Chiefwoodworker's Blog

The Trundle Bed design is almost complete. The joinery still needs to be added to the SketchUp drawings and I am not happy with the finial design at the top of the headboard. Also, I may dress up the faux drawer fronts a little to make them stand out more. The overall dimensions are 4’ 6 1/8” tall by 6” 11” long by 3’ 10 1/2” wide. The trundle will accommodate a twin platform mattress of 39” wide by 75” long by 8” thick. As it stands now the bed will accommodate  a twin platform mattress or a combination mattress & box spring of 39” wide by 75” long by 12” thick. Because the bed sits over the trundle its platform is necessarily longer, just barely enough to squeeze an X-Long mattress of 39” wide by 80” long by 12” thick, but with no margin for slipping a fitted sheet over it. The design could easily be modified to accommodate a few inches of margin.

The trundle rolls out on non-turning casters aligned to make rolling out and in easy. The faux front drawer pulls also help. I debated using knock-down hardware to assemble the trundle instead of glued dovetail joinery. It certainly would make moving this bed easier. But in the end I couldn’t bring myself to abandon hand cut dovetails on a piece of fine furniture for knock-down hardware. The movers will just have to suffer. The overall trundle dimensions are 3’ 7 3/8” wide by 6’ 6 1/2” long by 12 1/4” tall. The faux drawer front is cock beading 1/4” thick with a 1/8” radius bead. The swan-neck cap on the headboard is rather thick, 3 1/4” in cross section. I may need to dress up the drawer front with more substantial and decorative trim to provide balance of attention garnered by the bed and trundle.

The shaping of the swan-neck will be done on my shaper using shaper cutters. The profile shown is an estimate of what I desire. In reality I will have to research my inventory, and on-line, to see which cutters I need to approach my desired profile. I have already done this for the shaping of the panels. They will require a Freud UP207 Raised Panel Cutter. Since I don’t have one I will purchase it on-line for about $140 plus tax. Shaper bits are not cheap, but in order to get a larger cut on the raised panel, I need to use shaper cutters rather than router bits. The Freud UP207 is designed for 5/8” panels which is what I have used in this design.

I am not real happy with the finial design. Though the bed has a substantial look, the finial seems to be too large and not delicate enough. I have changed it numerous times and still have more work to do. it is possible I might eliminate it all together and replace it with a reading light. One of those old style desktop lamps with the thick shade, dark green on the outside and white on the inside, might look good mounted on the pedestal. Alternatively a bedside table style lamp with a decorative shade might also look good. I have to check with the boss.

In the next installment of this series I will show the joinery and explain why I chose the joinery I did. One of the reasons for leaving the joinery to last is so that I can get accurate measurements of various components and then calculate the expected expansion and contraction during the course of a year. This drives the choice of joinery. In addition, leaving the joinery to the end allows for easy changes in design. Once the joinery is added, changes are much more complicated and require more work. Stay tuned.

After reviewing the styles and design criteria with Willow a few decisions were made. First, she fell in love with the Swan Neck headboard style shown in the third picture in Trundle Bed Design – Part 1. The second decision required a quick budget analysis of the component parts that made up a trundle bed’s height. This was aided by a few SketchUp drawings like the one shown at left. The total height of the bed from floor to the top of the top mattress was 30”. That included two 12” thick mattresses. Thirty inches was too tall because it was 4” above the sill of the window it would reside next to. Reasoning that a trundle is seldom used except as guest overflow, and that futons are often 4” or less, we chose to reduce the allowance for the trundle mattress to 8”. It should be rather easy to find a very comfortable platform, single  mattress, that is 8” thick or less.

This trundle bed SketchUp drawing is incomplete. It has no joinery included, the headboard and footboard have no panels to hide the trundle, and the faux drawer fronts have no trim to form the false drawers. In addition, the shape of the Swan Neck profile is simply a quick selection of geometric shapes, but I haven’t done a search of the shaper bits available to create them, so they are subject to change. This drawing took little time to produce, but it is very helpful in viewing the concepts and determining dimensions. From here I can try a number of design options.

