Filler Panels

I started the morning off by pulling the clamps off of the honey locust that Marie and I prepped and glued up last night, then ran it through the surface planer to smooth it out and bring it down to the proper thickness.

Then it was back to the steamer trunks. Today I will be milling out stock for the filler panels that fit into the rails that frame the trunk. I do this by re-sawing thick lumber with the band saw to make thin lumber. In the oak and walnut I have stock wide enough to get the panels out of single boards, the maple however is all too narrow for this, so I’ll need to joint two pieces together. The best way to do this is to resaw each thick, narrow board, open it up like a book and joint the inner edges to glue them back together into a wide, thin board. Doing this produces a good match in colors and some very pretty grain patterns. Much better than joining two separate boards then resawing that into thin boards.

I do my jointing on the table saw with a very fine toothed saw blade. I’d rather use a jointer, but we don’t have one (yet) so I do it this way. Takes a little longer but gives good results if the saw is set up right. Then the thin pairs are taken into the assembly room to be glued and clamped. I clamp up as many pairs as I have clamps to do, then go back to resawing the walnut and oak. When the glue is set up enough, I pull the clamps and glue up another set. I won’t start surfacing them until all the blanks are glued up and I can do the whole set in one session, preferably with a helper.

And that is another day. Marie went out on a grocery run and I need to be at the house when she gets home to help haul them inside, so it’s time to clock out and head home.

See you tomorrow.

Doug