(uptempo, jazzy music)
Marc:Now some of you may remember about a week ago
I made a post about this really cool collaborative project
going on over at the Sawmill Creek forum.
A couple of the guys over there, the two that I've been
in contact with are Jim and [Dewey], had this idea to create
a project that would travel the country and different
woodworkers would work on different parts of the project.
Each woodworker would have one small job and then
complete that job and pass it on to the next person.
I was incredibly honored when they offered me
the opportunity to slice the top off the box
and then pass that on to the next person.
Here's the box as it stands so far.
It's got a nice drawer in the bottom and
the top you can see is an empty case right now.
It'll receive a contrasting wood applied top on top of this.
But what we need to do is cut what would be
the frame of that top off of the box as it is now.
You can see this really really nice dovetails here.
And this top dovetail, that's actually going to be cut.
That's one of the pins from the side here.
We're gonna cut that in half and the pin
itself was over-sized just a little bit to allow
for the material that the saw is gonna remove.
You could use the bandsaw to do this, but
getting a perfectly straight cut all the way across
this surface relies on a lot of things being
absolutely perfect and that type of cut makes me a little
bit nervous so I prefer to use the table saw when I can.
Just using my thinnest kerf blade possible.
So I've got everything set.
I've got a feather board set up here.
We're gonna make a couple of cuts as we go.
To stabilize things I have a little piece of
[cortison] white oak scrap here and I'm gonna use this.
You'll see as we go through, I'm gonna use this
to actually take up some of that gap that we create
so we can continue to cut accurately after each pass.
You'll see when we get there.
Now, to ensure the cleanest cut possible,
I'm gonna be wrapping the kerf area with some blue tape.
That'll help eliminate some tear out should any occur.
For the sake of balance, I'll put a strip of tape
on the other side as well.
Alright, let's rock and roll!
Now, these little shims will just keep everything
nice and stable for the next cut.
That may seem like a lot of extra precaution.
Maybe some (laughs) might think it's a little too much,
but at this point in a project when you're cutting
a lid from a box like that that is not the time
you wanna make a mistake, especially on a project like this.
This is not the time that I want the world
to see me make a mistake so a little extra
precaution is certainly called for in this case.
One thing you'll have to be aware of
when you cut off a lid like this is that
the frame itself may move a little bit.
You also have a situation where this box
is going from one climate to another and
you never quite know exactly what you're in for.
Honestly, the less time this box spends in Arizona
the better because it's so dry here.
Chances are everywhere else it's gonna go
is gonna be a lot more humid than it is here.
The box looks good.
We've got a little bit of clean up work to do here.
Little bit of burning, but for the most part it looks okay.
Now, I have to be a little cautious with
how much work I do at this point because
this is gonna go to another person.
There's gonna be the top that's applied
to this frame and that could very well
tweak the frame a little bit out of position.
So the more material I take off right now is
the less material that's gonna be there
for the next person to be able to sweeten the fit.
Really, all I'm gonna do is take some of the more
prominent stuff that needs to come off.
There's a little bit of burning here
and I can clean that up just a hair.
But I don't wanna go too far because I want to let
this get to its final place and then let somebody else
do the final sweetening once that top is attached.
It looks like the box itself is really
only gonna need a nice, light sanding.
Just to smooth that edge out.
Alright, so it looks like a pretty airtight fit.
I am happy with that.
Now the question is will it still be airtight
and perfectly flat when it gets where it's going?
Ugh, I don't know.
That's the fun of this whole thing, right?
We'll find out.
But for the next person I marked the side with
a nice triangle to lock down the orientation
so there's no question about which part matches up
with which and that way they don't get it upside down.
So that's it!
Now, if you haven't read my post about this,
this is actually a charity-minded event.
The idea is once this is all done,
I believe they're gonna auction off the final box
and give the money to a charity.
I don't know all the details so go to the post
that I'll put in the show notes for this particular episode.
You'll be able to find out how you might be able to help.
I'd really like to thank all the guys at
Sawmill Creek for including me in on this project.
It was a lot of fun!
Now we gotta get to the post office.
(blues guitar)