Popular Woodworking 2008-04 № 168, страница 68

it is win-win - all the way to a good fit.

If you do small Krenov-style work, band sawing is almost the only way to do the female half of the signature bridle joints. These are so useful at the corners of delicate frames, for paneled backs and small doors.

Similarly, the face cheek of a tenon can be cut in exactly the right place after a few test cuts are made. Tenons are usually cut in multiples, and each and every cut will be in exactly the same place. As the work gets bigger, I tend to cut the opposite cheek a little thick and adjust it with a low-angle rabbeting block plane or router table. In small work, one can probably cut both cheeks straight from the saw.

Component Preparation

There can be a considerable advantage in leaving a project's components slightly wide for as long as possible. We can then complete all the machine and handplaning on two faces and one edge. If you need to shoot or handplane the end grain, this extra width allows room to first create a small bevel to protect against spelch (the splitting out of the far corner).

Once your final width has been gauged on your work, a band saw with a correctly set fence, or even a point fence, is capable of cutting to within .004" to .008" of this line. Very few handplane shavings are then needed to arrive at your finished width, and little thought will be needed as the resulting cut surface is extremely accurate and parallel to the face edge. I simply set the band saw's fence (or a point fence) with the aid of a steel engineer's rule, measuring to the tip of an inward set tooth. See the photos below.

This is always much safer than using the table saw as there is no possibility of kickback on a band saw.

Veneer Cutting

The ability to cut solid veneers, say Vl6", ³/32" or ¹/8", from the same stock you are using in the rest of your project allows for continuity of color and figure. For more on this topic see James Krenov's first two books, "The Fine Art of Cabinetmaking" and "A Cabinetmaker's Notebook."

Old air-dried stock works best. Veneers from kiln-dried stock tend to curl worse due to the internal stresses caused by kiln drying. If the finished veneer thickness is gauged on the edges before cutting, it is easy to plane them to uniform thickness and remove the sawn finish after cutting. A simple way to hold the veneers is to mount them on a thick piece of MDF. I like to use a few spots of Super Glue Gel at the starting end, as shown in the drawing below. The veneer will be in tension when it is planed, and the majority of the veneer can be lifted to check its thickness with calipers if you have difficulty seeing the gauge lines.

Band-sawn veneer is much more robust than knife-cut veneer and can be used to create

panels, box tops or shelves that have virtually no seasonal movement. Alternatively, a nicely figured board can be sliced up and used on the show face of a whole chest of drawers. Please do not forget to apply some plainer stuff to the back of your drawer fronts etc., to keep them flat and in balance. Water-based glues will always curl a panel if veneer is applied to one side only.

Resawing

The ability to resaw thick timber has many applications. I now follow a tip from Robert Ingham to create thin quartersawn stock that's useful for drawer and box making. I start with the widest available 3"-thick planks of timbers, such as black cherry or maple. These are invariably plain-sawn, so if resawn into strips, the resulting material is almost perfectly quartersawn, as shown in the drawing at right. Once a face side and edge have been machined, the sequence is to rip off a strip, then re-plane the edge before cutting the next strip.

See the sawn details. Above is shown a sample of thin solid veneer. In this case it has been used for a small box lining in one of my student's work.

Fix here with drops of Super Clue Gel

Dog or stop

Cut it close. Set the point fence with a steel ruler. I reckon to get within one-tenth of a millimeter, i.e. plus or minus .004".

Securing thin veneers for hand planing/thick-nessing. Use drops of Super Glue Gel on your MDF board to keep the work in tension.

58

■ Popular Woodworking April 2008 MX