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Showing posts from April, 2019

Dutch Tool Chest

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The other room has more floor space. There is a fine old workbench at one end, with tool cabinets and a rack for clamps and other things. James Krenov, The Fine Art of Cabinetmkaing , 1977 My Dutch tool chest is done, well, except for painting it, installing a hasp and padlock, making a till for the back saws and a little tote to hold some smaller tools. I am pleased with it, though today, when I loaded it with all the tools I had hanging on pegs on the wall, I realized that it is not big enough! I plan on making another tool box that this tool chest can sit on. Having the main tool box sit higher will be a nice thing, making tools more accessible. Would I ever make another tool box in this style? Yes, I would, but the next will I will take the time to purchase some nice sugar pine, or find some locally harvested and milled ponderosa pine, I don't like working with this plantation grown radiata pine. And I might make the next tool chest a little bigger. Just saying!

Ugh, Dovetails!

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How does one talk about dovetail joints without becoming a bore? James Krenov, The Fine Art of Cabinetmaking , 1977 Those of you who follow my sporadic blog postings know that I make classical guitars, and that is all I want to make, classical guitars. The challenge of creating a box of graceful feminine lines that can produce the most beautiful of sounds is what allures me. The classical guitars I make don’t have complicated joints, there is one scarf joint, some butt and miter joints for the bindings. The guitar sides are attached to the neck by slots and wedges, a technique which dates back to the late 1400's.  There are some makers who join the neck to the guitar body with a dovetail joint, but that never appealed to me, probably because of a side job I took years ago. It was 1995 when a friend of mine asked me to make some stereo speaker boxes out of ponderosa pine and he requested that I join the boxes with dovetails. The only book I had at the time that talked abou