Flag Display Case Times Three

[Chet]

I am starting a project that I have been thinking about for years and for different reasons have been putting of.  My Dad served in WWII in the Navy and my Father in law was a career Navy man and veteran of WWII, Korea And Viet Nam.  I have both of there flags and have wanted to build cases for them both but really wanted to do something a different from the normal looking cases.  I have spent a lot of time thinking about this and worrying that I would finish them and then come up with a better idea... time wasted sort of.  Then this last November my youngest sister lost her husband in a car accident.  He also spent four years in the Navy and then almost 40 more working as a government employee with the Navy in weapons development and that is all he could tell us.  All three of them were true God and Country men.  When my sister asked me to make a case for his flag I figured it was time to get of my duff and do all three at once.

I have come up with some design ideas and made a couple of proto types out of poplar to kind of work out the details and to see if what was in my head would actually look good and work.  All three will be the same and made out of Sapele.  I went to the lumber yard today and got this really nice of 8/4, 10 inches by 12 feet piece.

Did my rough layout and then broke it down using my jigsaw.

Then over to the band saw to rip it to rough width and then resew it to rough thickness.

After that I sticker it all and I am going t let it set for a few days to see if it wants to move in any way.  I honestly don't think it will, while I was breaking it down to this point I didn't get the feeling I was releasing and tension.  But you never know.

[Coop]

Great project Chet! Do you have a sketch of of an idea that you can share with us? 

[Chet]

32 minutes ago, K Cooper said:

Great project Chet! Do you have a sketch of of an idea that you can share with us? 

No I don't Ken.  It kind of went from my head to the proto type and once I was satisfied with that I took it apart to use as set up templates.

[Ronn W]

Keep us posted.  I would love to see the results.

[Chet]

As I mentioned before, one of these flag cases is for my sister" husband's flag.  So besides making the case I thought I would do a photo album of the process for her and her family, so you may see some pictures of steps that most of us know and normally I would not include.

Having said that, after letting things sit for a handful of days the first thing I did was mill the pieces for the two sides and bottom of each case.  I surfaced one face on the jointer the planed to final thickness, after that then did a light pass through the drum sander on each side just in case there is some minuscule snip that I missed.  I very rarely get any off the planer but with the drum sander right there its an easy step to take, then back to the jointer to joint one edge and finally cut to final width on the table saw.  The off cut will be used later down the road for other parts.

Next on the table saw with my cross cut sled  I squared up one end of each side piece.  Then using my miter gauge and setting the blade to 45 degrees, I cut the other end on the side pieces and both ends on the bottom. 

Ending up with three sets that look like this.

Instead of using the traditional miter joints for the three corners of the case I an using box joints.  I was looking for something that was different from the norm and decided to give this a try.

I am cutting the box joints on my router.  Using the jig that came with the router for such tasks I clamped the three right side pieces and a backer board and made the cuts with a 3/8 inch up spiral bit.  Then I did the same thing for the left side pieces and made the mating cuts.

Then I did the same thing on the mitered ends using a jig I made to hold the pieces at 45 degrees to the table.

I used the same jig to cut the mating ends on the base piece,  flipping the base piece end for end to make the second pass.

I had to hit a few spots with a rasp to persuade the fit.

First dry fit.

I used some blue tape to hold each case together so I could pass them through the drum sander to flush all the edges so everything would be on the same plane when I cut the rabbets for the back of the case.

 

 

 

[Coop]

 Chet, will these have a glass front? I like the idea about the blue tape and drum sander.

[Woodenskye]

Great project Chet! 

[treeslayer]

Box joints on a 45, that’s something I haven’t seen, well done sir!

[Chet]

29 minutes ago, K Cooper said:

 Chet, will these have a glass front? I like the idea about the blue tape and drum sander.

Yes, glass for the front, in fact I am thinking of getting the glass with a beveled edge all the way around.

[Coop]

Just don’t use glare proof glass. I tried on a shadow box and it distorts the view. Apparently it is designed to fit against a print or painting. 

33 minutes ago, treeslayer said:

Box joints on a 45, that’s something I haven’t seen, well done sir!

Yeah, that’s a new trick I need to try! Either that or send the pieces to Chet to have them cut right! 

[pkinneb]

Great journal Chet! Like the others I have not seen the box joint on a 45 before...I like it!

[Chet]

I have been working on this while doing some other things but I haven't been getting updates here, so here we go.

I used blue tape and super glue to attach some cauls to the sides for clamps during the glue up.  As it turned out I attached more cauls then I ended up needing but that was better then trying to add them during the glue up.

I used a straw to get the squeeze out from the corners.

All clamped up.  I used Titebond III for two reasons, to give me extra time if I needed and it dries with a darker color so less chance of glue showing in the box joints.

Joints all flushed up and rough sanded.

Next I needed to add a molding to the front for the glass.  I cut a handful of extra pieces not in the picture and I am glad I did.

Before cutting the miters I ran them through the router put a slight chamfer on them.

Okay, here is why I was glad I cut extra pieces for the molding.  When I glued up the cases they all ended up splayed just a little so my top angle wasn't 90 degrees.  This has no visual effect on the project it just made cutting the miters a little challenging.  I didn't have an accurate way of checking the angles so at first I was cutting samples with scraps on a hit and miss basis.  I thought I had it until I cut the first set of molding.  Good thing I had the extra.  But instead of pursuing the correct angles in a madding way I ordered the Starrett gauge for finding miter angles.  Using the arrow on the left for miter cuts,  I had to cut each top angle at 46 instead of 45 degrees.

So on my Incra sled  I set the main gauge to 45 and then using the left side of the secondary gauge I was able to add an extra degree.  If you have to add degrees in numbers that include a half of degree you use the right side of the secondary gauge.

Then on the pieces for the angles on the lower part of the case which were to be cut at 67 degrees I added a triangle piece to create 45 degrees and then set the fence to 22 degrees.  I could have set the fence alone to 67 degrees but the angle was so steep that my cut would have been taking place about six inches past the back edge of the sled.

This was the set up for the 67 degree cuts.  A clamping block holding the triangle and then a hold down holding the molding in place keeping the digits out of the way.

As I finished each set of molding, I taped the pieces to the case so they didn't get mixed up before the glue up.

 

 

 

 

[pkinneb]

Those are looking awesome Chet! Not to mention I have a new tool to add to my xmas list that Starrett gauge would come in handy  

[Chet]

16 minutes ago, pkinneb said:

Starrett gauge would come in handy

I have some kitchen and dinning room work coming up and I know it will get over used on that because I don't think we have a single square corner in this house.  This one is aluminum, they have a plastic one that is quite a bit cheaper but  I was concerned that the plastic might have enough give to it to still through your numbers off.

[treeslayer]

Looks awesome Chet as usual, i might have missed it, are these for some veterans ?

[Chet]

2 hours ago, treeslayer said:

are these for some veterans ?

Yes, My Dad, WWII, my father in law, WWII, Korea & Viet Nam.  And then my youngest sister's husband who was in the Navy and then as a Government Employee with the Navy until he was killed in an automobile accident this last November.  I have my Dads and Father in laws flags.

[Chet]

Got a little more done.

The first thing I did was glue the molding on the fronts.  It was a bit of a clamp fest to make sure things didn't move or shift.

They came out pretty good I ended up with one tiny gap and I am contemplating how I will deal with that.

In the mean time I milled up pieces for the base and then took them to the router to do the box joints.

Couple of shots on the end pieces.

And then the fronts and backs.

I can't explain how it happened and obviously it was my fault, hard to blame anyone else when you are working alone, but three of the end pieces ended up thicker then all the other pieces, maybe a 1/64.  All three came from the same piece of stock.  So to fix it I ran everything through the drum sander for a couple of light passes until everything was the same.  The problem was I didn't want to sent the ends through because they were so small and would probably get flipped by the drum so I blue tape and super glued all of the small pieces to a piece of 1/8 ply and sent them through that way.

Then I glued them up.

And that is were we are at right now.

[Chet]

My apologies, I haven't been keeping up on this.  I am in the finishing stage but according to the journal I am still building so let me get you caught up a little.

After I took the bases out of the clamps, I cleaned up all the box joints with a chisel and then sanded them to 150.  

After that, I cut the top and bottom of the base to final size and added a chamfer all the way around, top and bottom.

Next I wanted to glue a block at each end of the top and bottom piece so that when I do the glue up they self center instead slipping around while I get the clamps on.  I got the top or bottom piece lined up and then put a little clamp pressure on so that things didn't move if bumped while I glued the blocks in place with CA glue.

Final dry fit of the project.

And then in the clamps with glue.

I needed to come up with a way to have the base high enough so I could get clamps on when gluing the case to the base.  I clamped two lengths of 2X4 to the end of my bench.  I set the base on this.  The other thing I was concerned about was glue squeeze out because with the chamfered edge of the case it could be a chore to clean up.  So I laid down a border of blue tape.

Then after getting the glue spread I pulled up the tape.

I did the same on the bottom of the case.  I used a couple of double squares I had set to the distances I wanted the case to be from the side and front edges of the base to line things up quickly and then get the clamps on.  All in all it went pretty well.

 

 

 

[Coop]

Looking real good Chet! Great idea about the blocks and the CA glue. How thick are the top and bottom boards on the stand? 

[Chet]

4 hours ago, K Cooper said:

How thick are the top and bottom boards on the stand?

1/4 inch.

[pkinneb]

Chet you do some really clean work!! Those joints look amazing!

Oh and how about throwing a little sawdust around once in a while so the rest of us don't feel like such slobs in our shops 

[Chet]

1 hour ago, pkinneb said:

Oh and how about throwing a little sawdust around once in a while so the rest of us don't feel like such slobs in our shops 

I will see what I can do, but it really goes against my better judgement.

[Chestnut]

Those flag cases look awesome!! I'm excited to see the final result.

That rubber flooring is nice. One of theses days i should outfit my shop like that.

How does the rubber handle minor finish spills or glue drips?

[pkinneb]

8 minutes ago, Chestnut said:

Those flag cases look awesome!! I'm excited to see the final result.

That rubber flooring is nice. One of theses days i should outfit my shop like that.

How does the rubber handle minor finish spills or glue drips?

He doesn't even let saw dust hit it do you really think its seen glue or finish spills  

FWIW I have the same flooring and had a couple drops of glue hit mine and if you let it get hard it pops right off. I would think if you smeared it not so much. I personally don't have it where I glue or in my finish room.

[Chet]

21 minutes ago, Chestnut said:

How does the rubber handle minor finish spills or glue drips?

9 minutes ago, pkinneb said:

He doesn't even let saw dust hit it do you really think its seen glue or finish spills

I am about to make Paul's day... Saturday when I was putting a coat of shellac on the cases, I had the shellac in a small dixie cup and I knocked it over and some ended up on the flooring.  I wiped it up with some denatured alcohol.  If you look just right you can see a slight sheen but the mat is fine you don't feel a slick spot from the shellac or any other residual effect.  Like Paul said a little drop of glue just pops right off.