I am a real novice at this woodworking thing. It looks relatively easy when you watch a master do it either through skill or creative editing. Well, today I finished a simple pecan box with top in which to store kitchen utensils. It was my first glued panel project and has been an eye-opener for a newbie. All of my other projects are made from plywood as the main material. No matter how many shop notes and articles one reads, experience is the best teacher.
Newbie Lessons-Learned and, hopefully, not forgotten:
1. My new Dewalt thickness planer works great.
2. Pecan is hard and brittle wood compared to birch and birch plywood that I have worked with previously.
3. Just because a machinist's square says that your jointer fence is 90 deg. doesn't mean that your panel will be perfectly flat. I forgot about the book-match jointing technique that I have read about on this forum until it was too late.
4. Lots of glue joints and biscuits surely are messy.
5. A good glue scraper is invaluable.
6. "Close enough for government work" doesn't apply to a cross-cut sled. It has to be dead-on.
7. A sharp block plane can quickly fix a slightly mis-aligned joint.
8. Mark the edge onto which the hinges will be mounted so that the pilot holes aren't drilled on the wrong side.
9. Toothpicks glued into #4 pilot holes hide mistakes very well in pecan.
10. Mortising hinges with a chisel in hard pecan isn't as easy as it looks on TV.
11. Woodworking is a lot more fun when hand tools can compliment the machine tools.
Can't wait for the next project to learn more absolute truths.
Newbie Lessons-Learned and, hopefully, not forgotten:
1. My new Dewalt thickness planer works great.
2. Pecan is hard and brittle wood compared to birch and birch plywood that I have worked with previously.
3. Just because a machinist's square says that your jointer fence is 90 deg. doesn't mean that your panel will be perfectly flat. I forgot about the book-match jointing technique that I have read about on this forum until it was too late.
4. Lots of glue joints and biscuits surely are messy.
5. A good glue scraper is invaluable.
6. "Close enough for government work" doesn't apply to a cross-cut sled. It has to be dead-on.
7. A sharp block plane can quickly fix a slightly mis-aligned joint.
8. Mark the edge onto which the hinges will be mounted so that the pilot holes aren't drilled on the wrong side.
9. Toothpicks glued into #4 pilot holes hide mistakes very well in pecan.
10. Mortising hinges with a chisel in hard pecan isn't as easy as it looks on TV.
11. Woodworking is a lot more fun when hand tools can compliment the machine tools.
Can't wait for the next project to learn more absolute truths.