Monday May 13 - Fitting Band Boards

As it happens, the work is not perfectly flat! Don’t know if it is a thermal coefficient of expansion “fight” between the Maple and the Advantech or what.

Anyway, today, I completed the band board prep. Details below!

I decided on the stop board method with finger check, loosening the clamp if necessary to bring tops of band board into alignment with counter top. Then a tap with the rawhide mallet and a trip to the drill press.

End board being fitted . . .

. .  . and marked for miter saw cut . . .

. . . with the first cut just a smidgen long (“leave the line”).

Drilling side holes using dowling jig.

(Important tip: If you have screws in the countertop, don’t try to drill through them! It really does a number on the drill bit!)

Once again, using rawhide mallet so as to not mar the wood.

Once the side band board is cut, the process of fitting the miter corners begins. The key is patience – you can always cut more off but I haven’t found a supplier for 

“grow-some-board”

When you get really close, with the power miter box, you can swing the blade down (not running), bring the work right up to the side of the blade, hold it there while you make a cut. David and I call this “kissing the wood” – takes a very small amount of wood off.  This whole process may take 8-12 trips to the power miter box per corner, but its worth it when you get that perfect fit!

Ready to glue up side pieces! Now that all four corners have perfect fits, time to glue the side pieces. A cotton swab is perfect to wet the holes. The flat wood is again wet with the acid brush.

Here’s the piece with the two side pieces glued and clamped. The dark areas are just damp with water used to remove excess glue. 

Since the grain on the side pieces runs with the grain on the counter top, I can have it attached when I do my final passes with the belt sander.

I’ll clamp the belt sander into a woodworking vice to create a table belt sander and use that to dress the end pieces down to final fit.

Next: Gluing end pieces and final finish sanding with orbital sander.