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Biting off more than I can chew

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Biting off more than I can chew

Postby Dr.Al » 04 Sep 2021, 17:40

I've decided to make one or two new boxes but I'm going to make it hard for myself (because I'm stupid like that):

1. I'm using some awkward bast**d bits of wood
2. I'm going to *try* to do it all with hand tools†, despite my complete lack of any skill/experience with hand tool joinery
3. I haven't actually got a design in mind, so I'm going to be making it up as I go along...

† I reserve the right to reach for an electric drill if drilling ends up being required, as I don't own any other sort of drill.

I'm mostly doing this as an exercise in getting better at hand toolery, but you never know, I might end up with a box out of it (or some firewood :lol: )

I started this afternoon by grabbing a couple of bits of wood to use as source material. First off I got this bit of padauk. I picked this up on a whim when I was at a wood sale (partly because I'd heard it smells nice) and I've no idea what I'm likely to do with it, so I thought I'd use it for practice.

01_padauk_lump.jpg
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First job was to rip it in half as it's way too thick for a small box. I started off with my home-made kerfing saw:

02_padauk_kerfing.jpg
(42.11 KiB)


Then it was just a case of following the kerf:

03_padauk_ripping.jpg
(42.76 KiB)


That was hard work, which probably should have warned me something about padauk.

Next was a number 5 plane to try to get the surface looking a bit less sawn:

04_padauk_plane_no5.jpg
(42.33 KiB)


That left a lot of tear-out, whichever way I approached it. The padauk seems to have stripes of alternating grain - like I said, I didn't make this easy for myself:

05_padauk_tearout.jpg
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I'm hoping to avoid sandpaper in this project if I possibly can (I wouldn't be surprised if I resort to it at the end, but we'll see). For now I decided to give myself some practice with the #80. A good workout, but that looks a lot better now:

06_padauk_no80.jpg
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Next up was a bit of maple (why, oh why didn't I choose pine?! :obscene-drinkingbuddies: ). The maple got the same kerfing saw treatment and then got ripped in half:

07_maple_ripping.jpg
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I was quite pleased with the straightness of my sawing (the padauk was good too, I just didn't get any photos) - I think I might be getting a bit better slowly.

08_maple_ripped.jpg
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Again the plane came out next, again leaving lots of tear-out :cry:

09_maple_planed.jpg
(40.78 KiB)


That meant getting the #80 out again: it's not perfect, but it's a lot better:

10_maple_no80.jpg
(37.57 KiB)


That's as far as I've got so far - it felt like it might be cider o'clock so I stopped. I haven't quite figured out what comes next (although I guess the first job is making sure faces of the bits of wood are parallel :? :cry: :shock: :( ). My initial plan had been to make a padauk box but I'm thinking that the colour might be a bit much (and that grain is going to induce quite a few curse words!).

Therefore I might end up with a (badly!) dovetailed padauk & maple box (with something else for a lid I guess?) and a mitred maple box. Or maybe something completely different, who knows?!
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby AndyT » 04 Sep 2021, 18:10

Great stuff!

Nothing has gone wrong and all the possibilities are still open to you. Mitres are one option...;)
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby Mike G » 04 Sep 2021, 18:48

AndyT wrote:.........Mitres are one option...;)


Don't listen to him!! :) That way madness lies..........
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby Dr.Al » 04 Sep 2021, 18:58

:eusa-clap:
Mike G wrote:
AndyT wrote:.........Mitres are one option...;)


Don't listen to him!! :) That way madness lies..........


I've done two boxes so far (with the thicknesser doing the hard bit!). Both were mitred (with splines) - I found the shooting board made that quite easy. I'd like to try something else this time, although if I make two boxes, one may end up mitred.
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby Trevanion » 04 Sep 2021, 19:01

It may seem a bit overpowering now but the Padauk won't stay that vibrant red colour for very long, it will mellow down into a reddish-brown after a couple of years and won't look too dissimilar to a piece of Utile. It's all a bit of a con really on the timber supplier's part, people end up buying these super exotic and expensive timbers for their vibrant colours and that they look a bit different to native timbers such as Oak or Ash, and a few years down the line they look nothing like they did when freshly made.

