Similar to routing the trim piece earlier, now Bethany  routes the maple cornerpost section. She routes the length of the piece and then will cut down to narrow strips.

    The Grip-Tite is set as a stop block again. And once again she is cutting 1/2" pieces.

   Note, that Bethany moves each cut piece away from the blade before making the next cut. Do NOT let the pieces accumulate near the blade.

   It's glue time again. This time the parts just cut are glued to the two pieces that were NOT rabbeted. She uses polyurethane glue again and moistens the mating part with water.

  And she places the moistened corner piece on the boards. These will setup for an hour before she can continue. When dry, she sands the surfaces flat again.

   For the next step, Bethany places the Incra stop on the outfeed side of the fence with the stop as close as possible to the blade of the router bit and locks it in position.

   She can now make her stopped pin cuts. As when making half-blind dovetails, she made a test cut on one end and then tested the fit. It was perfect so she made the rest of the cuts.

   Now Bethany dry fits the box. It is tight. It will take some gluing, sanding and finishing before the corners will really stand out as the works of arts that they are.

   Now we turn our sights to making the bottom for this chest. The project book calls for using a 1/4" straight bit to route a dado in the sides. Using the fence makes it very easy to  set it to exactly 3/16" in from the fence.

   The two pieces with the rabbet get a groove the entire length.

   The other pieces get a stopped dado. I have set up two Incra stops 3/16" from each end to give me an accurate dado. The Project Book illustration shows exactly how this should be setup if you are not familiar with making stopped dados.

   It is all glued and clamped. Be sure that you make a thorough dry fitting before you start to apply the glue. This final assembly is critical and the polyurethane glue sets up rather fast. I will let it thoroughly set before moving to the next step.

coming soon

     After the glue has set, I scrape off the glue squeeze out and then turn to sanding the finished box. This is when the corners really start to look great.

   While we were very happy with the box, we did see that the width of the trim line varied...as the inset shows.
   On reviewing the step, the task of trimming the corner and leaving exactly 3/16" is where this inaccuracy lies. We will have to work on improving that step.

   The project book also covers the making of the  top, the handle, wood hinges and inside trays. We will cover that next week.
   But to give this section a wrap-up, Bethany and I did a total of three boxes. The first one was a waste in that I just plain made a mistake in centering the jig to start....a reminder that you have to follow each instruction exactly. The 2nd box is the one that is shown here, and the third one is at the final gluing process.
   Like with every thing we do, we learn as we go. And we get better with practice. Clearly, this very complex jewelry chest would not be possible without such detailed and clear instructions—and the precision of the Incra Jig Ultra.

Main Menu

Previous Page

Next  Page

Go to Mfr.'s Site