Mother's Day Jewellery Box - Cutting the joinery

I wasn't able to make the Mother's Day deadline nonetheless the project remains a go. Paul Sellers, my go to woodworking brother, repeatedly has stressed the importance to prepare, i.e. joint, dimension and cut, all your wood prior to starting a project. Yet I somehow neglected to properly check the dimensions of the boards which I had chosen for my top and bottom panels. It turns out these were a little short on width. After much thought i.e. sulking, I decided to laminate the top and bottom panels from the same boards which I used to construct the panels for the two sides, front and back. That would probably make it into another post, insyallah.

Before I proceed I would like to mention that I am attending the on-line Masterclass conducted by the terrific Mr. Sellers. Its really worth the money if you have it otherwise his blog and free videos are excellent tutorial for any beginner-level woodworker using the hand-tools approach.

In this post, I'll document the joinery aspect of this project. The joinery used for this project was the box-joint ( a.k.a. finger joint ). So the sides, front and back panels were joined together by a row of alternately cut square pegs and notches, glued to form a joint which is of comparable strength to the dovetail joint. For greater visual appeal, I decided to cut the pegs and notches half inch wide. Also, I intended to construct all the panels into a box before cutting the lid out. Therefore, I made one notch and the mating peg a sixteenth of an inch wider to accommodate for the saw kerf width. After laying out the joinery with pencil on one of the panels, I then proceeded to cutting with a gent's saw.

Cuts on the panel edge made with the gent's saw.

Close-up of the cuts on the edge of the panel.

With the sides of the pegs cut, I used a chisel to remove the waste material in-between. These formed the notches. The setup for the process is shown below.

Work-space and tools involved in marking and cutting the joinery.

After cutting the joinery on both edges of the panel, I discovered that the layout lines were skewed as one edge was out of square. This was remedied by deepening the notches which in turn meant the box would be shorter in length. Consequently, the remaining panels were checked and squared  before laying out the joinery.

After cutting a few notches, I found out that the chisels would get blunt. Hence I started to strop the chisel after every alternate notch was cut using a homemade leather strop with blue rouge compound sold under the brand name Dialux. This compound was bought locally at Touch DIY.

The complete joinery cut on an edge of a panel.

On subsequent panels, after realizing the repetitive nature of the joinery, the pegs were laid-out using a cardboard template. This proved to be more convenient and less error-prone. However, as I tried to make the template reusable, I decided against including the sixteenth of an inch for the peg where the lid would be cut through. As a result, the joinery cut on one of the panels was off by a sixteenth of an inch. I also started using a coping saw to remove the bulk of the waste before paring down to the line with the chisel.

Dry-fit assembly of the box panels.

Once all the joinery on the panels were cut and test-fitted, the box was assembled to check for overall fitting and squareness. The dry-fit assembled box was found to be surprisingly sturdy but slightly out of square. In the picture above, note the proud pegs which were a result of the skewed layout. Now, it was time to glue-up the assembly.

Mock glue-up of the assembly.

A rehearsal of the glue-up was carried out. I decided to use the straps which were bought locally at IKEA, sold as luggage straps, in conjunction with the quick-adjust clamps. These straps were rated at 1000 kg each. Masking tape was applied to reduce glue drips and marks left-over from clamping. Using a 3-inch accurate engineer's square, I squared all panels to the smallest error possible. After I was pleased with the mock-up, the actual glue-up took place.

It is most interesting to note that just the addition of glue drastically changes the systematic rehearsal to a gooey dripping mess in the actual assembly. I mistakenly glued two panels in the wrong order and the hesitance from the joinery coming together should have alerted me but I pounded it in with my mallet anyway only to realize it after. But by God's grace, no serious damage was done and I was able to rectify the situation in time.

Actual glue-up of the box assembly.

After the glue had dried up, while removing the straps I noticed that deep dents on the edges where these were applied. Also, I realized that I could have just used the straps with cauls and/or wedges to secure the entire assembly without using the speed clamps at all. With the glue-up complete, I trimmed the pegs flush to the box surface using a combination of a flush trim saw and a sharp chisel without removing the masking tape. This was then followed by a session of fill-in the gaps using Minwax's wood filler in a tube. I found that it was much easier to apply the filler with my fingers rather than a putty knife and that's what I did for all other noticeable gaps.

Gaps in joinery filled with wood filler.

Below is picture of the final glued assembly of the front, back and side panels. The wood grain and colour of the Nyatoh wood looks really good I would say. An oil finish of either boiled linseed or tung or teak oil would help highlight the grain pattern and enhance the natural colour of the wood even more.

Finished box assembly of the side, front and back panels.

However, for now, this project has been put on hold in order to make way for my bench build. Woodworking has become quite a challenge lately as I am unable to clamp down my workpieces properly. Also, I need a flat surface for constructing panels and also to put my stuff on for longer periods. The dining table is just not good enough. Lesson learned - A bench is an indispensable tool for a woodworker and the very first jig/tool that one should build. I know that I have but reiterated exactly that which has been stated by numerous others before me. With that mentioned, it is now time to build a workbench.

I will be posting on the woodworking workbench project soon.