I’ve been applying some french polish to the watch case.
I’ve also buffed-up the hinges. Everything is looking nice and silky.
I’m fixing a hole…
I’ve managed to veneer all the surfaces of the watch case. There were many holes and small nicks in the veneer, some of which I was able to repair with matching veneer pieces. The hole in this photo is a natural hole in the wood, so I chose to fill it with different shades of wax filler.
I simply rubbed the wax filler crayon over the hole until it was completely full.
Then I smoothed it off with a cabinet scraper and sand paper.
Here’s the outside of the case with all the holes repaired. Not long to go now until the whole box is finished!
more Omega watch case updates…
I decided to use cramps to hold the base of the box whilst the glue was setting, rather than using the vacuum bag press. This was only really because my bench was covered with bits and pieces, and I didn’t want to spend time clearing it all away and setting up the vacuum pump. Anyway, I came up with this slightly eccentric contraption.
With the base attached I decided to add a small border to the inside curved edge. The pearl glue that I used to attach the ripple ash veneer to the inside is very dark, and left an ugly glue line. I routed around the inside curve to leave a 3mm rebate running around the inside edge. After a bit of experimenting with different thicknesses of walnut border, I sandwiched 7 pieces of walnut veneer and bent them around the curves.
Next was to cut out a recess for the hinges to fit flush in the lid. I agonised with Mark (whose case it will be) over many different methods of hinging. The difficult thing was that he wanted the box to open along the curved edge, and the hinges will only work if the edge is straight. Here’s a photo of the simple solution.
With the hinges accurately attached, the lid moves nicely up and down and has a pleasing weight to it.
Finally for this post, here’s a detail of the hinges. I alway use steel screws whilst I’m working on a piece, as brass ones can easily shear off as they they go in and out. I’ll replace them with brass ones when it attach the lid for the last time. You can also see the walnut border trimmed flush to the surfaces.
watch case update
Here’s an update on the progress of the Omega Constellation watch case I’m making. I’ve made a new carcass out of solid ash rather than MDF. I’m still going to veneer over it, but it made sense to use solid wood as a base as it will make the hinges a bit simpler to fit.
You can see that I’ve made some inserts to split the case into different compartments for each watch. The hinges are high quality quadrant hinges. I still need to cut a deep mortice into the ash carcass to house the arc stay when the lid is closed. You can just see the stays in place on the photo below.
The next step will be to veneer the case with this lush english walnut burr. Stay tuned.
www.danieltomlinson.co.uk
Omega watch case
I’m making a prototype of a case I’ve designed to hold 6 Omega watches. There are a few ways I could go about making this, but I’ve decided to make it out of MDF and then veneer over all the surfaces. This is so I can use a burr veneer, which would be very expensive to make from a solid block.
The first step was to draw a template on a piece of 18mm thick MDF. The curves at the corners have a radius of 35mm, and the curves that join them up at a tangent have a radius of 615mm. Here you can see that I’ve cut the corner curves with a large ‘forstner’ drill bit.
I cut the other curves using a router attached to a trammel. After a bit of tidying the curves up with a sanding bobbin, I cut out a rough shape of the next layer with a jigsaw. I glued the two layers together by clamping them in the vacuum bag press. The bag press is great for giving a strong, even pressure across a large surface area.
The next job was to trim the roughly-cut second layer to exactly follow the curves of the first. The ideal way to do this was to use a bearing guided router bit.
The cutter is exactly the same diameter as the bearing guide on the end, so the cut of the second layer will follow the guide which is set to the first layer.
After glueing up a few more layers, each using the previous layer as a template, I cut the outside curves on the bandsaw. The next step is to attach the veneer…
king-size bed
Here are 2 photos of the king-size bed I’ve just finished making. It’s made from ash, with laminated beech sprung slats. The legs and rails are all reassuringly chunky, so I added curves to soften the look. I hope you like it!
invisible bed bolts
I’m making two double beds out of ash. I need to be able to take them apart to deliver them. Here’s a photo of one of the back legs with the side rail attached.
I’m using my Festool Domino jointer to dowel joint the legs and side rails.
The dominos guide the rails into the correct position on the leg, and also provide support strength. I’m going to pull the joint together with a nut and bolt, but I don’t want it seen from the front. Firstly I drilled a hole into the end of the rail for the bolt to go into. It’s important that this is perpendicular to the end face. I use this little drill jig to make the hole as accurately as I can.
I can then transfer the position of the hole to the leg using this centre marker. It’s diameter is the same as the hole I’ve just drilled.
Here it is in place. I just push the leg against it to get the centre mark I need,
Once I’ve drilled the corresponding hole in the leg I screw in the bolt head using a hex key.
I then screw in the bolt, which is actually a threaded bar, into the bolt head and push the joint together. I’ve drilled a larger hole part of the way through the inside of the rail to reveal the hold I drilled earlier that the bolt sits in. You can see the half-moon washer inside the larger hole with a nut to pull the whole joint together.
www.danieltomlinson.co.uk