One quick piece of joinery, and joinery decision, is shown at right. In almost all my projects there is a good size helping of dovetail joints. My favorite joint, and one I love to produce by hand. All that is missing from the trundle sub-assembly is the trim that will provide the faux drawer front look. The platform is 3/4” plywood. I almost never use plywood in my projects, but this is an application that screams out for it. Plywood is strong, it is almost warp proof, takes a finish well and it is cheap. In this application it will not be seen, but fits all the criteria. So I reluctantly submit to its use.

I am an avid SketchUp fan and use it for all if my drawings. You by now have probably seen my beginner and advanced SketchUp tutorials. One of the really helpful features of SketchUp is the one click X-Ray. The picture at left is the very same drawing shown right above but with the X-Ray Icon selected. In this view the casters are clearly visible as are the platform support pieces. This view is not only helpful to see hidden joinery and hardware, but it also aids in the drawing of components when it is necessary to attach a primitive drawing element to an otherwise invisible point. SketchUp also has a companion sectioning tool that helps to make slices though any plane, for example a cross section down the length of the bed if desired.

Another feature of SketchUp is its ability to define views. A view can be from any angle, distance or several drawing representation (e.g. Isometric or Perspective). This helps when dimensioning a drawing or showing sub-assemblies such as the trundle above. At right is the bed minus the trundle sub-assembly. The number of views that one can create are virtually limitless, even in the free version of SketchUp. Recently I purchased the Professional version which includes SketchUp LayOut, at full featured presentation package. As this project proceeds I will use LayOut to create professional looking shop drawings and describe how this is done in this blog series. So stay tuned.

Willow has been after me to design and build a trundle bed for the Cape House guest bedroom for some time. I am finally ready and I thought it would be a great opportunity to write a series of blog posts chronicling the design and build of this bed. So this is Part 1 in the design phase series. The crafting phase will also bring a number of posts in a series.

I will start with the bed’s requirements. The guest bedroom is a rather small room with a window opposite the entry door. Because of the small room size the bed design is limited to a twin (or single size).

We get a lot of guests on the Cape, especially grand children, and we need all the bed capacity we can get. So this bed needs to be a trundle. Also the window it will go against is rather low so there cannot be a mattress/spring combination, but rather two platform bed mattresses.

Twin or single bed mattresses come in two sizes: twin size 39” wide x 75” long or X-Long 39” wide x 80” long (same as the length of a queen or king mattress). The size of the room again dictates the normal size of 39” x 75”.

While the length and width of a mattress is standardized, thicknesses are not. However, a twelve inch assumption is plenty of thickness to acquire a comfortable platform mattress. So now I know I need to accommodate two mattresses, each 39” wide by 75” long by 12” thick. These box dimensions representing the mattress size will drive many of the trundle bed’s design decisions.

With the design constraints in hand it is time to consider bed styles. If you are the really creative type you might do this by sitting in front of a blank sheet of paper with pencil in hand and begin sketching. I am not that creative; I need a starting point for my designs. So I run to my desktop and begin a search for “trundle or twin bed” pictures to look at. There are thousands, but the trick is to narrow interesting and general styles to a few.

There are four that interest me that are represented by pictures on this page. In the first picture left above is a double bed I crafted with a design adapted from an article in Workbench Magazine, Heirloom Bed, March/April 2001, page 52. I like this design and one benefit to sticking with it is that the bed shown is already in the Cape House. Another benefit is that drawing it would be a matter of simple modifications to my current drawings. On the other hand, I like to choose projects and designs that are different one from another. But there are pieces of this design that might get incorporated in the final design.

The second picture above right is another simple and elegant design. I like the simple single curve of the headboard top. The double drawers would serve as a nice faux front for the trundle. The footboard could remain the same or raised to the level of the mattress and allow for slats that match the headboard. Alternatively a matching curve could be incorporated into the footboard. There are a lot of possibilities with this design.

The third picture above left incorporates a grandfather-clock-like swan-neck “pediment” with one finial forming the top of the headboard. The swan-neck is rather tall and the curves are a little severe, but the narrowness of the bed may dictate that. I would attempt to alter it. The overall design, especially the footboard, could have simpler lines; I don’t like the footboard design shown at all. An American Colonial flavor might be just right for this style. There is also the possibility of adding a swan-neck to the footboard.

