A Study in Assembly

10/1/16

For this exercise I learned about the preparation of a material from raw board through to final assembly and finishing. In the study I was working on making a small desk bookshelf. I started with 2 linear feet of 4/4 poplar wood that that still even had the bark from the tree on it.

(insert raw wood picture)

This exercise began with a lecture about the materiality of the wood and understanding the natural tendencies of the wood to warp in certain ways and under certain conditions. There are so many different factors that can affect the way that your piece of wood behaves. From the species of wood, to the age, to the level of humidity the space where it is being stored, or just the way that it grew originally (was it straight up, at an angle, on a hill, or intertwined with another tree?) These things all impact how it will behave even after being cut into standard sized boards. I learned that I could cut a piece and it might just allow the wood enough give to revert back to its natural tendencies of curvature and potentially warp again or split over time because of this. As the person crafting with this material it is so crucially important to have a thorough understanding of the species and the way that it grew. To understand from looking at a raw board if it will be able to be worked in the intended way after finishing and cutting to size is something that takes time to learn and develop an eye for. Every piece of wood is different and individual in its characteristics, so the craftsperson has to have a deep knowledge of materiality and strong intuition in regards to the tendencies of their medium, one that cannot really be measured in any way, to be able to craft a piece in the way that they intend.

I started by using the chop saw to cut down my piece of wood from the ends to roughly to the length that I wanted.

I then moved on to use the jointer. This started by selecting the appropriate wide face to begin surfacing. I learned that one should always start with the more concave side down, so that the edges are both evenly on the surface allowing the board to stay steady and the blades to trim the wood just enough to give an even flat surface.

After a few passes through the jointer I needed to test my wood by placing the piece on the open area of the jointer table and pressing on a corner and making sure it didn’t rock. At this point I still had some rough spots on the wood, but that was ok as long as it was level. I repeated the process of leveling the piece on the other edges until they were even as well. Next I took my wood to the planer to work down the opposite rough side of the piece until it was as smooth as the jointed side.

This was a fairly simple process as I mostly just had to feed the wood into the machine and make sure that I had the blade height set correctly. I continued removing material after the first pass through the machine, but alternated sides so that I was working toward the middle of the board equally. This was again to make sure that I avoided any warping or distortion that I might be enabling by cutting down the material. I repeated this process until I achieved a thickness of about 7/8 of an inch. I then let the wood rest overnight with good air circulation around all sides of it. This lets the wood adjust to its new condition. I was advised that if it is going to warp on you — this is when it will do it. After letting the wood breathe overnight I repeated the planer process until the wood was ¾ of an inch thick.

The next phase of the process involved cutting my finished board down into the three pieces that I would assemble together for the bookshelf. To get very accurate straight cuts for this I would need to use the table saw. This part of the process required not only a thorough understanding of the nature of the material, but also of the tool as the table saw is where the majority of all woodshop accidents occur and it can be one of the more intimidating and dangerous tools to work with. An awareness of one’s surroundings as well as the way in which the wood is setup to be cut is very important here to avoid personal injury or kickback of the wood, which would ruin your wood and potentially injure a bystander. I also had personal experience with this, as a few years ago when working with a table saw in a different woodshop I was hit by a piece of wood that I was cutting due to kickback from the machine and an improper cutting technique.

I started by setting the fence on the saw for 6 inches and cut the board to that width, this was a rip cut. I then changed to a cutting box tool to help me stabilize the wood that I was cutting for my cross cuts on the piece. This was helpful since the blade is moving so fast it has the potential to pull the wood from your hands and that could be very dangerous. It was also important for me to understand the difference between rip cuts and cross cuts for this exercise, with rip cuts being to make a cut parallel to the wood grain and cross cuts being perpendicular to the grain. Again a knowledge of the nature of the tool was important here because when measuring my pieces I needed to account for the blade width which I would lose when cutting down my board. There was a lot of measuring and re-measuring and checking again to make sure that I avoided any human error in measurement when cutting the piece.

While there was a bit more wiggle room with the exact lengths of the pieces that I was cutting this time because of the nature of the design that I was trying to create, it was important for me to aim to create parts that were within 1/16” plus or minus of the target dimension. I learned that this is called ‘tolerance’ and is an important concept in the process of making things according to plan.

The next step in the process was to learn how to make a dado cut on the router. I had to select the correct straight bit for my board thickness and learn how to safely install the bit into the machine. There were tons of different bits to select from and again a knowledge of the tool and all of its components and inner workings of the motor were important here because everything had to be changed manually. The craftsperson needs a full understanding of the material, tool, and process to achieve what they wanted for the piece. I set the fence on the table so that I would cut the dado from the edge according to the drawing.

After making the dado cuts my boards were still just a bit too thick to fit into the dados, so I used the power sanders to shape the boards until they fit.

The next phase of the process involved drilling the holds into the board so that I could screw together the pieces and ensure a secure fit. I had to mark the locations of all six holes on the board in pencil with a cross. This was on the side opposite the dado. I then used an awl to make a small divot at each point to guide the drill into. I learned how to use the drill press during this phase and once again had to not only understand the material, but also the inner workings of the machine so that I could change the belt to adjust speed as well as properly install different drill bits. I began by installing the forstner bit and set the depth gauge so that I would create a .25 inch deep cut at all the marked locations. I then replaced the bit with the 5/32” twist bit and drilled through the holes at all of the previous locations. I pressed the appropriate board into each dado and aligned so the edges were as flush as possible and then using the square bit screwdriver, I drove the screws for that board in as far as they would go.

Using the tapered plug cutter, I then cut 6 plugs into the leftover board.

I Set the fence on the band saw so that I would cut out plugs about 3/8” long.

I then decided on the orientation and location of the plugs to be with the grain on the boards so that after I sanded them down they would blend into the wood as much as possible. I glued in the plugs and then used a flush cut saw to make them almost even with the surface of the board. Using the sanding block, I sanded the plugs completely flush. This part of the process was interesting because it was a bit of an exercise in deception. Though there were screws holding the shelf together, it looked like it was a perfect piece of wood joinery with none of the metal showing, just entirely made from one material. This is part of the reason that I was a bit hesitant about combining the screw and tray to the piece made on the lathe later on because it showed the metal joinery. Is it better to hide or celebrate connections in a piece or should it be seamless? I often come back to the ideas of seams and seamlessness in my writing and analysis of design. Does the material contribute to the appropriateness of hiding or revealing the seams?

Finally to complete my piece, I sanded down the sharp corners on all edges and flat surfaces to eliminate any visible saw marks and give the piece a soft finish.

Overall, in the process of making this bookshelf I learned a great deal about understanding the material. A craftsperson has to have a very innate sense of the medium they are working in and it is very important to work with the tendencies of the wood or other material and use them to your advantage, rather than to work against them. I also learned about the need to be able to adjust and reevaluate the plan and process as you go. In woodworking there is a lot of estimation and measuring involved, but there is no guarantee that a piece is exactly replicable each time. All pieces will behave differently and outcomes will change with regard to skill and level of detail taken by the craftsperson. Even in just this exercise my classmates and I were all following the same directions and using the same machines, but we all came out with slight variations in our pieces that were specific to the craft style of each of us individually.