Those Hot Summer Days

Some days you’re on fire. And some days, you’re not.

I haven't spent much time in the shop the last days.

Summer is back with pretty hot temperatures.

Man, perhaps you have got the same situation (some of you had, as I have read). This late summer gives all.

That last weekend we had temperatures about 38 degrees. It was too hot, even for just standing in the shop.

That said, I'm pretty much behind my pace of the actual project.

Nevertheless I've made some runners for it and started to make some tills.

Resawing of stock was first. That is an easy task in Alder but I was sweating as soon as I was thinking about it.

Resawing stock to strips

Next I made some runners of the resawed stock. These runners are going inside the project to support some tills I will do next.

I've thicknessed the pieces by eye balling and they came out about 6 mm. Next was to cut them to length and establish some miters at both ends. Done with all pieces I have some runners running around the inside perimeter of the project.

Inside runners with miter joints

The other parts I will use for some tills which have to be made.

A little jig was helpful to dimension all parts to the same thickness.  Here is how I made it.

The Thickness Planing Jig

I wanted to have the material for the tills with consistent thickness. Therefore I quickly made a little jig.

All you need is a plywood base board, two strip of plywood as runners and some double sided tape.

Base board, two side runners and some tape

 
I've glued a strip of tape to every runner piece.

Sticking some tape onto the runners

 

Then I've glued both strips to the base board with leaving enough space for the stock to be planed.

Clamping the jig for a few moments into the vise helps the glue to bind.

And that's it. Now I could lay the pieces into the jig and plane down until I've reached the runners. 

Planing down the wood strips to final thickness

 

Then I was sure I have reached the desired thickness. All piece came out about 8 mm.

See the result here. All pieces have already the groove for receiving a bottom board.

Wood strips at final thickness

Finally there was enough air to breath for doing the first till pieces. All in all I will make to layers of tills so that there are 3 layers of storage.

First idea of how the tills will look like

That's pretty much it for the last week. Not that much and this week did not start better. Some long working days and other obligations will keep me away from the shop. So I think that I will not be ready with that project in time and I strongly believe that I will have to postpone it.

Stay tuned!
Stefan