Thread: WIP - Chest of drawers

Next lot of piccies......

final (for the moment)....

Looks really cool Mike. Can't wait to see it finished.

Tex

That's looking absolutely brilliant..

Question when you are able to pull yourself away from the laminating.. How did you bend it over the forms?
Steamed then placed on the form?
Steam under the form and slowly tightening the clamps or do you have a secret recipe?

Are you willing to share or will you have to kill us (me at least) if you tell?:eek:

Andrew

Thanks for the comments guys.

Andrew, regarding the laminations, it's a matter of cutting (and thinknessing) each lamination thin enough (4.5 mm in this case), using a non creep glue (AV201) and brute strength to bend it into the form. In this case I secured the laminations at the thicker end of the form and progressed upward from there. It's worth noting that the clamps in the form use 125mm bolts, so when I put the lamination into the form, all of the clamps are completely undone with the cross pieces sitting on the floor waiting for me to pick them up, position them across the lamination and tighten up the bolts. I kept each set in the form for a week (weekends are the only time I get to do this stuff) and then took them out. There was a small amount of flex when I took them out but all of the pieces have been pretty uniform in the flex. Apart from that initial flex, non of the pieces have moved out of shape since they were out of the form (3+ months now).

Regards,
Mike.

good job, look forward to seeing the end result.
Did you get any uneveness in your forms using that clamping method?(ie; in between each clamping point?)

Matrix,

Overall, the shapes are actually very even. There is some minor variation, but I will remove this when I put the sides together and do a scraping. I think the reason for the small variation is because I start clamping at the bottom and continue from the bottom to the top without missing any clamps. In my trial attempt I didn't do this and I ended up with a large amount of variation.

Anyway, this is my first attempt with lamination and so far I'm pretty happy.

Regards,
Mike.

Any more progress?? I'm interested to see waht the finished thing will look(s) like

Andrew,

What can I say..... work, kids, school holidays = not much progress. I've been struggling with how to get the sides of each panel that I'm going to mate for gluing staight along the lenght and parallel to each other. If the sides were flat, this would be no problem but because they're curved I've had major issues. Anyway, I think I have a solution and will post again as soon as I've made progress.

Regards,
Miike.

Hi Mike,

That's looking very interesting. Can't wait for the next posts - and what about a sketch or similar of what you're building?

Mike did ya steam the RRG? Love the clamp detail. Gotta make one when a project comes up ha he. Guess im a bit of an amature, ha he

Or is the RRG well trained ha he. I just failed in the construction of my steaming chamber. Way too big in diamtr.
Did ya steam the RRG? How's it staying in " S " shape.. What thickness is each peice? 4mm ? Bandsaw! Did you really pass the timber through.
Cause you can't get the blade height on the ripping bench? Gee the blade must be quite rigid to get a reasonable consistency.
Love to see WIP more.

Cheers Toe Knee.

Thanks for the comments guys. I'll definitely post more where there's progress.

Steve - check out the link in the first post of this thread. It contains the "plan" for the this piece.

Toe Knee - I didn't steam the RRG. Each completed piece is 4mm thick, 300mm wide and 1900mm long. I milled each of the pieces out of 55mm thick RRG thru my bandsaw and then thru a planer. The bandsaw had a 1 inch bi-metal blade from Henry Bros. Fabulous blade, but the only way to ensure consistency of thickness was to put it thru the planer. The laminations are held together with AV201. This is a rigidi, non creeping glue that seems to work very well in this application.

Regards,
Mike.

There should be a LAW against life getting in the way of WOODWORK.. Mike we will just wait in eager anticipation for you to have the time for the next step.. not to mention that glorious 3.00am moment in regards to how to do the glue up.

Andrew

Guys,

I managed to get some time to devote to this and have had some major progress . The photos show:
- the jig used to cut the joints for a purrrfect glueline
- the side of the router trolley showing the bearings
- some examples of the curves and cut RRG.

Enjoy,
Mike.