28 August 2010

Precision papering...simples!

I had a problem.

As you are well aware by now, I have plenty of them and sometimes they defy my feeble attempts at a 'fix' (thereby blunting the bandsaw blade teeth a little more)

Sometimes though, the 'fix' is such a stroke of pure brilliant, unadulterated genius that it makes my head swim.

First and foremost, the first pic shows the interior of a little oak box wherein the lid sits inside the rebate on the two surfaces (arrowed) However, much to my dismay, those two surfaces were not parallel when the box came out of the cramps, so that when the lid was fitted for the first time, one corner was down by around 3mm (even though the lid was true)...possibly bandsaw fodder before too long!

Second and foremost...how to go about fixing it? I had a deep ponderation for a long while and various nefarious options wafted across the grey goo such as:

...spending a lot of cash on a hideously expensive LN chisel plane, which would probably be be used for this job and then sold. Building a complicated router jig to remove the offending high spots from each corner. Doable, but unnecessarily complicated.

Eventually, after a further eon had passed, I wondered what the simplest way would be, as 'simple' is usually much better than complicated.

The easy way was simply to sand it off!

All I did was to get hold of small bit of 12mm ply and shoot the edges dead square. A piece of 150g paper was stuck to one side (using double sided tape) and 220g to the other. This was then trimmed off level with a Stanley knife. Ten minutes work with my new precision sanding block and all four of the bearing surfaces for the lid were level and parallel...cut the hinge recesses a fraction deeper to suit and Robert's your aunty's sister (or something like that!)

Sometimes, my undoubted genius for fixing cock-ups requires the purchase of a least a gallon of the 'good stuff' just to keep the halo polished...simples!

1 comment:

Olly Parry-Jones said...

Hi Rob,

An interesting fix.

Although you've managed to avoid spending any money on new tools here, for future reference, Matthew does a Quangsheng Chisel Plane that's only £49.50:

http://tinyurl.com/28hzubw

Also, you must have a shoulder plane somehwere in your tool collection... - With most of these, you can remove the 'front' of the plane and, there you go - you have a chisel plane!! ;-)

Olly.