Christmas project woes

[Monte Milanuk]

Hello,

Working on my first 'real' projects for others (i.e. not shop related and/or trim-carpentry/built-in stuff) - a blanket chest for the daughter, and a candle centerpiece for the wife.

I've been following the plans for the blanket chest, and most things are coming together okay, but two areas are bugging me and I'm debating whether to re-do the parts or not. Part of the debate is whether they'll come out any better the second time 'round!

Part 'D' is a cross rail, 3/4" thick x 3" wide rail w/ a centered 1/4" groove along the inside face for a panel, and stub tenons on the ends to fit into matching grooves in some other pieces. The problem here is I'd done some test cuts, but apparently there were some slight differences between my test stock and the 'real deal' stuff... the tenons didn't fit quite as tight on piece #1 as I'd liked, so I tweaked the handle on the saw a little (using a dado blade to cut these tenons) and had at it on the other three. Of course... I turned the handle the wrong way so now I have one not-very-tight piece and three really loose-fitting ones. I can *probably re-cut these, just more of an irritation factor than anything.

Part 'A' is a vertical end piece for one of the panels, so it has a centered 1/4 groove like the other rail-n-stile pieces. No problems there. The headache here is these parts have a 1/2" thick x 3/4" wide rabbet on the outside edge, for another piece to fit into. The fit is fairly good... other than a few little whoop-tee-doos where the stock must not have fed quite as smoothly as I thought across the dado head. All four pieces have similar little waves in the rabbet, and I'm not entirely sure where to start looking for where/what is at fault here. I used a pretty healthy system of feather boards, etc. when feeding the wood thru on that size of a cut, but still got the waves in the cuts. This will end up being exposed right on a corner of the chest, so the less-than perfect fit of the rabbet joint is giving me some heartburn. I'm considering re-cutting that rabbet on the router table where I can sneak up on it a little differently... but I'm not 100% certain at this point if my router table *plate* is flat enough to avoid similar headaches. Kind of running out of time to investigate too many new options.

Will the daughter ever notice? Probably not. It's still eating at me though, and I'm not even done with it!

Any suggestions, etc. would be welcome.

TIA,

Monte

[Paul Joynes]

Consider gluing some wood onto the cheeks of the tenons and cut them a second time after the glue has cured. It will never be seen since it is inside of the joint. Next time cut them slightly oversized and use a shoulder plane or paring chisel to final fit them.

Paul

[Monte Milanuk]

Hmmm... I've seen that trick for larger tenons... these are just 1/4" thick, and maybe 1/32" undersized on each side. Will it work with such thin tenons?

As I was getting into this stage I was thinking to myself that a shoulder plane would be *really* really nice about now...

Another problem I forgot earlier that is going to be interesting to solve... I made the top out of two pieces of edge-joined sugar pine (same material as the rest of the chest). Both pieces thicknessed and all that, glued up fine, learned a few things there The problem is as the new panel (16-5/8" x 39-1/4" x 3/4" thick) lay on my bench a couple days... it started to warp to where it doesn't lay flat on the bench anymore. The wood had been in the shop for 5-6 months before being worked. The plans call for some supports/braces on the underside of the lid to help keep things flat and/or reinforce them. Not sure if I can 'pull' the lid back flat by installing the braces now, or just re-cut & glue the panel and put the braces on as soon as the clamps are off and the glue cleaned up?

Thanks,

Monte

[Dan Barr]

glue some thin stock to the tenons and pare with a chisel or re-cut on the saw. I'd go with the chisel and hand fit the pieces. doesnt take that long really.

i do this to my tenons any time i goof and make something too small or pare the wrong side/cheek. works like a charm and keeps me from wasting wood. i only re-cut a piece if i really have to.

v/r

dan

[Dan Barr]

turn the piece over and let set for the same amount of time. then store vertically until needed for construction.

Air is geting to the exposed side and not getting to the unexposed side.

v/r

dan

[keith ouellette]

I have done what paul has suggested when I made the same mistake you did except I cut various thin shims with my miter saw and glued in the ones that made it fit right. Make sure the shim is on the right side. I almost put a few on the wrong side of the tenon thinking it wouldn't matter and it would have made the rail of my bench stick out to far. It did work good.
As far as your rabbit goes... did you try to do it in one pass or three passes. I get the same effect you described with to big of a cut.

[Monte Milanuk]

Keith,

Just one pass.

Thanks,

Monte

[keith ouellette]

What I think happens (even with feather boards) is that the wood lifts up in tiny bits because of the force created at the time when the board is pushed on hardest. No matter how i try I can't get a board to go threw the blade smoothly. It's kind of a first fast and slows to a stop and then fast again. Its a real pain resetting the height three times but it works better.

[Monte Milanuk]

Okay, so I'm in the process of re-cutting a couple of the corner pieces, the ones w/ the wavy rabbets in them. Problem is, I can't even get that far!

I'm having some major problems cutting the grooves along the inside edge (that accept the panels as well as the stub tenons from the rails). Seems like I have two options: so tight it almost splits the side material out when I try dry-fitting the tenons in the grove, or so loose it literally rattles around. Thought I almost had it (test cuts came out perfect, and every thing measured just right)... and then I went and cut the last two good pieces and they rattle! I didn't touch a dang thing, I swear! Holy cow, this is getting to be a PITA! Hope I don't run out of wood before I get it all done!

Any ideas/suggestions on this would be very welcome!

TIA,

Monte

[Bruce Glazier]

I cut tenons oversized and fit them with an ordinary paint scraper. Works great. I keep it quite sharp.

[Monte Milanuk]

Unfortunately that doesn't help a whole lot... the parts w/ the tenons are already cut; I'm re-cutting the parts w/ the rails (due to other problems, see above) not the tenons.

Edited to add: Well, nuts. Glued up one of the panel frames, looks like one of the tenons was still too loose... of course it failed as soon as I opened the clamps... so *all* those pieces have to be hacked apart to try and salvage the panel inside, and pretty much start over. Not looking good for getting done for *this* Christmas.

[Lee Schierer]

Thought I almost had it (test cuts came out perfect, and every thing measured just right)... and then I went and cut the last two good pieces and they rattle! I didn't touch a dang thing, I swear! Holy cow, this is getting to be a PITA! Hope I don't run out of wood before I get it all done!

Any ideas/suggestions on this would be very welcome!

TIA,

Monte

It sounds like your stock is not all the same thickness. I use a digital caliper to check wood thickness. I picked mine up at Harbor Freight for less than $20. THey work perfect for checking wood thickness. If your wood varies in thickness from piece to piece or between your test pieces and good stuff by just a little, it will affect the fit of your tenons a lot. .015" is pretty hard to see with your eye and a scale, but it really shows up in a tenon and with the calipers.

[Monte Milanuk]

Lee,

I think you might be exactly right... I happen to have a set of very nice Mitutuoyo digital calipers among my reloading tools (my 'other' hobby is long range rifle shooting) and the pieces w/ the 'wide' grooves were thinner on the outside dimension. I ended up having to re-mill a bunch of the pieces anyway, but still had one 'skinny' piece in the mix. Wound up cutting (and marking) the pieces that have to fit in it separately, and should be able to get this goat show back on the road. My Bosch 1617 router in its benchtop router table worked *much* better than my Freud stacked dado set. I need a dedicated tongue-n-groove bit set, or a slot cutter, or something, as one cut (1/2" deep x 3/4" wide rabbet was kind of stretching things, even cutting in stages w/ a 3/4" straight bit. Got it done, and much smoother cuts than w/ the dado set.

Thanks,

Monte