Separation

No matter how many times I've done this, I always get a bit nervous...sawing the thing in half! I know that a properly set up bandsaw with a nice sharp blade will do the job in a second, but I'm always left with the nagging doubt of... 'what if the blade drifts?' which is why, I suppose, I've always sawn boxes in half with a hand saw.








Having read Andrew Crawford's illuminating article in the latest issue of British Woodworking, I decided to take a leaf out of his book and use a sheet of 18mm mdf with a couple of strips of 150g paper stuck down to level the joining surfaces. The surprising thing (to me anyway) is that the technique is surprisingly accurate. Subtle changes in hand pressure enable different areas to be sanded, so that it's quite easy to obtain a pair of matching surfaces that are dead true.

Once the two faces have been sanded, it's then just a case of applying the last pieces of ebony to build up the thickness of the centre section and once that's been done, it'll be back on the sanding board to bring the combined thickness back to 12mm.

Reading Andrew's piece in the magazine has started to get the grey matter moving again. The time is fast approaching to the point where I'll need to sort out a fairly large order to Axminster and I'm definitely of the opinion that this little item might be included.

We shall see...