The last two pictures above right and left are variants of a sleigh bed. The last picture is more traditional in that both the head and footboard are sleigh bed shapes. The second to last picture uses a platform bed footboard. The last picture is actually a trundle bed design. There are lots of possibilities for modifying both designs into one. The footboard in the last picture exposes the “trundle” which I find distracting. Also the footboard height is well above the mattress, which is traditional for a sleigh bed, but not a feature that will be accepted by Willow. She believes one should be able to lie in bed and look at nature with nothing blocking one’s view.

The bottom line is that my opinion and taste means little. I am simply attempting to give the customer (Willow) some ideas. She will make the final decision of style selection and modifications. In the end it may be that she has a completely different idea. But this is the beginning of the design phase. Stay tuned for follow-on posts on this topic.

Note: All but the first picture was copied from a JCPenny.com website page and are used simply as an architectural example. Any design that I might extract in part from them will not be used for commercial purposes. If you like one of these beds and wish to purchase it I recommend visiting JCPenny.com.

I wrote about the combination of Cut List 4.0 and CutList Plus many months ago. I was reminded by Steve Racz, the author of Cut List 4.0, that Cut List 4.0 is now Cut List 4.0.7. He suggested that I update my blog to reflect the changes. Normally one wouldn’t expect a minor revision to change functionality but merely fix bugs. However Steve’s changes in 4.0.7 make the interface between Cut List 4.0.7 and CutList Plus nearly seamless. Of my favorite SketchUp Ruby scripts this one ranks among the top. So I have re-written my original post to reflect those changes and major simplifications. Here is the updated version.

My projects always start out the same – realizing my idea by sketching and designing it in 3D, then producing shop drawings complete with a cut list. Having done that I am ready to go into the shop and prepare my stock. My current tools of choice for this task are Google SketchUp for 3D drawing and CutList Plus for producing a cut list and parts list. These two tools do not naturally speak to one another; there is no export or import utility supported by either application that allows them to pass design information between them. However, SketchUp has a Ruby API and development console that allows third parties to produce scripts that can be used by SketchUp to extend its functionality. Most of these Ruby scripts are written by software developers, or wannabe software developers, and they are provided to you for free. To use a script you simply download a simple text file with an .rb extension. The file must then be placed in the appropriate SketchUp Plugins folder. Upon opening SketchUp, it loads all Ruby scripts located in that folder, and voilà! You have extended functionality.

I have a list of favorite Ruby scripts that I have added to my SketchUp Plugins folder which I will share with you toward the end of this article. But one in particular bridges SketchUp and CutList Plus; Cut List 4.0.7 is the focus of this post. If you use SketchUp and CutList Plus this post is for you. If you don’t use one or both applications you should look into them. SketchUp 7 is a free 3D drawing application from Google. That’s right, free! You can download it by going to http://sketchup.google.com/. CutList Plus must be purchased, but it is not expensive, and it is well worth the price. There are several editions (Silver, Gold & Platinum) that range from $89.00 to $499.00, and serve the casual user to the professional. The Silver version is limited to 50 parts, but that is enough to handle most furniture pieces. My Six Pane Oak Hutch has 35 pieces. If you need more parts you can break a design down into sub-assemblies. Go to http://cutlistplus.com/ to read about the differences between these editions.

The Ruby script Cut List 4.0.7 is free and can be downloaded by going to http://steveracz.com/joomla/content/view/45/1/. This is a zip file and must be extracted to the appropriate SketchUp Plugins folder. In the case of Windows XP that folder is C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 7\Plugins. For 64-bit versions of Windows it may be something like C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 7\Plugins. You may have an older version and it could be slightly different, so examine the Program Files (or Program Files (x86)) folder to determine the exact address. For MAC or other operating systems check your SketchUp documentation.

If you do not wish to purchase CutList Plus, Cut List 4.0.7 will connect SketchUp with Microsoft Excel to produce a cut list using a comma separated value file (.csv). But CutList Plus has many more features that are useful to the woodworker besides a cut list, for example, a layout showing you how to cut sheet material to get the most efficient and least expensive solution.

Once the zip file has been extracted to the Plugins folder you can open SketchUp and you will notice a new Menu item called Plugins. Under Plugins you will see a submenu called Cut List. This is what you would click to produce a cut list file. However, I am going to throw you a curve ball. Then I am going to explain how you can work around it or use it.

