joshuallen

I was thinking how I'd make something like this with hand tools. What I'd do is cut the channels with a grooving plane or router plane, then on the tapered ones, taper the surface a millimeter with a handplane. I'd probably do away with the complicated rail system, and just make three jigs, one with the flat 7mm depth, one with the depth tapered from 7 to 5 and do that in one pass. I'd just plane down until they were nearly flush. and the edge one. I guess I'd just eyeball the tapers on the fat end :)

I really love this modification.

My son suggested we make the sheathes doggy chew toys, which I take as an insult to my craftsmanship XD He's only 7. He loves the actual knives and has already created elaborate backstories for them.

As long as the neck feels right, the rest is details.

No, I was totally serious! I once described it that way to a guitar player (not a maker) and he got mad at me. I appreciate and enjoy some of the classic electric guitar forms, but the reality is that there is nothing magical about them. A rectangular block of wood can produce as good a tone as the most intricately shaped body. In my experience, the pickups make way more difference than the shapes and other things. The wood pickup covers were way more of a pain than plastic ones would have been and they are purely decorative. Most of my other guitars are much simpler than this one, in fact. My goal with the project was to "prove" I could make a guitar that fit a traditional (well, assuming you can call something that only dates back to the 50s traditional) guitar while still put…

No, I was totally serious! I once described it that way to a guitar player (not a maker) and he got mad at me. I appreciate and enjoy some of the classic electric guitar forms, but the reality is that there is nothing magical about them. A rectangular block of wood can produce as good a tone as the most intricately shaped body. In my experience, the pickups make way more difference than the shapes and other things. The wood pickup covers were way more of a pain than plastic ones would have been and they are purely decorative. Most of my other guitars are much simpler than this one, in fact. My goal with the project was to "prove" I could make a guitar that fit a traditional (well, assuming you can call something that only dates back to the 50s traditional) guitar while still putting my own mark on it. Leo Fender's design was all about pragmatism, even down to his choice of wood and his use of a truss rod. The fact that things like swamp ash have become scripture is not due to any real scientific basis. Leo used swamp ash because he liked how it looked and he had a cheap source because it was considered undesireable for cabinet work. I'm much more in the camp of "block of wood with a neck" than anything.

That's basically what it is. The rest is decoration.

Haha, thanks!

Personally, I've found acrylic cuts well with a bandsaw, or even a coping saw if you're careful.

I'm going to take some pics of the finished project that will hopefully give some visual clues to what I'm describing.

Added

I was recently at a pro-woodworker's shop and saw his and got bookshelf envy. They were all dovetailed like Roy Underhill did, but in hardwood. Very nice.

Yeah, I did the top two with dowels, but I always have trouble getting dowels to align just right, personally. I think dowels would definitely do the trick if you are better at them than me. I decided just to see how it went and so far no problems. Plus without dowels it's much easier to just grab the boxes when you want to move them around. A couple battens across the back screwed into place might do the trick, too.

There are lots of ways. Two battens running top to bottom on the back (maybe use 1x2s or something similar) with screws at regular intervals. Screwing the shelves together would be okay. Metal braces across the shelves. Dowels to join them. You could even rework the design a little so that the top of one locked into the bottom of the other and drive screws into the overlap.

Yeah, that's a good suggestion. I made that change.

Was that some kind of cooler or something that you bought? I saw it with the Pepsi logo but I'm not sure I've seen anything like that around.

Long time listener, first time caller. :)