One thing with Padauk is to never wear clothes you like when working it, especially white! It stains clothes like no other timber :lol:
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby thetyreman » 05 Sep 2021, 00:04

also I had a bad reaction to padauk, so be careful with the dust, can't use it again now, does look good though I like the red colour.
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby sunnybob » 05 Sep 2021, 06:17

Padauk and curly maple means that you WILL be using sandpaper :lol: Lots and lots of it :lol: :lol:

I like padauk a lot, but using handtools on it is certainly "doing things the hard way".

Keep it for the lid, it can be stunning, like this one I made several years ago.
IMG_1529.JPG
(270.31 KiB)


Good luck with your chosen mission :eusa-clap: :eusa-clap:
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby AndyT » 05 Sep 2021, 07:08

One obvious line of thought for two such contrasting woods would be to make some sort of chessboard. There are plenty of ways to make this more challenging if you want. You can include a box below the surface to hold the playing pieces. This could be a drawer, or the board could hinge up in one or two sections. My father had a nice miniature board where the whole box was hinged along the half way line so it folded up to make a smaller, deeper box.
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby Woodbloke » 05 Sep 2021, 21:39

AndyT wrote:Great stuff!

Nothing has gone wrong and all the possibilities are still open to you. Mitres are one option...;)


Easy provided you make yourself a jig of some description to plane the long mitre. If you haven’t got a jig, saving the Titanic from going down would have been an easier option - Rob
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby Dr.Al » 25 Sep 2021, 18:29

I haven't done much on this for a fairly long time, what with going on holiday and having a few other jobs to do, but today I got back out to the workshop and started to think about the box/boxes again. What I do now have is a plan:

Image

That rather awful quality sketch is my plan for a box. I might get more than one box out of the material I've started to prepare, but this is the first one I'm going to work on. To keep things simple, it's going to have mitred corners (probably with hand-cut splines like my previous boxes). Unlike anything I've done before, it's going to be hinged (with a couple of cheap brass cylinder hinges like the one in the photo), so that's going to add quite a challenge. Because of being concerned about getting the hinges accurate enough, I might decide to make it with an overhanging lid (probably out of a different material to the body) rather than as shown: I suspect that will be easier. The box will be a cube, somewhere in the region of 65 mm on each side. Rather unusually (and possibly rather daftly?) it's going to have two bases with an enclosed section. I'm going to use padauk for the sides and maple for the rest. Unless I change my mind in the meantime...

The purpose of the box? One of my next-door neighbours likes to do impressions of a chainsaw in his sleep, so I tend to keep a pack of Max Lite earplugs by the side of the bed. I leave the packet on the bedside table and reach for them if I happen to wake up in the night during one of my neighbour's congested rhino phases. Rather than having them in the loose packet, I thought I'd make a little box for them. It should make them easier to get to in the dark: the light plastic packets tend to wander around the bedside table if the slightest breeze blows. What I would like is to have a box that I can easily open in the dark (another reason for an overlapping lid, unlike in the sketch).

The need for the box to be easy to open is the reason for that slightly odd pocket at the bottom of the cross-section. I'm going to fill that with a lump of lead to add a bit of weight to the box so that if I reach out and push the lid up, it'll open the box rather than lift the whole box off the bedside table. I still need to decide about lining the bottom half of the box; I might choose something unusual like plastic or aluminium as I sometimes use the earplugs for a couple of nights and I'd like an easily cleanable inside surface.

That's the plan anyway, we'll see what happens...

Where we left this a few weeks ago, I'd planed (and scraped) one side of each piece of padauk and one piece of maple. First job was to thickness the padauk. I started by getting a marking gauge and scoring a line 9 mm from the planed face. I followed that with a pencil lead just to make it a bit clearer.