Each time you install a Ruby script in SketchUp a menu item(s) is added. It is generally added to a menu called Plugins. If Plugins doesn’t yet exist, the first Ruby script you add will create it and all future Ruby scripts will use it. The idea here is that Ruby scripts are added features that are not part of the SketchUp application and therefore one shouldn’t mix their Ruby menu items with native SketchUp menu items. I don’t like this strategy because after you have added a number of scripts and used SketchUp for a while you forget which commands (or submenu items) are native, and therefore should look in the related menu, and which are extended functionality and therefore are found under Plugins. So, for every script I add I modify the source file slightly to put the command (submenu item) under the appropriate menu. In the case of Cut List 4.0.7 I chose to put the submenu item under the File menu instead of the Plugins menu. My rationale is that producing a cut list file is a File operation, not and Edit or View or Tools operation. This helps me to remember where to find the command to produce a cut list file. Further, I changed the command name from Cut List to Generate Cut List. This is slightly more descriptive and it also makes the command stand out a little more so it is easier to locate.

I will now tell you how to make this modification if you choose to do so. It does not require programming knowledge, however, if you look closely at the changes you will likely figure out what you would need to do to modify other scripts to change menu location.

If you choose not to make this edit then simply remember when I say go to File/Generate Cut List (or something similar) you should read it as go to Plugins/Cut List.

To make the modification locate a file called CutListAndMaterials.rb in your Plugins folder (C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 7\Plugins for Windows XP). Open this file using Notepad. WordPad may be used if you are careful to save the file without adding formatting symbols. Do not use Word. Word adds formatting symbols. Also be sure to save the file after modification with the .rb extension, not a .txt or other extension. While the file is open scroll to the bottom and locate the following text.

# Add things to the Plugins menu
# Add CutList main entry
# "Cut List" offers an html gui to select options and produce html and/or file output
if( not file_loaded?("CutListAndMaterials.rb") )
     add_separator_to_menu("Plugins")
    
     #plugins_menu = UI.menu("Plugins").add_submenu("Cut List")
     plugins_menu = UI.menu("Plugins")

     plugins_menu.add_item("Cut List") { interactive_generator }
     # no longer supported
     #plugins_menu.add_item("SU5") { fixed_configuration_generator }
end

file_loaded("CutListAndMaterials.rb")

Replace this block of text with the following text:

# Add command to the File menu
# Add CutList main entry
# "Cut List" offers an html gui to select options and produce html and/or file output
if( not file_loaded?("CutListAndMaterials.rb") )
     UI.menu("File").add_item("Generate Cut List") { interactive_generator }
end

file_loaded("CutListAndMaterials.rb")

Save the file and open SketchUp. Under the File menu you will see Generate Cut List. That’s it, simple as that.

Now for an example of how Cut List 4.0 bridges SketchUp and CutList Plus. We will use a Wall Hanging Hand Tool Cabinet design as an example. If you wish to follow along click on the link in the previous sentence to download the SketchUp model. My SketchUp drawing, or model, is complete including all dimensions. It is not necessary to have all parts dimensioned, but it is necessary that all parts be fully defined components or component instances (instances are components used more than once, for example multiple drawer fronts). I will not describe how to create SketchUp drawings and models in this post; I have a separate multipart tutorial on my blog site for just that purpose. To create a cut list bring up a complete model without dimensions and select the entire model. Be careful not to select multiple instances of a model using “Select All” or you will get a cut list with inflated parts requirements. See the picture at left above showing how I did this for my tool cabinet.

Note: Very important, before proceeding to the next step open the Window/Model Info box. Select Units in the left column and Decimal from the Format drop down box. If you use Fractions CutList Plus will not interpret them correctly; you may end up with dimensions that appear as calendar dates in Excel or dropped parts in CutList Plus. You can switch back to Fractions after the Cut List 4.0.7 output file is generated.

I select the File/Generate Cut List command (or Plugins/Cut List for you wimps), and left click. A menu selection page appears. With the CutList tab selected make the selections shown in the picture at right. My tool cabinet is made of all rough cut hardwood so I have not selected Layout. If some of my parts were sheet material such as plywood I could select Layout and get a visual cut list layout. However, even if I did have sheet goods I would ignore the Layout option because CutList Plus has more powerful features to deal with sheet goods.

