Joinery on very thin wood?

[Bahnzo]

I make small boxes from 1/8" stock. I currently just butt the ends and glue them..plenty strong and works for the size boxes I make. But I'm wondering if there are any techniques for doing joinery on something as small as this? Any ideas?

[Ben H]

With a thickness that thin, your options are very limited. I can't see why a box joint wouldn't work. Might be tough to pull off, but still do-able. I'd love to see some of your boxes. I don't have the patience to work with stock that thin.

[jgfore]

I would go with the box joints as well. If you are jointing the boards on the same plan, then dovetails would also work. With stock that thin, dovetails would be very hard to pull off in a 90 degree joint. The finger joints or box joints would work anywhere though.

Jeff

[Bahnzo]

With a thickness that thin, your options are very limited. I can't see why a box joint wouldn't work. Might be tough to pull off, but still do-able. I'd love to see some of your boxes. I don't have the patience to work with stock that thin.

I make small wooden boxes for Electronic Cigarettes. Nothing elaborate, but the size sort of limits anything fancy.

And you are right, my options do seem very limited with this thin stock. I've thought of a box joint, but it's very hard to cut even with a razor saw. I do have a rotary tool, so I'm considering building a router table for it (the Dremel one's seem pretty cheap, I'm sure I can build a sturdier one myself) and seeing how well that would work.

[Beechwood Chip]

if you're just looking to hide the end grain, you could cut little square posts for the corners, maybe from an accent wood.

If you want to make a more interesting joint, you can make larger round or square posts with grooves to hold the sides.

You could cut miters with a full height glue block inside the corner.

Or, go all Shaker on them and make them round or oval with no corners to worry about.

.

[iSawitFirst]

A miter would work as well as a but joint and would look a lot better.

Tedious.

[Saddlestrum]

Wow...this sounds challenging and I take my hat off to you working with such thin stock.

As I read your post...and had a "Dr. Evil" moment...

...and read your question about the best joint to use...

....I came up with "hand cut dovetails!!!"

a light moment from "Saddlestrum", thanks.

[RenaissanceWW]

You know I built a table top jewelry armoire a few years ago and the drawer stock wasn't quite 1/8 but it was probably 3/16 and I did dovetail the joints. It was fun and I had to go out and buy a model making saw to do it but considering these pieces receive very little serious stress the joints are holding up great. I can't say it was particularly easy but who wants easy right?

[Saddlestrum]

You know I built a table top jewelry armoire a few years ago and the drawer stock wasn't quite 1/8 but it was probably 3/16 and I did dovetail the joints. It was fun and I had to go out and buy a model making saw to do it but considering these pieces receive very little serious stress the joints are holding up great. I can't say it was particularly easy but who wants easy right?

I AM impressed! Considering how I wrestle with dovetail fitment on 3/4`stock, I cannot imagine working on 3/16 material. Any photos you can post for us ham-fisted workers.

[Pete Bennett]

If you cut mitres and glue them they are not always that strong because of the end grain effect. Recently I had a similar problem, not with tiny boxes I hasten to add, but, what I did was to cut and glue up the mitres, then with them firmly clamped on all sides I made thin saw cuts at dovetail angles across the corners, being careful not to break through to the inside, (I'm afraid that's about the only way I can describe them) and glued in slithers of veneer in a contrasting wood. Once planed and smoothed they were not only effective in strengthening the joints they looked pretty decorative and deliberate. That's what I told the client anyhow.

I like the idea of tiny dovetails, but, not quite so keen on doing them though in such thin stock. Most of my drawer sides are around 10mm about 3/8ths and that's quite thin enough.

Pete

PS what are electronic cigarettes?

[PaulMarcel]

If you cut mitres and glue them they are not always that strong because of the end grain effect. Recently I had a similar problem, not with tiny boxes I hasten to add, but, what I did was to cut and glue up the mitres, then with them firmly clamped on all sides I made thin saw cuts at dovetail angles across the corners, being careful not to break through to the inside, (I'm afraid that's about the only way I can describe them) and glued in slithers of veneer in a contrasting wood. Once planed and smoothed they were not only effective in strengthening the joints they looked pretty decorative and deliberate. That's what I told the client anyhow.