Image

Then I attacked the padauk with my no. 5 to get it close to the line.

Image

Finally, I got the #80 out again to get a finish with a lot less tear-out.

Image

After all that, I ended up with a nice pile of shavings...

Image

... and two 9 mm planks of padauk.

Image
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby Dr.Al » 25 Sep 2021, 18:30

For a bit of a change from planing and scraping padauk, I decided to have a go at sorting out the lead for the base weight. I started by grabbing an offcut of 0.8 mm steel, scribbling over it with a magnum sharpie and marking out a simple pattern.

Image

Still trying to stick to hand tools wherever possible, I used some snips to cut out the pattern:

Image

Then my home-made bender was used to bend the pattern:

Image

The resulting box (with inside dimensions 50 mm × 50 mm × 20 mm):

Image

Next up I used both of my third hands (or should that be third & fourth hand?!) to prop the box pattern on its end.

Image

I could then weld along the corners:

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The finished steel box.

Image

The plan is to use this as a mould to cast a lead block to go in the bottom of the box. I've never cast anything in my life, but lead has a nice low melting point, so it seemed a good first option. The design (such as it is) has room for a 50 mm × 50 mm × 15 mm block in the bottom, so I thought I'd make the box slightly bigger in height in case of any impurities floating to the top. It should be easy to trim it down to size after casting.
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby AJB Temple » 25 Sep 2021, 18:32

How will you get the lead out?
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby Dr.Al » 25 Sep 2021, 18:32

I've got quite a lot of lead bits and bobs stored away, after replacing my incoming water pipe a few years ago and also having some work done on the roof. Here are some bits that came off the roof, along with a small crucible I bought on ebay for the purpose:

Image

I started by getting an appropriate amount of lead. The internal dimensions of the steel box are 50 mm × 50 mm × 20 mm, which makes 50000 mm³ or 50×10⁻⁶ m³. According to the table on my website, the density of lead is 11300 kg/m³, so multiplying that by the volume in m³ gives an expected mass of 565 g (although I'll only need three quarters of that amount as I only need the height of the block to be 15 mm in the end). I weighed out 600 g as it seemed like a sensible amount without too much excess but definitely enough.

To get the lead into the crucible more easily I decided to cut it up. After doing a few, I decided it would be easier with the snips clamped in place, so I dug through the scrap wood bin and found a bit of cedar. I cut a couple of slots in it with my ryoba:

Image

I then chiselled out the bit between the slots and (after taking this photo), cut off the angled bit (again with the ryoba):

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The resulting jig:

Image

The jig made it very quick to reduce the lead to a little pile of small bits.

Image

A lot of the bits now fit in the crucible, but they won't all go in until they've melted and reduced in volume a bit.

Image
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby Dr.Al » 25 Sep 2021, 18:33

This is my set-up for casting. On the right is a few fire bricks (not the insulating type, which would probably be better, but at least they keep the flames away from the floor). The tongs came with the crucible. The bit of OSB on the left gives me somewhere to put the mould and the strips of plywood are just there to catch the worst of any lead that misses the mould.

Image

With that all ready, there was nothing for it but to start cooking with the propane torch! It didn't take long for the lead to start to drop into the crucible and I could add the extra bits.

Image

Once it was all melted, I used an old teaspoon to get rid of the worst of the scum that had floated on top:

Image

I then poured the crucible out and again used the teaspoon to skim off a little bit of scum. Remarkably, this was the level after emptying the crucible, so I obviously judged the amount of lead just right.

Image

It was then a case of leaving the box to cool.

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Once it was cool, I put the box in the vice and used a hacksaw to cut through the welds on two of the corners:

Image

I could then lever out the sides with a screwdriver...

Image

... and pull the block out.

Image

I was quite pleased with that as my first ever attempt at casting metal!
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby Dr.Al » 25 Sep 2021, 18:33

AJB Temple wrote:How will you get the lead out?