Notice in the picture at right above the keywords part, hardware, sheet, veneer, plywood, hardboard and mdf. These are keywords that indicate a component is either a sheet material or a part and not a component (you  can use your own keywords). Do not use any of these keywords, or words containing them, when naming your components. If you do, those components will not be included in the Component cut list. I called one component a Drawer Partition and it was eliminated by Cut List 4.0.7 because “part” is contained in the word “partition”. I had to rename it divider.

I simply check Web Page, CutList Plus and Components in the menu selection page. You may wish to left click the Save Settings button to save these selections as I did. Clicking Run produced the message shown at left. This message lets me know where Cut List 4.0.7 saved my .csv file containing the data CutList Plus will need to generate the cut list (write this location down). I click OK and I can now see the Web Page view of a cut list. I just use this view as a check to be sure all components were picked up correctly. Though I don’t examine it in detail I look for any glaring or outstanding problems. The detail checks I leave until I have a CutList Plus cut list.

Remembering where the .csv file was stored (hint: it is likely in the same folder as the SketchUp model that produced it) I open it with Excel or import it into CutList Plus.

Importing to CutList Plus is done by either right clicking on the file name and choosing Open With/CutList Plus 2009, or opening CutList Plus and choosing File/Import and selecting the saved .csv file. A menu page will appear as shown at right. I select Comma as the Delimiter and check “First row has headers”. Next, in the import column in each row I use the drop down box to match up the columns. Note for Sub-Assembly, Material Type, Material Name, Can Rotate, Banding, <Info> and Notes I choose <Skip this item>. All I want is the Part#, part Description, number of Copies, and the three dimensions. The rest of the information I can deal with more easily in CutList Plus. Since most of my cut lists will be similar I left click “Save Filter Changes” to save these selections. Then I click Finish.

An Import Results message pops up indicating that 21 components were imported. The 21 components agree with the number of components in my In Model components library of my SketchUp model. This is not the number of total parts, since a number of components are used numerous times. The total number of parts is the some of the numbers in the “Copies” column below right.

I click OK and my raw CutList Plus cut list appears as shown at right. At this point I have an untitled file; there is no information on Sub-Assembly, Sheet Goods, Material Type and Not Specified for the Material Name. These are easily edited and corrected in CutList Plus. In fact I can edit the Material Name and Material Type as one group and I can save the file with whatever name I please – though I always give it the same name as the SketchUp model itself. If I like letters for parts lists I can easily do that in CutList Plus too. The final cut list is shown at left. I am not going to discuss how to use CutList Plus in this post. I will reserve that for the future since it deserves its own post. Suffice it to say that CutList Plus is rich and powerful. In addition to a cut list it can produce a Bill of Materials, Project Proposals, Cost Sheets including labor and other parts such as drawer pulls, sheet cutting Layouts, manage inventory and much, much more. You can download a 30 day trial version and give it a whirl. The learning curve is short, so have fun.

I promised a list of my favorite SketchUp Ruby scripts. That list can be found at http://www.srww.com/google-sketchup.htm along with a description of Google SketchUp.

When I looked at my website and blog this morning I discovered that there were political ads for the Massachusetts Senate race showing in the Google Ad boxes. I apologize if they offended anyone. Google selects the adds to be shown based, I thought, on the contents of my site. Google provides a filtering selection to avoid classes of unwanted ads. Apparently I neglected to filter political ads. Well now I have, and hopefully they will never appear again. While I have my own political views, my website and blog are no place for those views, nor do I wish to subject my readers to them. I am surprised and disappointed that Google chose to do that for me. I guess business is business, ethics aside.

Well Santa and Mrs. Claus have finished their list and have checked it twice. And now the nice little boys and girls in their family will each receive one of these reproduction mirrors for Christmas. I described the origin of the original, from which these are reproduction copies, in “An American Chippendale Mirror Makes A Great Gift”.

Willow and I made six mirrors in all. Five are tiger maple and one is a combination tiger maple and cherry (I have a fetish for mixing woods). Four of the tiger maple mirrors were stained with Moser’s 1490 Golden Amber water-based aniline dye followed by 4 coats of hand rubbed Minwax Wipe-On Satin Polyurethane. This was followed by one coat of hand rubbed J. E. Moser’s Premium Quality Paste Wax.

