Rifflers Handles & Case - #3 Plans & Roughing out Blanks

Now that I had the finished rifflers with handles I could use their final dimensions of 1” in diameter and 7 7/8” long to design a case around.  My criteria was to have a case that would protect them from knocking together, allow me to see the cutting profiles and would set on the workbench providing easy access.  After going through several general sketches, I finally settled on one style and started to develop a 3D drawing in SketchUp.  After about half a dozen iterations I ended up with what looked to be a good workable solution.  Next was to pick wood.  I narrowed it down to two selections, walnut and mahogany.  The lighter woods like maple and oak got eliminated because in use they show wear and dirt more than a dark colored wood.  My final decision was to go with walnut mostly because I think it will provide more of a contrast with the cherry handles than the mahogany would.  Rendering the 3D drawing with a walnut case and cherry handles gave me this result, one image open and the other closed.

Going through my walnut boards I found some pieces that I bought years ago because I liked the color and grain.  They did have some condition issues with knots, cracks and as they had thoroughly dried developed some twist and a bit of bow.  Because I live in the desert as wood dries it regularly gets to less than 5% less in moisture content.  I don’t know how much lower because my moisture meter quits registering at 5%. 

Once I had the boards picked I laid out the parts working around the flaws then rough cut to length and width.  When that was done the twist and bow became much more manageable.  To remove the twist I set them on the table saw marked the high points and flattened them using a power plane checking against the saw top for flatness as I went.  With one side flat I ran them through the thickness sander to flatten the other side then flipped them over and cleaned up any plane marks on the first side.  Now it’s time to set them aside for a few days to see if they are stable or not.

After a couple of days, I had one piece that still had a little twist.  Some light work, this time with a hand plane gave me a flat surface to run through the thickness sander.  Once again, I set the piece aside to see if it was stable.

This time everything stayed flat.  Now I could start the glue up for the thick pieces that will make up each end.  Because I do not want any cross-grain pieces the end spacers and a couple other pieces will have the grain running 90 degrees to what you would normally expect.  Take a look at the drawing below and you can see near the bottom is a typical piece where the grain runs the long dimension of that piece.  To keep the grain all running in the same direction throughout the case the end pieces will need to have the grain run as shown – along one of the short dimensions.  Don’t worry if it does not all make sense just yet.  There are more steps before I get them done and by then it should be clear.

Here is the first glue up, there are two pieces carefully matched so the grain flows from one to another.  The setup I use is to put two vertical clamps in my bench vice which holds them in place, the boards are set centered on the bars so the clamping pressure is straight down.  Two hand clamps help make sure the board faces align.  After a test clamping I loosen the clamps, take the boards out, apply glue and clamp.   I then let it set overnight.

I need to go through the same process once more but with only three boards instead of two.  The different number of boards used to make up the glue-ups are because the two finished pieces will be face glued and I wanted the glue joints staggered.  Anyway, after the glue has cured overnight I run both pieces through the thickness sander to end up with two flat, smooth pieces ready for the next step.  Here is where the careful grain matching pays off.  The piece on the left is made from three boards while the one on the right is made from two.   Look close but it’s pretty hard to find the joints.

Next is to cut off 2½” wide pieces to use for spacers and reinforcing.  Here are the cut pieces.

With that done I face glue and clamp the two larger pieces together.  This is what that looks like clamped up and yes there really is a couple of pieces being glued together under all those clamps.

After an overnight cure I took the clamps off trimmed the edges and ran it through the thickness sander.  Here is what it looks like now.  I will let it set for a bit to make sure it stays flat.

While the end piece blank is resting I checked the other flattened pieces and found them all true.  That meant I could resaw them down to close to their final thickness.  The top, bottom and spacers are all ¼” thick and the sides are 5/16” thick.  I start by using my marking gauge to mark a 5/16” wide piece off as show here.  The extra 1/16” gives me room in case the bandsaw blade wanders a little plus a bit to allow for smoothing and flattening if that is needed.

The bandsaw is my tool of choice for ripping boards narrower and I am using my typical setup.  On the left is my pivot point and to the right is a magnetic featherboard that puts pressure on the board helping it keep at 90 degrees to the table and tight to the pivot point.  I don’t use a regular fence as a guide because of blade drift.  That is a blades tendency to not cut parallel to the fence due to a variety of reasons.  Using a pivot point I can adjust the angle the board is being fed into the blade by swinging the uncut part of the board one way or the other to get a straight cut. 

This shows the two resulting pieces.  The cut is pretty good and will not require much work using the thickness sander to flatten.  The thin piece is just a little over 1/16” thick and I will save that for inlay or use as an accent strip on some other project.

Here are what will be the ¼” and 5/16” pieces after I ran them through the thickness sander.  They have flat parallel faces.  Now I will let them set for a bit to make sure they stay that way.

Next Up – Top & Bottom Panel Glue-up, Making Dividers & Ends