Selecting the wood for the project is next. I narrowed it down to three different
woods. Walnut, quarter sawn white oak
and cherry all shown below. Each of the
planks have their own problems which is why they have been set aside from other
larger projects and not yet used. The
walnut has a bit of sapwood along the top edge, is cupped and there is a split
that runs about a third the way down the center of the board from the left
edge. It also has an S curve that
wiggles back and forth like a snake along its length. The white oak also has a split, is cupped,
bowed along its length and also has a nice twist. The cherry has a little cup, is twisted, has
some sapwood, an S curve along its length and some bark inclusions/knots that
will have to be worked around when laying out the pieces. What they do have going is their figured
grain or color.
In the end I decided to use the quarter sawn white
oak. Any of the three would have worked
but the middle width oak piece shown in the top photo is just a bit wider than
the widest piece needed for the project. Also, it's been a while since I have done casework in white oak. The widest needed piece is shown outlined with chalk. It does have a split along part of its length (red arrows) but it's usable
since the split is outside the main area needed for the ¼” thick pieces. After cutting the piece to length on the chop
saw flattening out the board is next.
The twist gets removed by using a hand plane to knock off the high
corners of the board until it lays flat when set on a reference surface. From there it's run though the thickness
sander to flatten the opposite face then flipped and the previously hand planed
face is sanded parallel to the just flattened first face. The bottom photo shows the plane used and
what the finished surface looks like.
Next is to rip the flattened and straightened piece into
5/16” thick blanks on the bandsaw. Setup
is a tall fence on the left held in place by the two orange clamps. It holds the piece square to the blade and
the yellow magnetic pressure assembly on the right holds the piece’s bottom
tight to the fence. In the left photo
the first 5/16” thick piece has been cut off then set aside the and second one
has been cut leaving just a thin bit remaining.
The right photo is a closer view of those two cut pieces.
The photo below has the two 5/16” thick pieces at the top
and bottom with the thin leftover piece from the center of the blank in the
center of the photo. 
Next, the two 5/16” pieces get run through the thickness
sander to get rid of the bandsaw blade marks and bring the opposite faces
parallel ending up a bit thicker than the needed ¼” thickness. Because this is quarter sawn white oak and
has a nice grain the thin piece will be saved to be used as veneer for a future
project. 
With that done the two pieces to be used in this project
get set aside with spacers between them for a couple days. This is to see if any cupping or warping
happens due to any internal stresses released when being ripped. Since they are still thicker than the
desired ¼” there is some room for flattening.
With the almost ¼” thick pieces set aside for now the
5/16” finished thick pieces for the lid’s sides shown in the top drawing can
get cut. The original plank has a split
indicated by the chalk arrows on the bottom photo that runs part way down the
piece. Good news is the narrow-split
part is wide enough to get both sides out of it when cut along the pencil line
(red arrow). 
The bandsaw is used to cut the split piece free. A close inspection found no other
flaws in the removed piece so I could go ahead and continue using it. Now it’s possible that as this piece gets
additional work done it may warp, twist or otherwise behave badly. It’s also equally possible that when the
original piece split the stress was removed and there won’t be any problems.
To rip this piece to thickness a pass through the table
saw is needed to remove enough of the split surface edge so I have a flat
surface to mark a cut line. That cut has
been done below along with adding a pencil cut line drawn on the edge using a
marking gauge. The line is pretty faint
but the red arrow points toward it.
Here is the setup for ripping the board using the
bandsaw. Since the pencil line is right
down the center of the board it’s lined up with the center of the bandsaw
blade. This is a different setup because
most of the time I am cutting for a specific width so will leave the line.
After ripping the piece there is good and bad news. The good news is the cut pieces did not
distort when cut. The bad news is one of
the two pieces had a couple of hidden cracks show up making only one of the two
needed pieces usable. The top photo is
of the two halves with the bad areas circled in chalk and the bottom photo is a
close look at the right crack.
Because there are some ¼” thick pieces needed rather than
putting the split piece in the burn pile I thought I would try and rip this
blank down to see if enough of the flaws could be cut away to get usable
material out of it. The top photo is
before the cut and the bottom is after ripping it thinner. Part of the flaws got cut away but not all of
them. Good news is the piece that’s
needed for testing is pretty narrow so I can use it as a test piece for machine
setups although it still may end up in the burn pile.
Next Up – Dividers, End & Center Cap
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