The remaining two mirrors have a clear finish; 4 coats of hand rubbed Minwax Wipe-On Satin Polyurethane followed by one coat of hand rubbed J. E. Moser’s Premium Quality Paste Wax. The cherry frame, below left, will darken substantially over time as it is exposed to light. This will provide a nice contrast to the blonde finish of the tiger maple.

The tiger stripes are striking in all three mirrors. I am partial to natural (clear) finishes. However, the Golden Amber stain is a more traditional finish for tiger maple pieces. It’s simply a matter of taste and that is a very individual thing. Fortunately, the recipients chose their desired finish. Yes, Santa let them peak using the “anyone over 26 years of age can peak rule”. I think they will enjoy them for years to come and hopefully they will be passed down for many generations in our family.

I must admit, when Willow told me we were going to make these for the kids as Christmas gifts, I was feeling a lot of “Oh Humbug” – read “Pressure”. But now I am Ho, Ho, Ho Jolly. Merry Christmas to all and to all a Happy New Year from Chiefwoodworker.

This story begins on a sad note, but it ends with all the joy that is the hallmark of a Christmas season. My brother-in-law, Hunter, passed away on December 13th after a five year battle with Pick’s Disease, a type of dementia. He knew from the day he was diagnosed what his end would be like. But true to his nature he was happy, jovial and laughing throughout. I was with him on his last waking day when he laughed, joked and performed the funniest acts I have ever seen.

Hunter was a large man, a physical sign of his larger than life presence and personality. He had an infectious laugh that was somewhere between a jolly belly laugh and a roar. His life was full of adventure and mischievous play. He loved fast motorcycles, weapons of all kinds and dressing up in Viking costumes. If you didn’t know him and saw him approaching in his costume, he would scare the life out of you where you stood. But he was a gentle and loving guy, a supportive and caring father to his daughters, a best friend to his wife and a loving sibling to his brother and two sisters. There can be no doubt he will be missed by all who knew him.

But the point of this story is not the sadness of Hunter’s passing, but the joy he brought all who knew him – especially the joy he left me with this Christmas season. You see, Hunter had a very special friend called Max. A 20 pound, 10 inch tall, three year old Jack Russell Terrier. Max is now my charge. He is the cutest, most lovable and most loyal friend a man could have (save for my wife of course).

Jack Russell Terriers are working dogs. They need to have a job. So Max is going to apprentice with me in my workshop. As a beginning apprentice he will perform menial labor tasks such as fetching my lumber from the second floor of my shop where it is stored for drying. Max has already complained about lengths over 6 feet long, so I may have to shorten the longer stock. But hey, that is still easier than fetching the stock myself. Max can already identify cherry and maple but struggles with walnut, butternut and various figured woods. However, Jack Russell’s are an intelligent breed and in time he will learn.

Apprenticeship European style, culminating in the title of Master Craftsman, is a long and arduous process. It will be some time before Max is trusted to use my Lie-Nielson planes and chisels. Like any apprentice he will have to work his way up the ladder, and that means mastering the preparation of rough stock on the power jointer and table saw first. Like all experienced woodworkers he will likely give up a few toes to the jointer and a piece of his nose to the table saw before he graduates. He will wear those scars with pride throughout his adult life. But in the end he will be ready to fill the shoes of Chiefwoodworker when I retire.

Please welcome Max to Chiefwoodworker’s Blog and Swamp Road Wood Works. You will be hearing more of his adventures in the future.

The title of this blog should be “Progress In Crafting American Chippendale Mirrors”, or some such thing. But as often happens to me while working on a project, a thought catches my attention and I can’t get rid of it. Over the last few days, while working on this project, it happened that I had to use a commercial fixture and build another fixture; or was it a jig? Woodworkers often confuse the two and use these terms incorrectly, as I have done here – and many times in the past. So I was compelled to do a little research.

It turns out there are many mechanical engineering and fabrication books written that give the definition of, and explains the use of, fixtures and jigs. They are perhaps the most useful source in answering this question. I have a number of woodworking books in my library that also give us some guidance. There is also the dictionary. After reading a number of these sources the difference is still not clear.

