Last years last, this year's first project!

[johnpipe108]

I had my first overseas travel from September 10 to October 10, to Marseille, France, with 9 days in London on the way home.

I had to stop my woodworking around the beginning of August, to concentrate on travel preparations. I did get to do one project essential to the expedition; I had to have a case in which to take-down and pack my Scottish Highland bagpipe (GHB) drones and blowstick so they would fit into a flight bag, thereby obviating any possible hassle about carrying musical instruments aboard in an extra, full-size case.

The construction is rabbeted 1/4 inch square all round each piece, top and bottom, untempered Masonite for the top and bottom lids, all joints glued and lid glued and nailed down with solid brass brads. The wood was scrap from a furniture factory. All hardware is solid brass. The interior has some pyramid-faced foam inserted for protection.

Here is a January 1st project, my face-extension to my homemade "biese" fence. I had to wait until I could get a piece of wood for the base. My son-in-law's step-dad gave me piece of 1 x 4 finished oak, and that made the base. The face is fixed to the oak base with pocket screws. The main fence-face has had 1/4-20 threaded inserts installed to ease attachment of a sacrificial face. A scrap piece awaits ripping to make 3 back-braces for the face extension.

The rear-view shows the oak base and the 4 1/4-20 hex-bolts that fix the extension to the top beam of the "Biese." I still have to get to the hardware, once the rain storms pass, and get more 6-32 x 1/2 FH screws and nylon-insert stop nuts to complete the T-track attachment.

When the weather warms up, I want to get into good wooden toys for kids, as I've an 11 month old grandson here, and the plastic toys they get are so much junk, no challenge to their imagination. I will also at some point get onto my 1797 Northumberland Small Pipes (North-English bagpipes).

Happy ("muggle") New Year,

and Good Woodworking!

Johnpipe

 

[cpowell]

Sounds like a pretty cool trip. I've never visited France. :icon_thum

The box looks pretty neat - any pics showing what's on the inside??

I really like the biese knockoff fence. Is it performing as expected?


Chuck

 

[DaveO]

NIce looking box and fence, John. Safety and security for both of your instruments. What is the blue-ish patterned thingy on the lid of the box?
Dave

 

[johnpipe108]

The fence performs excellently; the original DeWalt sliding face was not terribly useful, there was no way to clamp anything to it or make a face extension.

The original DeWalt metal beam isn't perfectly square, and this became an issue they had to deal with due to customer complaints, but my "biese" clone is, on both sides at the same time. The MDF box-beam determines the squareness now.

The blue "pattern" is a B&W print of a color photo of a set of GHB, as I didn't know what I'd run into with security and customs, to illustrate the contents for the inspectors in case I had to surrender the box for inspection. Fortunately, they only wanted to see the pipe-bag having the metal-feruled wooden tublular "stocks", which was in the outside pocket of the flight bag, and showed up on the X-ray.

The inside isn't anything interesting, unfinished, two pieces of foam slapped loosely inside.

Now I've got the fence extension, it will be easier to cut boxes open, and I want to make a small chest for my granddaughter. That one I will try to line it up nice on the inside with velveteen or some such.

Thanks, John