Aurora Nightstand - Finishing Tests

Still no ebony. But today the shipment finally showed up in the USPS tracking system, so there's hope. I guess the eBay seller I bought it from was just a little poky in getting to the post office.

I really don't want to louse things up when it comes time to apply the finish on this thing, so I sanded up a few test boards for practice. For the stain, I used the mixture of General Finishes water based dyes recommended by Darrell in his article--seven parts orange and four parts medium brown. I put one coat of this dye mixture on half of each test board, and two coats on the other half. Then I wiped on five or six coats of thinned polyurethane according to the recipe in the Wood Whisperer's A Simple Varnish Finish DVD. Here are the results:

It's easy to see that the lightest board (the narrow one) needed the second coat of dye, but that two coats was too much on the darkest board. So the plan at this point is to apply one coat of dye to all the parts, and then put a second coat on the lighter ones only. I think this will give the best color match among the parts without going overbaord and making them all too dark.

Aurora Nightstand - Yet Another Router Jig

Still no ebony.

When it finally shows up, I figure I'll want to make the biggest ebony pieces first. That way, if I mess them up, I may be able to make some of the smaller parts out of the ruined material.

So the biggest ebony parts are the decorative splines in the table top. Darrell's article suggests forming these by gluing the blank into the slot in the top, routing the profile in two steps with a flush bit and a couple of oversized bearings, and then rounding the corners over by hand with sandpaper to get the pillowing effect.

Yikes!  I don't like that idea at all, for lots of reasons:

1. I don't have the necessary oversized bearings.
2. With the splines glued in the slot in the top, I can't see how I would ever be able to round over their corners without marring the top itself.
3. There'd be no way to polish the splines on a buffing wheel.
4. If I messed something up, it might be really difficult to remove the glued-in spline without messing up the top in the process.

So I figured, why not rout the profile on the spline using a jig similar to the ones that were used to make the arched parts?  That way I can do the pillowing and buffing before gluing the spline into the top, and if I mess up a spline, I can just toss it and make another one.

So I tried it. The picture shows the jig, which clamps the part securely against a template with the required profile. After temporarily clamping the blank into the jig, I marked the curve on the blank and then cut away most of the waste using the bandsaw. Then I remounted the blank in the jig and routed the profile in one pass.

The picture also shows the result of the first test. The jig worked perfectly, but I didn't do the best job of getting the pillowing even, especially where the spline makes the little jog between the top and the breadboard end. I think I'll make another little scraper tool to help with that.

For the record, the test spline is made of ebonized mesquite, which means that I smeared some india ink on it, followed by a coat of gloss polyurethane.

Aurora Nightstand - Completing the Drawer

Still no ebony.

But the drawer is almost done. About a year ago, Garrett Hack had an article in Fine Woodworking #213 about using solid wood instead of plywood for drawer bottoms. I had a little bit of poplar left over from a previous project, so I decided to try Garrett's ideas on the nightstand drawer. It was a little more work than just cutting out a chunk of plywood, but I really like the result.

I made another big departure from Darrell's plans by using some bamboo chopsticks instead of birch dowels to pin the big finger joints in the front of the drawer. I know, I know. I'm a wild man.

Aurora Nightstand - Oops #2

Oops. Yesterday I grabbed the shelf panel that I had carefully flattened a few days ago, and found that it had suddenly developed a really nasty cup. This was kind of a surprise to me. The wood had been stickered since I milled it about a month ago, and hadn't shown any signs of movement during that time.

Here's what I think happened: After flattening the panel, I put it up out of the way, lying flat on top of a sheet of plywood. Soon after that, the ambient humidity took a rather abrupt nosedive. So I'm thinking that the top surface of the panel, which was exposed to the hot, newly-dry air in my garage started to lose moisture. Meanwhile, the bottom surface couldn't dry out as fast because it was against the plywood. The direction of the cup was consistent with this fine theory.

The panel is now undergoing a three-step recovery program. (From what I hear, the twelve-step programs take a long time and involve lots of meetings. Nuts to that.) First, I set the panel up on some sticks so that air can circulate freely all around it. Then I dampened the concave side in the hope that it would reabsorb some of the moisture that it had presumably lost. That actually helped a lot. Finally, I applied some friendly persuasion in order to discourage further movement as the moisture content stabilizes.

I guess time will tell if this plan works or if I need to make a new shelf one of these days.

Aurora Nightstand - Archery, Part III

I originally thought that I would apply the finish to the main part of the nightstand, assemble it, and then build the drawer to fit. But I found myself waiting on the material for all the little ebony doodads, so I decided to go ahead with the drawer after all. The only critical step was making the drawer front fit properly within its opening, and I figured I could easily get the actual size of the opening by just dry clamping a few of the parts together.