However, taking the common elements you can boil the definitions down to the following:

1. A jig holds and guides the work piece
2. The fixture holds the piece while it is worked on

OK, so what is a tenoning jig? Does it hold the piece while it is worked on? Or does it hold and guide the piece. It is universally called a jig, but it does no more guiding a tenon than it guides a piece I cross cut without its use. I am doing the guiding, or perhaps you can argue it is the table top miter slot that is doing the guiding. But the tenoning jig certainly isn’t. So perhaps the definition should be:

1. A jig holds a piece and is movable while working the piece
2. A fixture holds a piece and is fixed in place while working the piece

With this definition I can actually determine what I am working with. Now I can clearly say a tenoning jig is indeed a jig, and the Supreme Drill Press Table I wrote about a few weeks back is clearly a fixture. More importantly, I can say the two helpful tools I use in this blog are clearly jigs.

OK, having wasted a lot of time, energy and blog space on that overdone thought I can write about “Progress In Crafting American Chippendale Mirrors”. The picture frames thus far are joined with end grain to end grain joinery; a joint which is notoriously weak and needs reinforcement. There are traditional ways of doing this, one of which is to cut corner slots and use splines. For reasons to be explained later I used a modified version of this joint. To assist me I turned to one of my favorite and most used jigs, the Dubby from In-Line Industries. In the first picture above you can see Left and Right Dubbys set to 45 degrees. I am using them to cut horizontal slices in the corners of the frame. Two opposite slices are cut with each of the two Dubbys producing the slices you see in the picture ant right above. These are the first of two cuts needed to remove triangular shaped pieces.

To make the second cut I needed to build a simple jig. Shown in the picture above left is a vertical board with support stock glued 45 degrees to an edge. The picture frame sits in these supports allowing a properly set fence and blade to cut the corner pieces out. These corner pieces will be replaced with similar roughed out corner pieces  with the grain arranged such that there is long grain to long grain joinery. I trace multiples of these corner pieces on a rectangular piece and rough them out using the band saw, leaving just enough along the edges to assure complete coverage. After they are glued in place I use a patterning bit in the table router to trim the edges flat.

In the picture at left you can see the results. From this picture it should obvious the improvement in joinery strength. Imagine picking up the end grain to end grain piece and snapping it with your fingers. No problemo! Now imagine picking up the replacement piece and trying to snap it. Good luck!

Another thing to remember is that a properly glued long grain to long grain joint is stronger than the wood itself. This has been demonstrated in numerous studies and wood working articles. You can demonstrate this in your own shop easily. Glue two pieces edge to edge (1/4” to 3/4” thick). Let the joint cure for 24 hours. Place it in a vice with the joint near the jaws of the vice and hit the protruding piece with a hammer or mallet. You will notice (provided the joint was glued correctly) that the board will split in the grain of the wood, not at the glue line.

So why did I use this modified spline instead of the traditional joint? Because I need to cut 1/4” by 1/4” groves along the top, bottom and sides to accept the scroll work. Doing so would remove a substantial amount of the spline. Further, the resulting joinery when the scroll work is glued in place would be long grain to end grain. Stronger than end grain to end grain but not as strong as long grain to long grain. Does this make a difference? Yes a little, especially if you are expecting your work to last for hundreds of years it does. That said, it’s six of one, half dozen of the other.

In the picture at right is the finished glued up mirrors ready for stain and finish. The strange uneven coloring is a result of using mineral spirits to search for unwanted glue spots before completing the sanding. It will disappear after drying. The mineral spirits also give you a good preview of what the tiger maple will look like when finished. You can see it is quite spectacular. The frame at right in the picture has a cherry picture frame and tiger maple scroll work. The one at left  is entirely tiger maple. I love mixing wood types. The cherry will darken over time and the tiger maple will lighten slightly making the contrast even more noticeable.

My wife and I are excited about finishing these mirrors and giving them to our kids for Christmas. A few hundred years from now I hope a descendant will write a blog like An American Chippendale Mirror Makes A Great Gift explaining their origin.

In An American Chippendale Mirror Makes A Great Gift I wrote about my wife’s (Willow’s) mission to craft mirrors for Christmas gifting. I call this a mission because once Willow decided this is what she wanted to give our family for Christmas there was no stopping her. I got my instructions – create the plans, mill the material, set up the machines and then get out of the way. I turned my shop over to a tornado. She blew through my bandsaw, Delta BOSS, sanding station, drill press, work bench, rasps and files leaving chips and dust in her wake. She left no doubt this was the first project to pass through Swamp Road Wood Works that would be completed on time. The results were every bit as stunning as the pace was fast.

