Making Rail Parts: sort of...

The plan for today was to get all the parts that I roughed out last week trimmed, groooved and tenons cut.

The first step in this process is to sort out the parts and group them by function. All the parts for the four trunks are stacked together; upper front rails in one stack, lower front rails in another, etc.

Then I started trimming: 1/8" off of one edge, when all are done I will flip them over and trim the other edge by 1/8". Why not just take the full 1/4" off of one edge and be done with it? Because the thin kerf saw blade I used to rough out these parts left a pretty swirly edge on the boards, the finer, thicker trimming blade will clean this up so much less sanding will be needed, it wall also make both edges square to the surface planed faces and it will remove any slight bowing that may have set in as the parts laid up over the weekend.

During this process I cut the beveled edges where the lid fronts and the lid edge rails will join. The lid has a curved top, not flat, so I need 37° splined miters where they meet to set the proper angle. I cut these bevels before I cut the other edges to the finished dimension in case something went wrong and I had to cut the bevel again: I have 1/4" of extra wood to work with.

I did manage to get the edges trimmed, but that is all. during my lunch break a visitor to the web site pointed out that our Deluxe Sewing Cabinet is missing... and she'd like to order one. I can't say for sure what happened to it, but it was missing sure as anything, so I had to dig out all the numbers, photos and as much of the description as I could remember and build it in the web site database again.

That took several hours because while I was working on that my neighbor came over to explain that we have a common problem. Again this is kind of complicated but it involves the fact that there are 6 homes in a little "community" here, and the water well that is on our property at one time supplied water to all of them... and more. Everyone now has a water well of their own, but it was decided that in case of emergency we'd leave the supply lines in place with valves installed to keep the systems separate. But should one of us suffer a well failure, opening a couple of valves will provide them with water until their well can be repaired. Part of that system failed and needed repair, and that needed come cooperation from me.

Once all this stuff was taken care of I got back to making parts. I did not get nearly as far as I had hoped, and now it's time to shut down for the night. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I am allowed to work late, the other days I need to be closed up by 5:30. Oops, I'm already overtime.

See you tomorrow!
Doug