The goal was to make the drawer front fit within the opening, with a 1/16" gap all the way around. I started by cutting the part about 1/4" too wide, and 1/8" shorter than the width of the opening. Then I cut the "ears" on the ends that mate with notches in the sides to form the giant finger joints in the front of the drawer. Then, using the ears as a reference, I aligned the part with the router jig I had made earlier and cut the bottom curve. Finally, I shimmed the part in the proper position within the opening, marked where the top edge needed to be, and trimmed it to its final width.

The next step was to complete the finger joints by cutting the rabbets and notches in the drawer sides. I did most of this on the table saw, with just a little bit of chisel work to make everything fit right.

Aurora Nightstand - Some Loose Ends

With the shelf and top panels all glued up and flat, I figured I'd better take care of a number of pesky details that I had been neglecting. The first was to cut some little notches in the corners of the shelf to clear the legs. Darrell doesn't talk about these in his article, but they're definitely necessary.

Next, I chopped a few more mortises for the decorative plugs in the breadboard ends of the top. Once again, I did these by hand because they're relatively small and they need to have square ends. Besides, all this practice might come in handy someday if I ever need to cut a bunch of mortises by hand.

I did finally drag out my horizontal router table to cut the slots for the splines that align the breadboard ends with the top panel.

After attaching the breadboard ends to the top panel, I also used the horizontal router table to cut the long slots for the decorative spline details on the front and rear edges of the top. The horizontal router table wasn't really big enough to support the top panel, so I set up a temporary outrigger arrangement that made everything nice and stable.

You gotta love them C-clamps.

Aluminum Bandsaw Table Insert

One of the guys over on the WoodTalk Online forum was complaining about the cheap plastic table insert in his bandsaw.  I had the same problem with mine some time ago, and solved it by using my wood lathe to make an aluminum replacement that fits better than the plastic one did, and is a lot less flimsy.

WARNING!!!  This article describes a procedure that might be considered outside the normal use of the tools involved.  If you elect to try this yourself, you are responsible for your own actions.  If anything described here doesn't seem safe to you, don't do it!

To begin, you'll need an aluminum blank that's at least thick enough to sit flush with the bandsaw table when the completed insert is installed.  Thicker is okay, but try to find stock that's as close to the correct thickness as possible.  Cut out a square of the material that's slightly bigger than the hole in the bandsaw table, and carefully mark two perpendicular center lines on it, as shown in the picture.

 Next, lay out the shape of the insert on the blank.  You can do this by scribing lines directly on the aluminum, or you can make a drawing on paper and glue it to the blank, as shown in the picture.  However you do it, be careful that the image of the insert aligns accurately with the centerlines you put on the blank in the previous step.

Find two small screws that you can use to secure the blank to a scrap of wood.  Then select a bit just slightly larger than the screws' diameter, and drill two mounting holes in the blank.  Place these holes in the area that will eventually be cut away to form the slot for the bandsaw blade.

Now mount a scrap of wood on your faceplate.

Install the faceplate onto the lathe, and if necessary, face off the outboard surface of the wood so it is smooth and flat.  With the lathe running, locate the center of rotation and use a pencil to place a small dot there.

Next, draw an arbitrary centerline through the dot.  Then rotate the scrap exactly ninety degrees and draw a second centerline perpendicular to the first one.

Now align the centerlines on the aluminum blank with the centerlines on the faceplate scrap, and attach the blank to the scrap with the two small screws.

You do NOT want to use your wood turning chisels on the aluminum!  Instead, grab an old file and grind a point on it similar to that shown in the picture.  You'll want this to be fairly small; mine is about 1/16" wide.

Now set the lathe to its slowest speed and use the modified file to cut a groove in the blank that's just outside the perimeter of the insert.  Make sure you're wearing eye and face protection, and go at it easy, with very light cuts.

Continue by making the groove deeper and wider until you finally cut completely through the aluminum and into the wood, leaving only the round insert mounted to the faceplate.

Use a normal turning chisel to remove some of the wood from around the outside of the blank, so that you can then use a regular file (with the lathe running) to clean up the edge of the insert.  Be careful at this point that you don't go too deep and hit the screws that are holding the scrap to the faceplate.

If you have an accurate way to measure the diameter of the insert, continue filing until you reach the correct size.  Otherwise, "sneak up" on the fit by repeatedly filing a little bit and then removing the faceplate from the lathe so you can test the size of the insert against the actual hole in the bandsaw table.

When you have the diameter correct, use the modified file to cut a little rabbet around the perimeter of the insert so that it sits flush with the table surface when installed.  Again, you may have to "sneak up" on a good fit by repeatedly removing a small amount of material and then checking the insert against the actual hole in the bandsaw table.

Now you can remove the insert from the face plate, cut out the slot for the bandsaw blade, and clean everything up with a bit of sandpaper.  This is what the top side of mine looks like.

And here's the bottom.