I like the idea of tiny dovetails, but, not quite so keen on doing them though in such thin stock. Most of my drawer sides are around 10mm about 3/8ths and that's quite thin enough.

Pete

PS what are electronic cigarettes?

that's interesting. I like the look of those. I saw them on a box Frank Klausz did for the inside of a jewelry box. When I pulled it out and said I liked it, he said "yes, that's very French". Who knew.

[Beechwood Chip]

what I did was to cut and glue up the mitres, then with them firmly clamped on all sides I made thin saw cuts at dovetail angles across the corners, being careful not to break through to the inside, (I'm afraid that's about the only way I can describe them) and glued in slithers of veneer in a contrasting wood.

Something like this?

[Pete Bennett]

Not quite mine were just slithers of veneer set in at similar angles to the edges of dovetails, but, that idea looks real interesting and certainly would be on stock only an 1/8" thick!

[Pete Bennett]

that's interesting. I like the look of those. I saw them on a box Frank Klausz did for the inside of a jewelry box. When I pulled it out and said I liked it, he said "yes, that's very French". Who knew.

Well? I certainly didn't but, perhaps I'm beginning to soak up much more 'French' than just the vino.

Pete

[jHop]

I'd look into the model railroading suppliers for tools. I know they have smaller razor saws, and usually cut materials as small as 1/64" thick. (Usually it's a form of strip styrene, but it can get tiny.)

Some of the suppliers would be hobby shops, Atlas (although they usually deal with trains and train cars), Model Railroading Magazine (published by Kalmbach Publishing. Got a link for you, leads directly to their advertisers links. http://mrr.trains.com/en/Magazine/Advertising%20Links.aspx)

you might check with a couple model shops if you don't know where the hobby shops are locally. The shops around here don't usually stock these tools, but they carry the stuff to cut up and the miter gauges for them. I know you can order some of these razor saws, but I don't know how much they go for.

[Bahnzo]

I think what I'm going to do at this point is just simply use my Black and Decker rotary to round the edges to give it a better look. I just finished building a little router table that has a cool little fine adjustment setup that *should* work very well for this purpose. I'd love to do something more advanced, but the thin stock makes even a miter joint pretty difficult. Butt joints on something this small seems plenty strong, I'm looking really for something more decorative to add to the look and Beechwood Chip's suggestion of rounding edges seems best for me right now.

[jHop]

Just received a catalogue in the mail from Micromark. On page 2 of this catalogue, they have an ad from MicroLux for minature power tools. One of the tools is a jig / scroll saw, that has a cutting thickness of 9/32". The tool is under $60.

Later in the catalogue, there's a 4" circular saw blade (listed for dremel table saws only) called a jewelers slotting saw, for under $30. These are thin kerf, with a cut listed as "a mere .070" wide."

Figured you might appreciate this information, if not adding tools that have a limited (trying to avoid the word "smaller") area of use in the shop.

Here's a link to the Saw blade section of Micro-Mark's website: http://www.micromark.com/Saw-Blades-and-Cut-Off-Wheels.html

(By the way, here's a link to a photo that I took one look at and realized that the marketing people have never used power tools... http://www.micromark.com/RS/SR/Product/80605_R.jpg )

[flairwoodworks]

Not the nicest dovetails I've ever cut, but some of the smallest.

[Mister Pants]

You know I built a table top jewelry armoire a few years ago and the drawer stock wasn't quite 1/8 but it was probably 3/16 and I did dovetail the joints. It was fun and I had to go out and buy a model making saw to do it but considering these pieces receive very little serious stress the joints are holding up great. I can't say it was particularly easy but who wants easy right?

Could you expound on this a bit? Where'd you find the saw and were there any specific challenges with it? I'm currently in the process of designing exactly the same thing (table top jewelry armoire), and I've been struggling thinking about the joinery. I was thinking of a box joint as I wasn't sure how to go about dovetailing the drawers.

[Bahnzo]

Could you expound on this a bit? Where'd you find the saw and were there any specific challenges with it? I'm currently in the process of designing exactly the same thing (table top jewelry armoire), and I've been struggling thinking about the joinery. I was thinking of a box joint as I wasn't sure how to go about dovetailing the drawers.

I could expand a bit, perhaps. A model maker's saw is more commonly called a Razor saw. It has like 60tpi and cuts very fine. I know Woodcraft has them.