Like that ↑

I never intended the mould to be reusable (otherwise I'd have to worry about draft angles and such-like). It only took me about 10 minutes to make the mould and it was made out of an offcut.
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby Mike G » 25 Sep 2021, 18:39

I've got 100+kg of lead to cast next year for ballast. Fancy bringing your teaspoon down here to help me out? ;) :lol:
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby AndyT » 25 Sep 2021, 18:46

Well, this is fun!
For starters, I think you win the prize for most vividly coloured timber of the month.

And also an award for the most gratuitous and enjoyable extra steps! Did you consider just pressing those bits of lead flashing into a lump and hitting them with a hammer? You'd have achieved almost the same density, but I guess you wouldn't have had so much fun!

(And by the way, it would have worked if you had just knocked together a wooden tray to cast your lead block - I tried this in the garage when I was about 10, with just a little spirit lamp to heat the lead in. The wood scorched a bit, but didn't actually catch fire, or burn the house down :D .)
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby Dr.Al » 25 Sep 2021, 18:52

Mike G wrote:I've got 100+kg of lead to cast next year for ballast. Fancy bringing your teaspoon down here to help me out? ;) :lol:


:text-lol:

AndyT wrote:Well, this is fun!
For starters, I think you win the prize for most vividly coloured timber of the month.

And also an award for the most gratuitous and enjoyable extra steps! Did you consider just pressing those bits of lead flashing into a lump and hitting them with a hammer? You'd have achieved almost the same density, but I guess you wouldn't have had so much fun!


The thought occurred to me, but as much as anything it was a nice excuse for trying out metal melting.

AndyT wrote:
(And by the way, it would have worked if you had just knocked together a wooden tray to cast your lead block - I tried this in the garage when I was about 10, with just a little spirit lamp to heat the lead in. The wood scorched a bit, but didn't actually catch fire, or burn the house down :D .)


I suspected that was the case and wondered about just trying it, but if I'm completely honest, I did it using a metal mould as much as an excuse to fire the TIG welder up as anything else. I really enjoy TIG welding, even for little things like this (although for something so simple it's probably a waste of argon as the pipes will now be full of argon and it will gradually leak out over the next couple of weeks :( ).
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby AJB Temple » 25 Sep 2021, 18:56

Boat build brought forward then Mike?

I am happy to come over and help cast the keel. I've watched casting lots of times (FIL used to have a cast iron foundry in Stratford on Avon) but have no experience of hands on. However, happy with dangerously hot metal.

Presume you are offering deals to anyone local who wants to scrap some lead?
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby AJB Temple » 25 Sep 2021, 18:57

Actually 100kg is not that much. I just put about 70kg in a sash window.
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby sunnybob » 26 Sep 2021, 06:08

Just remember that handling cold lead without gloves, and then not carefully washing, and breathing the fumes from hot lead, is much more dangerous than the hot lead itself.
If you want a safer way of casting small quantities of lead, go surfing for a LEE PRODUCTION POT.

Available quite cheaply from gun magazine ads or or from ebay. I've cast tens of thousands of bullets with one.
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby Mike G » 26 Sep 2021, 07:54

AJB Temple wrote:Actually 100kg is not that much. I just put about 70kg in a sash window.


I just checked. It's actually 217kg. I have probably 40 or 50kg in scrap already, and I have a builder friend who would probably make up the difference. Otherwise I'll just go to a local scrap dealer and buy from him.
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby Mike G » 26 Sep 2021, 08:00

sunnybob wrote:....... go surfing for a LEE PRODUCTION POT.....


Thanks. I'll go have a look.
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby sunnybob » 26 Sep 2021, 08:06

Mike, the pot is perfect for the kind of thing Dr Al did, but no good for 200 kg in one pour. :eusa-naughty:
This is more what you need I think.
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Re: Biting off more than I can chew

Postby Andyp » 26 Sep 2021, 08:27

sunnybob wrote:Mike, the pot is perfect for the kind of thing Dr Al did, but no good for 200 kg in one pour. :eusa-naughty:
This is more what you need I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV6DYyZCC64


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