D4R Pro — Sandal Woods

July 5, 2011 By Al Navas

A wooden hinge prototype

If you have been following the blog, you know I have been working on wooden hinge forms for some time. John, one reader in Washington State, wanted to know if I ever make a prototype for each cabinet or box in which I incorporate wooden hinges. My answer is a definite YES!

John, here is the final/final prototype hinge form I made for a small curly maple cabinet – and before any sculpting:

The link above shows several photos of the finished cabinet. Hint: here is the bottom-right hinge, installed on the finished cabinet:

To make wooden hinges I use the F3 finger joint template on the Leigh D4R dovetail jig. In case you missed it, I documented the entire procedure, including photographs, in an earlier article. The article is now archived at the Leigh Industries Customer Support web page (third article from the bottom i the Technical Support Bulletin section).

— Al Navas

Filed Under: Blog, Box making, D4R Pro, Design, F3 finger joint, Finger joints, Jigs, Joinery

June 27, 2011 By Al Navas

A storage box with finger joints

The box for the FMT Pro and Super FMT guides is ready for a nice varnish finish that will pop the grain on the curly maple:

I may need to do a little more work on the grid holding the guides in place. More on this in another post.

Equipment used: Leigh D4R Pro dovetail jig with the F3 finger joint template.

Acknowledgement: I got my inspiration for this box from the last two photos at the Leigh Industries’ square finger joint Photo Gallery. With thanks to Leigh Industries, and also to ”Lucky” Brittain.

— Al Navas

Filed Under: Blog, Box making, D4R Pro, Design, F3 finger joint, FMT Pro, Leigh jig, Super FMT

May 5, 2011 By Al Navas

Glue-up and sanding time

The glue-up

Glue-up time! First thing: sanding. Then more sanding, to make sure everything was truly nice and smooth, and that all the drum sander, blade, and router marks were gone. Then it was glue-up time, using Titebond’s liquid hide glue:

Glue-up time!

Why liquid hide glue?

I prefer to use liquid hide glue for the following reasons:

It acts as a great “lubricant”, and it actually helps the joinery slide in much more easily when the fit is a bit on the tight side, as finger joints must be.
It has a very long open time; this is perfect when I have many areas to cover. Just take one look at the corners on this little cabinet — it has a bunch of finger joints, and glue must be applied to every one of them with an acid brush.
Liquid hide glue, like its counterpart, hot hide glue, can be repaired, unlike modern yellow glues.
Liquid hide glue will not interfere with the Waterlox varnish I will apply as the finish.

Clamping

Clamping is a must when using finger joint joinery. I don’t use cauls when I use the Bessey clamps, as I have installed cork with packing tape over the cork; this keeps the glue from sticking to the clamp/cork surfaces. Eliminating the cauls simplifies the glue-up. I recommend you do this, too.

Joint clean-up

Following the glue-up, I always use a scraper, to remove the excess glue. Then I use a hand plane to flush the fingers to the rest of the board:

The best way to get the fingers flush to the boards: a hand plane.

In this case I sanded all surfaces, following the hand plane. The reason: all boards have a lot of figure, and I did not want to run the risk of tear-out. Sanding was truly my friend this time.

Time for doors

Once the glue set, it was time to start on the doors. The book-matched door boards were well acclimated to the shop environment, and they were ready to cut just oversize at the table saw. Then I trimmed them to size on the shooting board: