Another day, another glue up . . . .

 Last time it was the back, this time it's the front . . . cherry and figured maple

 The finished product with some mineral spirits after flattening out the strip and 120 sanding . . . . .

And for good measure the back with mineral spirts . . . but unsanded, it has a bit of a bow and one of the cherry backsides is still rough cut so it needs to be flattened first. Debating wether to go 'old school' and trying a number 5 plane or finish my router jig first and use that for flattening . . . .

Any ideas yet ???

Start of a new . . . . . . .

Ok so this is the start of something new . . . . and not so new . . . so maybe that's somewhat new . . . partly new . . .

flattening edge

Routing for parallel edge

So I don't own a jointer . . . nor do I space for one and I currently don't have a router setup for jointing so this is how I join non-dimensional wood to make a larger panels . . . and it generally works well . . . although it does definitively require test fitting and fine tuning on occasion to get the best results possible. And even then the seams are not always 'perfect', but you have to inspect to work pretty closely to see that.

Always check . . . even if you KNOW

Checking for length

Accent strips in place

First glue up

And I did NOT have a piece of walnut quite long enough so it has a join as well . . . . this was made by cutting both pieces at a 45° angle, putting them together and recutting the join which makes both sides equal, checking and redoing if needed . If done carefully this does make for a perfect join and using a razor saw the amount of material removed if the fit is close but not prefect is minimal.

REALLY leveling accent strips

Leveling accent strips

Planes have been a fairly recent addition to the workshop ... they save a LOT of sanding but I'm still learning how to fettle them . . . and yes this is were the expression 'in fine fettle' seems to come from. A good level is flat (to within 0.005 I think in this case) so it makes for a nice - if somewhat narrow - sanding beam.

Cutting some cherry to length

So That's nice but not nearly wide enough so some cherry. I've had this (and the maple for the middle) laying around for a year+ so it's as dry and stable as it's going to get at this point I think. If you haven't tried a japanese style pull saw get and try one . . . it's worth it and you may sell your western style (push) saws after using one for a while . . .

Next glue up

24" clamps aren't cheap, but they do come in handy .. .. ..
. . . edit: Oops those are 36" . . . . .

One (mostly) finished back laminate

And one 'finished' panel for the back, it still needs flattening on the inner side but it was 4 o'clock so it was time to clean up) . . . next time the front panel . . . the weather was nice here this last weekend so the door was open . . . Below the panel is a 2 x 4 ft board with cork being banded with hawthorne as a pin up board for our 'school room' (and it'll also cover a hole in the wall were a cadet wall heater used to be installed).