Sunday Dec 21 (solstice!)

Today the carcass is finished. Well nto really there is still sanding and oiling to do, but it now has all of its spines and the miters have all been clamped. i am not sure I will try and fill some of the larger cracks with a wood glue sawdust paste but we will see.

Today we:

1 clamped and glued a loose miter together

2 filled a large miter crack at one foot with a splinter

3 installed a missing spline (the old one fell out a few days ago). the spine replacement was hand wittled down with an x-acto for tickness and then cut with an exacto to rough size. Carefull attention was made to make sure the grain ened up perpendicular to the joint. I hope to be crfull when doing the final sizing after the glue dries to prevent break-out like we had on the last one.

Up next some of the wood is going on a trip to be sized!

Later tonight I hope to have time to oil the lid a third and final coat and to oil drawer #3 a second coat.

Friday Dec 19 - More Oiling

Its been over a week and I am back to work for one short night. In the almost two weeks betweeen I have oiled and sanded with steel wool the drawer # 2 and the lid but overall these are not major accomplishments. No I need clamps to execute one of the major outstanding items - finihsing the carcass. Hopefully sunday I will get these from starage and then have a chance to do soem work sunday night. I realize now with 2 day left in the city I am not about to finish this before Christmas. I have coem to accept this. But by the end of January I am keeping my fingers crossed. I am also looking forard to takign a few pieces of wood home to work on in RI maybe I will have a chance to send a few of the carvign tools back to SF via mail.

So today we oiled the lid #3 and the third drawer #1. We hope to build a jig for planning tonight but my energies are fainting..... here are a before and after picture of drawer #3 (from my iPhone - I need to get my Digital Camera out of storage....

Enjoy - next update to hopefull come on sunday.

Saturday Dec 6th

After a holiday for thanksgiving we are taklign some of the outstandng large issues. There is a large crack near the top at the back - hopefully we can fix that on tuesday. Today i :

1 Gave the third and final steel wool and oil coat to Drawer #2
2 Removed the lid of the box
3 glued in the guide rails for Drawer #3
4 Sanded the box lid from 250 to 400. I decided to leave some of the imperfaections in the lid and not take it to perfection. I think it still looks really good though oiled, but especially on the inside there are some wired marks of planing tear out or careless early sanding.
5 Oiled the Box lid - Coat # 1
6 Buit a mock-up of the dividers for the top compartment.
7 collected sanings to make a wood colored filler for the corners.

I would estimate that there is about 9 more days left of work on the box. With the move and a possible intensity increase at work this might not be possible before christmas.
9 days:
Day 1 fill all craks on the corners
Day 2 dimension wood dividers for top
day 3 sand the carcass to 400 grit sand. Oil carcas #1 Oil drawer # 3 Oil#1
Day 4 Oil carcas # 2, oil drawer #2. Install blue velvet in drawers 1 and 2
day 5 oil carcas #3, Oil Drawer3 #3.
day 6 install blue velvet at drawer 3 and top
3 days of slop since everyting takes longer then I think.

Left out of this schedule - make sure drawer 3 closes nicely. Oil 2 and 3 for lid. design and carve, install pull levers.

Today is the 6 - 9 continuous days would take us to the 15th. 9 every other days woudl take us to the 24th. We will see...

Tuesday Nov 25 - Am

Today we tackled the large craks at the base. Shaving splinters of wood to fill the cracks. I am interested to come home tonight and see how they sand down. There are some other lesser cracks that I am not sure how I am goign to handle. i read lot about making a wood filler with sawdust and wood glue. Maybe today I will read up on that.

the other task at hand this morning was to trim the ends down on the third drawer. the rear dovtails had never been cut down . (see image of them extending). With an x-acto knife they were trimmed down and then sanded with 220, 400 and 600 grit. I am still torn about the sanding verses planing thing. I understand planing can give much better results but there is always the worry of ter out with me. I think for this project I am going to settle for sanding.

Monday nov 24 - The carcass

Ughh Cracks at lots of the mitered seems - and a spline is missing. Todays task: Make a new spine from sap wood. Fit it and glue it up. Problem is something is not lettign me clamp the box completely together at the corner and I don;t want to force it - this fae has allready broken once so i guess i will justhave to fill in the craks afterwards. Excitign news for the day - I found the otehr lower drawer rail!

Other activities today included a final Oil of drawr # 1, and a steel wool rub and oling #2 for drawer #2.

tomorrow i see if i can't install the rails for drawer #3. looming large over all of this is what to to with the top area. How many dividers and how to make them. That remains a big logostics and design challenge. we will see. Maybe tomorrow I will post some overall pictures of the box.

Sunday Nov 23 We begin again

Today I started working on the box again. It has been over a year now since I last left it. I found it both in better shape and worse shape then I expected. apparently in transport I lost on of the rails for the lowest drawer - this will take soem redoing asa I do not have very many precision tools to work with. Box it is always nice to see that one of the drawers fits fien and is all oiled up - and one of the felt pieces fits better then i thought. Today I will take on a small project and try to finish it - the other drawer.

the other drawer gets wider at the back then at the front, and the middle divider makes the middle of the drawer wider then the opening. I have decided that the slight tightness to the back of the drawer is a good thing - it will prevent the drawer from beign accidentally pulled out. I reduced the length of the middle piece by about 1/16 to 3/32 both the tennons and the overall length. now the drawer fits perfectly with the slight tighness at the back whcih means that I can oil it! time for coat # 1 for the second drawer.