Thread: Chisel box

Lovely set of chisels there. Great looking box so far.

Originally Posted by delbs

Lovely set of chisels there. Great looking box so far. What’s the timber your using? I like the thickness of the top and bottom to the sides.

Are you making a box for decorative reasons and to keep them all together or to seal them a little more from rust if your coastal?

Cheers
Nathan

All the answers are in his post.......

Originally Posted by rwbuild

All the answers are in his post.......

Yep noted will delete my post

So what have I learned today? [emoji3]

1) Wenge is as hard as rocks. According to the Wood Database, the Janka hardness of Wenge is 8,600N. Janka hardness is measured by measuring the force it takes to embed a 11mm ball bearing to half its diameter into the timber. It takes 8,600 Newton of force to do that in Wenge. For reference Wenge is 20% harder than White Oak (the fronts) and 12% harder than Hard Maple.

2) Even thought my eyesight is not what it used to be I always try and be as meticulous as possible paying specific attention to detail so that I can be as accurate in my measurements and cuts as possible. Even with the attention to detail I still ran into a problem today. I blame it on the Wenge as I was beaten today, more on that later.

This is the approach I took for took for the blind dovetails. I marked it out using painters tape and using my dovetail jig to align the boards, I transferred the tails onto the pin board (sides) using my scalpel to cut through the tape.





This allowed me to clearly see where I had to make the cuts, aiming to put the saw kerf just next to the tape line. So far it went ok.



I then used my Dremel to slowly carve away the bulk of the tail sockets. The Dremel struggled a bit in the hard Wenge but I just took it slowly and it worked ok.



I then took to the sockets with my chisels. It took some time but I finally managed to get the first board done. The board took some convincing to go into the sockets using my mallet but since the White Oak is softer than the Wenge the mallet operation resulted into perfectly shaped tails. The final result was not perfect but ok according to me.







Here are some photos of all 4 corners. Some are better than others, some worse. It will clean up nicely after the glue up though so I’m not too concerned.









That bring me to the final progress for today and an explanation of my issue. My box is warped! It rocks corner to corner and it took me putting a piece of 3mm MDF board under the back corner to stop the rocking. Even after all the attention to detail the Wenge has beaten me, go figure…. [emoji30]





If there is anyone with some advice on how to fix my issue, I’m listening. I can plane the high side down but that will result in a wonky box with uneven sides. Alternatively I can put some varying height feet under the box but that’s not ideal.

Nonetheless, I think the pointy tails look rather nice, especially against the contrasting timber.

If there is anyone with some advice on how to fix my issue, I’m listening. I can plane the high side down but that will result in a wonky box with uneven sides. Alternatively I can put some varying height feet under the box but that’s not ideal.

You have chosen extremely challenging woods to dovetail! Well done so far.

Two items, the first about prevention, and the second about a fix.

Prevention: this is why I bang on about ensuring that the pin board is square to the tail board when transferring marks. It is essential to use a square and not one’s eye. A smidgeon out of square and you end up wonky …




The fix: The box needs to sit flat, and the sides to be even in height.

Either add more wood, or remove wood. In this case I would a glue in a thin strip of well-matched wood, and plane it down until you have a tiny wedge to fill the gap. That side is now going to be higher, and you will need to plane it down to equalise all sides. Fortunately it is at the rear, and the impact will go unnoticed.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Hi Jacques,

Lovely chisels - I’d be happy to look after them for you until you sort out the box problems

Which component of the box has warped? If it is the front or back (the white oak) I’d be looking to make a new piece provided you haven’t already glued up.

Interesting combination of timbers - I’ve been planning to make a Wenge box but haven’t got to it yet so I’m following your build with keen interest. Great box so far!

Best regards,

Brian

Thanks Derek and Brian. I will ponder over it a bit more overnight and measure a few things in the morning before deciding my next course of action. Worst case I will have to do the Wenge sides (and all those tail pockets again) [emoji30]

This is where my head is at. If the warping is due to an off-square board alignment when setting out and marking the dovetails then the fix is to correct the alignment. The way I think to achieve that is to “open up” the tail pockets/pins to give me some wiggle room to square up the box so that it lies flat. By looking at the box there are two corners of concern so that’s where I will start. If it works I can just fill up the gaps left by opening up the tail pockets/pins which should still be a decent safe. If it all turns out to custard I’ll redo the sides.

They say the art of woodwork is fixing the mistakes. I can only suggest a cheat. I see a cheat as being legit when there is no other way out. I have never done this but reckon its worth a shot. Find the offending join by seeing what ones lie square and what dont. Then treat the one or two as large single dovetails by removing the middle pins. Bodge in dark wood triangles to fill the holes. may need a shim of either colour to complete the deception. And being the gentlemen we are on this forum it will never be talked of again.
Good luck with however you go.
Regards
John

Good news, the plan worked. [emoji3][emoji6]

I ended up opening up all the pins to create some wiggle room in the joints. I undercut them to keep the visual impact as little as possible and that seems to have done the trick. Here you can see the end result, I did it on all 4 corners.



After cutting the rebates for the top and lid I glued up the box using my trusty 12.5 kg weights to get it to dry up as flat as possible.




The end result was way better than before, I can now only fit a Stanley blade under the same corner. That’s good enough for planing/sanding out once all is done.



The next step was to fit the bottom. I just glued it down into the rebate on the side Wenge pieces and onto the White Oak front/back. Time will tell if Wenge moves a lot with seasonal changes in which case it will probably break the White Oak glue line as it will expand front to back. I glued and clamped it up pretty solid though so let’s see if it holds up.



Here are some final photos once I’ve filled in the gaps around the dovetails and cleaned it up with a plane and sander. Not perfect but good enough for me. [emoji3]







All that remains to do is fit the lid, do the chisel “holders”, add some feet and finish it up.



Sorry Brian, the box lives again so the chisels are staying put. [emoji4]

Contrast looks fantastic well done so far!

Hi Jacques,

Brilliant recovery. 2tsup:

Shame, really. I was looking forward to those chisels

Regards,

Brian

Originally Posted by botesmj1

Good news, the plan worked. [emoji3][emoji6]~. ~ put. [emoji4]

Looking very good (and familiar .. but there is a difference, and that is good). What have done, or intend to do, to fill the socket gaps?

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by derekcohen

Looking very good (and familiar .. but there is a difference, and that is good). What have done, or intend to do, to fill the socket gaps?

Regards from Perth

Derek

Thanks Derek. I used wood dust left over from sawing the pins mixed with wood glue to fill the gaps between the dovetails.