So, I wasn’t going to post this but I made the mistake of mentioning it in another thread and now I have to.
Anyway, this it a good time to mention what I am doing this week. That extended Y-axis base for my handibot arrived and it needs beta testing. Also ever since the Glowforge arrived, I’ve been playing 3d Tetris in the office here so this is what I have done. I have taken a week off from the salt mine to work on “personal infrastructure”. Each project may or may not utilize one of the smart tools at the house. I just plan to do each with whatever it best for the project.
So far, the count is 1 for dumb tools and one for the Glowforge.
In the next move in my little game of Tetris, I needed to move the laser (paper) printer so I made a stand for it using scrap wood and then made a box to go on one side of it.
The stand was done with just a table saw and a pocket hole jig, no plans other than jotting down the dimensions it needed to be.
The box was drawn up in F360 and then cut on the Glowforge from .200" Homedepot plywood.
Once you get the workflow down you can design ugly boxes in F360 quite quickly. You will be able to see and learn that workflow when the tutorials go live.
Next time I leave the house I need to pick up some really big rubber bands unless someone can tell me a better way to clamp small finger jointed boxes?
Big thick rubber bands do a great job in holding those boxes together as the glue dries…just don’t let kids get ahold of them…they hurt!!
Oh…and nice “porn” magazine close by…(Woodcraft) lmao
There are a lot of ratcheting strap clamps out there. Most import part of the job is some square pieces so you can make sure the angles are good. Don’t really need pressure for finger joints.
Yeah, this one is ugly but I have so many to make that, in the end, they should be looking good. Over this week and ongoing we will be adding inserts to some to hold specific things.
Also don’t forget that a ratchet strap is a ratchet strap, regardless if it’s sold for woodworking or pickups. If you buy/make the little corner blocks nothing stopping you from using the cheapest straps you can find at Home Depot/Canadian Tire/etc.
For small boxes like this masking tape can work well too. Hold everything in place and wrap it a few times with tape. Doesn’t provide clamping pressure, but keeps everything from moving (and for joints like this you don’t really need pressure anyway). Just make sure you “unclamp” everything relatively quickly or else you’ll have residue problems.
Do check for squareness, though, and use a bar clamp on the diagonal to pull it into square if needed.
Okay, I went and tried it with the cute little porter cable I have. We learned two things. One, this stuff I am using is a bit too delicate for brad nailing. Maybe something with a bit less “foamy” core it would work. Two, bone stops brads quite effectively. This is good as I really would have hated to explain to the ER Dr. why there is a brad in my finger.
Did you use pins or brads? Pinning uses 23ga micro-pins. They’re thinner than sewing pins. I use them in 3mm ply boxes without any issue. You do have to make sure they’re in the gun right. There’s not much of a difference between the top & point but they are a tad sharp on one end to make them easier to drive.
Brads are 18ga right? More nails than pins.
If you use rubber bands see if you can get produce bands from the grocery or rigger’s bands (used in parachute rigging and available online). Both are more consistent in holding power than standard office supply rubber bands.
For $11 may need to add this to my GF tools list
“This even pressure band clamp will support a multitude of shapes rectangular, round, polygon and square.”
$25 on Amazon.
Okay, I won’t tell you. Luckily I mostly do stupid on a small scale so I have all my fingers.The visual was the worst part.
