Kumiko Sampler - #4 Thicknessing the Lattice/Rails & Finishing the Jigs

With the notches having their bottom flattened the next step is to thickness sand all of the pieces down to 1/8” thick.  When ripped on the table saw they were cut just about 1/32” too thick to allow for any saw marks, unevenness in the cut and to sand down to a nice smooth finished surface.  Here are all the pieces laid out in five groups ready to be sanded.

The top group of lattices have been run through the sander once and are much smoother.  It will take several passes to achieve the desired thickness.  Not because there is a lot of material to remove but because I don’t want to take too much off and end up with a bunch of scrap.  There is no going back if I take too much off.   The bottom group of rails are on a carrier.  It helps me keep all the pieces together and easy to feed through the sander.  They have not been run through the sander yet and still have the diagonal pencil lines on them.  The lines give me a good visual regarding the status of the surface as the passes through the sander are made.  When they are gone the surface is flat and has been completely sanded.

It did take several passes making tiny adjustments right at the end to get all the pieces to the desired thickness.  With that done I set the pieces aside and went back to work on the jigs.  There are two pieces yet to make, a stop for setting the piece length and a hold down to keep the pieces in place while the angles are being cut.  In the drawing below they are the two pieces with dimensions. 

I started with the stops which requires a slot cut in the center where the locking screw will go.  It starts by drilling holes to establish either end of the slot.  A small pilot hole is drilled then bigger bits are used to enlarge the hole.  Here the hole on the far-right has been drilled out with a larger bit.  I started with a small bit because I was worried that using the finish size bit might wander and not give me a centered hole.  A couple of steps in bit sizes kept the hole centered where it needed to be.  There are four holes because both stops are being made from a single blank that will be cut apart later.

Once the holes are drilled the piece is clamped in the vice, the coping saw blade is fed through the just drilled end hole and the slot is cut.  My preference for this type of work is to install the blade with the teeth pointing toward me so it cut on the pull or in this case the down stroke. 

Once cut the inside faces are smoothed using rifflers and a file.  Here the blank has been cut in half and installed in the jig.  There are three holes in the jig so the stop can be adjusted to whatever length lattice piece is needed.  The big hole on the left at the bottom of the dado is from when this piece was used as a mantel support. 

The last part is the hold down.  Like the stop both are made at the same time cut out of a single piece.  Once ripped to height and width the notch in the base is laid out and rough cut on the bandsaw.  Finish cutting is done on the router in this setup.  If you are wondering how I routed the square corners at the end of the cut I didn’t.  It shows that way because I forgot to take a photo during the routing and didn’t remember until I had already squared them off with a chisel.  From here they are cut to length on the chop saw. 

With the angle jigs along with the lattice and rail blanks completed I believe there is just one last item that needs to be made before the assembly can start.  The components for the Kumiko sampler be it rails, diagonals, wings or kingpins all need to be cut to length.  Since everything but the rails are less than 2” long with most of them being shorter and just under an eighth of an inch thick I am a little, no make that a lot leery of cutting them on the chop or table saw.  At least to start out the plans are to use a Japanese pull saw along with a modified bench hook and stop to make the cuts.  The Japanese pull saw’s blade is only about 1/100 of an inch thick which will minimize the kerf waste when making all the cuts.  Modifying the bench hook consists of cutting a plumb and square kerf in the backstop using the pull saw.  A couple of thick oak blocks clamped to the backstop pressed tight to the saw keeps it square and plumb while I make the cut.

The three long rails get cut first followed by the five short ones.  They are cut in sets using a scrap piece of rail as a key to keep them in alignment and a clamp to hold them in place. 

A test assembly is next which lets me know if any of the joints are too tight or too loose.  As it turned out two of the joints were just a little tight.  A little sanding and they fit just right. 

Glue-up is next with one crosspiece left in place to help with alignment.  A tiny drop of glue is applied to the inner faces of the notch on the long rail using the thin pointed applicator in the lower left.  When done any glue squeeze out is removed with a small snap blade utility knife.  No need for an after photo as it looks just like the test fit photo above. 

Next Up - Chisel Sharpening & Lattice Infill - Part 1