My Journey in Writing, Ranting, and Woodworking

The jury is back from their deliberations.  They have found that those helpful readers who suggested I try tape for my tiny box glue up, were right on the mark.  This was my third tiny box glue up and all the seams look really nice.  Thanks for the tip gang!

For those of you who are not aware of the tape of the box method, I will break it down for you.

Step 1:  line the pieces up so that the grain runs the length of the box.  When the box is glued up, the grain will run around the edges and look really cool.  Those who notice this detail will think you are extraordinary clever.  They will likely want to heap praise upon you, which will feel nice, so it is definitely worth the effort.

Step 2:  Use packing tape, as it holds really well and doesn’t leave much residue.  Cut a tiny piece of tape and place it over the edges of each piece.  There are three seams which will get tape initially, as the fourth seam isn’t taped until after the glue is applied.

Step 3:  Eat cookie.

Step 4:  After checking that there aren’t any cookie crumbs in the way, apply the glue to the bevel edges, not the bottom of the box, as the bottom should ‘float’.  You should let the box float for two reasons, everyone told me to (now I am telling you), and it will allow for wood expansion.

Step 5:  Fold the box together and clean up any squeeze out.  Apply a piece of tape across the last seam.

Step 6:  This may be overkill, but I then applied two clamps across the box, for added pressure.  Since the box turned out so well, I think I will do it in the future.

I let the box sit for about an hour and a half, but that is because I ran into Cedar Rapids to buy some cheese and sand paper.  It is probably fine to remove the tape and clamps after about 30 minutes.  When I was done I ran each box face over some 400 grit sandpaper and then used the burnisher to round the edges.

It should be noted that before I glued up the box, I sanded each piece to 400 grit, so the after glue up, the additional sanding was merely to remove the slight stickiness from the tape.

The next step is to sand the remaining 11 boxes and glue them up.  This is a lengthy process and requires a lot of TV and cookies, but I am up for it.  Of course, I will need to hustle and get through this step as quickly as possible, as nobody wants to read 11 more blogs about gluing up tiny boxes.  So I better get back to work.

Jury Dismissed.