The first stop was the bandsaw. Not having a scroll saw I mounted a 1/8” blade. The design called for 1/4” tiger maple, so a 3 HP 18” bandsaw was a little overkill, but none the less made for quick and easy cutting. I printed 1:1 drawings on card stock to produce templates. Willow traced the templates onto the material and cut out the scroll work pieces, leaving the pencil marks. The edge finish was rougher than a scroll saw would produce. It was obvious there was a lot of sanding in Willow’s future. You can see from the picture below that she took to the task with a smile.

Many of the scroll work curves had radii smaller than the Delta BOSS or drill press would accommodate, so Willow used a combination of rasps and files followed by hand sanding. In the picture at left you can see an assortment of rasps and files behind her. All told the bandsaw work and edge cleaning took two and a half days. Fortunately the shop is cozy, brightly lit. With the radio alternately tuned to NPR and sports talk for listening pleasure what more can you ask for?

After all pieces were sanded and the picture frame molding milled, sets were chosen by matching wood grain and color. You can see one set in the picture at right. The scroll work will be inserted and glued into a 1/4” deep x 1/4” wide slot in the sides, top and bottom. The recipients will choose the finish. One very popular finish is Moser’s 1490 Golden Amber water-based aniline dye stain followed by Waterlox Original Tung Oil. This enhances the tiger stripes, making them jump out. Another finish I like is simply MinWax Wipe-On Polyurethane. I have made tiger maple tables using both finishes, a Shaker Drop Leaf Table with the Moser dye and an Office Table with the Wipe-On Poly. Both are shown on my Gallery page and both produce excellent results.

I have to agree with Willow. These will make excellent holiday gifts and will be passed down in our family for many hundreds of years, much like the mirror that inspired these reproductions. Now that’s a gift that keeps giving!

On my most recent project, the American Chippendale Mirrors discussed in my last post, I was forced to choose between using a table mounted router or a shaper. Specifically, was how to shape the picture frame molding which was complicated by the use of tiger maple hardwood.

Tiger maple is notorious for tear out whether hand planing, jointing. thickness planing or shaping. I have described in this blog numerous times how I thickness plane the final 1/8” to 1/16” of tiger maple using my Performax Pro 22-44 for just this reason.

The bit used to shape the molding in this project was a CMT 855.902.11 Traditional 1/2” shank bit. Its overall cutting length is 1 5/8” and its overall diameter is 1 1/16”, rather small for even considering a shaper.

The primary decision making criteria between using a router and shaper is the bit diameter. Bit RPM being equal, large diameter bits have a higher tangential velocity compared to small diameter bits. Large diameter bits remove more material requiring more horse power. This is where routers and shapers differentiate themselves (portability is another but not applicable when comparing table mounted routers to shapers).

Routers generally spin at higher RPM, typically 10,000 to 21,000 RPM and range from fractional horsepower to 3 1/2 horsepower. Hence they are useful mostly for small diameter bits. Shapers generally have two or three speeds to select from, usually 8,000 and 10,000 RPM and start at 2 horsepower and range to in excess of 5 horsepower. Hence applicable to large diameter bits.

RPM are directly comparable, but not all horses are equal; a 3 1/4 HP router is not equal to a 3 HP shaper, the latter being much more powerful. I should also mention that shapers tend to be much more hazardous than routers, so special attention to safety is required.

This all being true one would normally mount this bit in a table mounted router and shape away. I started that way and quickly realized I needed to consider the shaper. Even though I was using a 3 1/4 HP variable speed router with speeds selectable from 10,000 to 21,000 RPM I couldn’t achieve a tear out free finish, no matter how many light passes I made. I put the same bit in my shaper and selected 10,000 RPM and discovered I could make tear out free finishes if I cut the molding in five light passes and proceeded slowly and smoothly on each pass. I can’t explain this rationally but I can demonstrate it quite clearly. If someone has a technical explanation I would certainly like to hear it.

This is not the first time I discovered this about tiger maple. In fact, on almost every project requiring tiger maple molding I end up on the shaper. I always try to avoid the shaper because of the long setup time required, but in the end I succumb. So this time I committed to design a fence for my shaper that will allow fast setups, flexibility, and safety. Designing such a fence may take a while but will pay large dividends in the end.