date) that you just had to bite the bullet and accept that even though you might have some timber that was, say, 45mm or 50mm thick that you could not expect to rip it down and get two pieces that would plane/thickness down to 18mm. If 50mm was all you could get then realise that you're going to 'waste' timber and thickness equally off both sides removing enough from each to get you down to your finished size.
Then you discover that a lot of this wood has cross-grain and you learn to dread that horrible 'snick' sound as your blades rip out a chunk. Even with sharp blades. Even taking a smidgeon of a cut. I never got round to trying a back bevel on the blades simply because (a) I'd have to go and get someone to do it and (b) I'd have to spend time replacing the existing Barke blades and re-aligning the back bevel blades because (c) I am lazy. So in the end it came down to thicknessing by drum sander which took forever and a day and has to be the most mind-numbingly boring job.
Anyway, back boards finally made and glued together in the wall-mounted Plano clamps. Ah, thereby hangs a tail. They do the job extremely well but loading up the boards while simultaneously holding back the clamps...all four or five of them..needs the patience of a saint lest the air grow blue with profanity. In the end some judiciously placed elastic straps saved the day. I also use these blocks - recommended by David Charlesworth - to maintain an even pressure across the board regardless as to how square the clamps are (usually not).
And because I needed a top piece I made sure that the lengths I was cutting were long enough (wherever possible) to extend the cutline and grain through from back board to top.
The tops are fixed to the backboards with large dovetails and because (a) I was making six in one go and (b) I got suckered into thinking that there would be more clocks to come, I made a jig and also sourced a dovetail cutter with the right shallow angle.
More to come
