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August 20, 2009 By

The Leigh FMT: When absolute precision is a must

I am in the process of building a stand-up desk. The design includes a full dust cover, which doubles as the support structure for four drawers. For the construction of the dust cover I selected 6-inch wide boards, to minimize flex of the structure under the load of the drawers and of the ribs required to keep the top from cupping (I will include all the desk design details in a future entry).

The photo sequence that follows illustrates the precision and accuracy delivered by the Leigh FMT. I decided to use double tenons along the width of the short boards in the frame, to minimize the risk of wood movement across the grain, causing cracking in the boards with the mortises. To obtain perfect alignment, the FMT allows very precise positioning of the center of each tenon and mortise. Thus, the FMT was my choice.

In this first photo I am cutting the first of two tenons:

cutting-first-set-tenons

By sliding the table on the FMT to allow centering on the second tenon, I can confidently cut that tenon:

cutting-second-set-tenons

Following some test cuts on scrap pieces, I confidently cut the mortises on the long mortise boards:

double-mortises-2

A different perspective, showing the double mortises more clearly:

double-mortises

The following photo shows the components of the dust cover frame; the slots in the tenon pieces and on the mortise boards will accept the ¼-inch boards that will complete the cover:

tenons-and-mortises

The photo below shows the first dry fit of the dust cover:

dust-cover-dry-fit

And, finally, the completed dust cover:

dust-cover-after-drawboring

Alignment of the stiles (the tenon boards) was perfect on each of the rails (the mortise boards). Pretty cool!

A key to successful, repeatable results, is the clamp-on Ott table light that Sandy gave me a few weeks ago. It helps my aging eyes to perfectly align the target on the FMT to the center mark locations for the tenons and the mortises. This is what this lamp looks like – but my copy of the lamp has an arm that doubles the reach of the arm, making it very handy for use on the workbench:

I simply clamped the light to a board, and used two additional clamps to install the light on one end of the 3-1/2 inch thick workbench top. My eyes thank me for doing this. Thank-you, Sandy! True love in the shop.

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Filed Under: Blog, Education, FMT Pro, Joinery, Leigh jig, Mortise, Sponsor, Tenon, Tutorial Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
January 13, 2008 By

How I Do It: Capturing the computer screen

I have received several questions over the last four weeks (via e-mail), asking: “How do you capture the computer screen, to generate the videos you make to illustrate the designs/modifications, using your 3-D modeling program?”

My answer: I use Camtasia Studio 5, a product from TechSmith. I let TechSmith tell the story of what this nifty program is, as follows (from their web site):

So, what IS Camtasia Studio?

The smart, friendly screen recorder and more.

Imagine being able to show exactly what’s on your screen to anyone, anywhere. Imagine that it’s easy. Now you’ve imagined Camtasia Studio.

With the smartest screen recording tools on the planet, Camtasia Studio makes everything from training videos to PowerPoint presentations to lectures look better, reach more people, and pack more punch. Which makes you look even smarter, too.

I especially like the last sentence above…

I purchased this screen recorder to develop some tutorials in Corrosion Engineering, my specialty, from 25+ years in this field. I am glad I got this tool, as I can now produce videos that document, inform, and teach woodworking techniques and procedures. Woodworking has been my passion for many years, and now I get to enjoy it more than I ever have at any time in the past.

As many of you have seen, I use this product to document procedures and techniques, and modifications in the design of my woodworking pieces. I have called the 3-D program my “visualization tool”; Camtasia allows me to share the results with you. I use it this way, the simplest way to get results; but it can also create fully interactive tutorial sessions, with quiz sections, Q&A, etc.

If you are interested in pursuing it further, please contact TechSmith. I am not associated with the company – I am simply a happy customer!

Edit to add: I learned just a few minutes ago that the TechSmith people will be in San Francisco at MacWorld, January 14-18. It looks at if some of you will have a chance to meet the Camtasia people in person.

Filed Under: Blog, Computer, Education, General, Tutorial, Video Tagged With: , , , , ,
November 1, 2007 By

Inlaid dovetails – Part 3, the Finale

Video thumbnail. Click to play
Click To Play

I have truly enjoyed the journey, friends. Many of you have told me that you HAVE enjoyed learning how to get from the makings of a plain dovetail, to an inlaid dovetail. In this episode I show the process of cutting the pin sockets in the walnut (accent) board, to make room for thinner pins boards that will provide the contrast in the joint.I have made these joints many times, but I still managed to blow out the walnut in one end of each dovetail board. I decided to include these failures in the film, to show that things can go wrong at times. As I explain in the video, the failure resulted due to insufficient glue/contact during the clamping time. I did not anticipate these failures this time, as I got cocky and just “knew” I had done a really good job <grin> during on-camera glue-up, in Part 2.Although I did not show all the steps to make the repairs to the ends of the boards where the walnut failed, it is a CAN-DO thing: Simply do the following, to keep you from milling new boards – especially if you are using expensive, exotic woods:

  1. Carefully, sand away the walnut that remains on the face of the dovetail board(s) – voilà, clean board(s), ready to re-apply new inlay board(s)! If you find a better way of doing this, let me know
  2. Re-install the dovetail bit on the router
  3. Adjust the bit depth to the original depth – that is, the thickness of the walnut board; HOW??? Simple: Insert the now-cleaned board end in the jig, place the router on the finger assembly, and adjust the bit depth using the now-clean pin sockets as your depth template.
  4. Re-open the guide fingers using the shims, as outlined in the procedure
  5. Re-cut the pin sockets, to remove the walnut
  6. Now cut the pins on the dark (walnut) board(s)
  7. Glue the walnut to the light (sycamore) board(s)
  8. Close the guide fingers in the proper sequence, using shims as needed
  9. Re-cut the pin sockets in the dark (walnut), leaving the inlay on the dovetail board(s) ===>>> Repaired board(s)

If you want to make inlaid dovetails, I suggest you download the Leigh procedure procedure; it is posted at the Leigh Support Page. While the procedure is specific to the D4 24-inch jig, some of you have already told me via e-mail you may be able to adapt some or most of the steps to your non-Leigh jig. Please post your comments via the link at the bottom of this write-up, to share with others your successes. Some of you also have made up your minds, and have already decided to get a new Leigh jig to make these joints – let me know if you do!

A critical part of the entire procedure involves milling, very precisely, the shims used to spread the jig’s guides. I recommend you keep it simple: If you will use an 8° dovetail router bit, you will need shims that are 1.15 times thicker than the inlay thickness you wish to have. This is “to compensate for the geometry of the angled cut and changing cutter depth”, according to the Leigh step-by-step write-up.In its simplest form, I use shims that are 116 mils thick ( 0.116″ ). This is because my target is always 100 mils ( 0.100″ ) inlay thickness.

NOTE: As I mentioned in Part 1, two disk drives crashed and delayed my video-making adventure. Although I am able to produce video at this time, I have some glitches that result in out-of-sync audio and video, especially toward the end of this episode. I am still trying to figure out what may have happened to cause this. I apologize for this glitch in the video, folks!

Acknowledgment: I thank Marc Spagnuolo, TheWoodWhisperer, for all his help as I muddled through this entire video posting process, and various minutiae related to blogging in general. Thanks, buddy!

——– Al

Filed Under: Blog, D4, Dovetails, Education, Jigs, Leigh jig, Tutorial, Video Tagged With: , , , , , ,