Finished Wooden Banks

Hello there, this is the final part to the

construction of my banks. We last left

off gluing the four sides together. I 

believe I discussed the sanding process

to make the corners smooth. Well that

isn't done until the top is glued on and

the bottom is screwed into place.

Pictured here is a top having the slot milled

into it. This I do before I glue it to the four

sides. If you look at the fence pictured here

you'll see the two stop blocks on either side

of the top. They determine how long the slot

will be. An 1/8 inch router bit is used.

Here are all the banks all put together and

ready for sanding. I do this on my belt

sander that is six inches wide.

OK, here are a couple of finished

banks. They have a few coats of

lacquer on them. 

After the Wood is Milled

I use this little contraption called an Incra Jig

to make the box joint corners. As you can see

I create these joints on two sides of 5 boxes

at the same time. Most methods used can only

make one half of one corner at a time. Using

this method, I can do 10 half corners at a time.

Time is money .... it helps keep my prices

down.

Three passes of the sides have been completed here.

The cuts are made when the sides pushed at that

green router bit. The whole thing rides on the fence

to the left. The fence is ready to be moved again

for the next cut.

Here is another view of the same process

as in the photo above.

Here are all of the sides of 4 banks.

Here are the four sides glued together. They

are left a little long on purpose. When all

six sides are put together, they will be

sanded smooth.

Milling The Wood For Banks

So many of my boxes, and in this case banks,

require 3/8" and 1/4" thick stock. I could

buy these dimensioned woods at a very high

price, or mill them to size myself. To keep my

costs down, I do it myself.

The wood I start with is called, in the trade,

4/4 (pronounced four quarter) or 1 inch before

it's milled down to 13/16". If I'm careful, I can

get two pieces out of this. 1 at 3/8" (plus 1/16")

and 1 at 1/4" (plus 1/16"). The band saw blade

eats up 1/16" also. Add them all up and you

get 13/16". I then put them through a planner

to get the final thickness.

This is the band saw with the dust collection behind.

This piece is about 2/3 the way through the band saw.

This is called resawing.

This is the thickness planner with the dust collector.

Thickness planner with a piece going into the feed end.

Custom Thank You Gift - Humidor

Someone showed our family a lot of generosity and kindness in a very big time of need. We had a very personal family tragedy strike us and this individual showed he was made of a lot of class. So in return I've put a lot of love in the construction of this humidor. I actually started my designs with humidors. The fad died down and I switched to Jewelry Boxes.

This humidor is larger than my jewelry boxes.
It is constructed of Cherry and Peruvian Walnut
and it measures 16"x11"x5".

I Hate Custom Orders

Ah but, here one is. Don't get me wrong, they do help
pay the bills. As in this case though, I could only
make one. When I make a box of this type I usually
make 10 or 12. This way I'm not spending half my
time setting up a machine to do a task for one box.
My stuff is priced in such a way that one box at a
time is a loser.

Here are a couple of pictures of a custom recipe box.
I usually make them for 3" x 5" cards. This was requested
to fit 4" x 6" cards. I forgot to take pictures until I had it
all glued up as pictured here. I'll do better next time.

The joint pictured here, in the corners, is a box joint.

Second Show In Tahoe City, California

Oh well, they all can't be great. Schools were back in session this last week. Some were saying that's why the attendance and sales were down the weekend of August 28th to August 30th. I say it's the economy stupid, and the weekend before was a fluke.

This next weekend (Labor Day) we're home in downtown Truckee. This will be the first of, hopefully, many to come in the future.

Great Show At Tahoe City, California

Hi All, What a great place for an Arts and Crafts Show. We were right on the water in Tahoe City which is on the north shore of Lake Tahoe. This was supposed to be one of our Homewood shows, but it had to be moved at the last minute. The new owner of Homewood couldn't see himself having a successful paying event. So at the last minute our promoter found out Homewood was a no-go. The people of Tahoe City found this out and grabbed on to us. They've wanted and arts and craft show of their own for 20 years ... since they had their last one. Our promoter is known to be one of the best in country, so Tahoe City got the best of both worlds.

They rewarded us (Sue and I) by giving us our best show this year ... gross sales wise. Sunday set a new sales record high for one day in the history of Dust'n Lint. THANK YOU TAHOE CITY!

That's our booth straight ahead with lake in the background.

This another view of our booth.

And again with Lake Tahoe in the background.

Here's a glass artist with the little harbor in the background.

Looking up the hill towards our booth.

We were at the Boatworks Mall. Looking down at the show.

Another view looking down at the show from the Boatworks Mall

Great Shows (all the time) Would Be Boring OR ....

A fellow artist sent these to us. They are photos of our booth at the Summit Mall in Reno. Notice two things ... those giant blue barrels (55 gallon drums) and the lack of people. The blue barrels were loaned to us by the Summit Mall. This should have been our first clue this was to be an exciting show. Those blue drums were full of water and each weighing 440 pounds. I travel to these shows with four 40 pound buckets of concrete of my own. That put the weights for our booth at 1040 pounds total for this weekend. Every pound was needed the first two days ... damn that's a windy place.


Sue and I learned many years ago that you don't do arts and crafts shows in Reno. This show was supposed to take place in Homewood at Lake Tahoe, but it had to be moved at the last minute. We should have pulled out, but we thought we would give Reno another chance. The people of Reno are not art buyers. In 7 years, this was our worst show ever ... Oh Well !

EXPOSE YOURSELF TO ART ....

What can it hoit ?

I found this when I was a member
of North Tahoe Arts. It needs to be
used once in awhile.

SUPER SECRET STUFF

Life is full of secrets, and my web site has one. Back in the catacombs of our site is “Odie’s Wood Works”. This is something I created to pass on my secrets to fellow woodworkers. It’s password protected, and the password is only given out to a select few. Seven people in all have it at this time. You see, my son Tom has no interest at all in woodworking. Maybe down the road that might change, but for now I’m passing on what I know (50 years worth) to just a few. It just seems silly not to share what I took a lifetime to learn. As long as I sell my work, I think this is the best way to do it.

The Sidewalk Painting Festival at Crystal Bay, Nv.

The first picture below is of Sunday Morning. You can see the washed out sidewalk paintings on the asphalt. You see the rain came the afternoon before at about 5:00 PM. It was a real gully washer. Some "paintings" where completely gone and some were only faded. They have two days to finish their pastel drawings, and some were finished the day before. These people got to do it all over again. Most of the artists were in good spirits and trudged forward on Sunday. Below are some of the results. Don't ask how we did ......

What Is It ?

I belong to a woodworking club online and it's called "LumberJocks". This club has over 10,000 members world wide. I started a little game there called "What is it ?". This is the latest entry into this game at #17. I'm known as one of the "class clowns" there and sometimes it's hard to be taken seriously. I have a link to this posting so you can see what I mean. Their guesses are quite comical. I am known as "odie" there.

lint = http://lumberjocks.com/topics/9014

Now why don't you try and guess what this is below.

NO CHEATING !
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HOW DID YOU DO ?

This is a drying rack for my box halves after spaying them with lacquer. The design makes it very easy to get the box half on the rack leaving plenty of room between the uprights for my hand.

Here are four boxes in this set up.