Check back later

I know I said I would update this site, but I am busy.  Check back later tonight to see the lamp progress.  It just might be done if I can get out of work at a reasonable hour.

Lamp

Todays project: The Asian Inspired Wood Shade Lamp

So I needed a project to have a reason to fine tune some of the tools in the shop.  The project needed to push the limits of accurate table saw joinery, test the table saw fence for parallel, check the bandsaw tracking, test the jigsaw ... and look awesome.  The resulting project - "The Lamp, V2".

Why V2?  Because "The Lamp V1" is pictured on the home page, and I have already finished it.

The Design

Basically the lamp is made of three distinct components.  The vertical members, the horizontal members, and the shade.  The vertical and horizontal members are joined using multi level finger joints, and the shade sits in a narrow dado cut in the inside of the perimeter frames of each side of the lamp.

Challenges

The first challenge was cutting the cherry rails and styles down to size and surfacing them (without a jointer). To do this:

1. I built a jig that sits square against the table saw fence and holds the material firm
2. Installed an oversized piece of material in the jig and cut one side flat
3. Rotated the material 90 degrees and cut another side flat
4. With two flat sides, I removed the jig and adjusted the table saw fence to the desired width
5. Referenced the two clean sides off of the fence and saw deck to make the third side parallel
6. Rotated the work another 90 Degrees and made the final side parallel.

Next was the Joinery

1. I took some of the extra pieces I machined to size and measured for one half the width and depth (they are square)
2. Set up the dado blade to cut the measured amount of material and removed the material from two of the extra pieces
3. Adjusted the blade as necessary
4. Cut all the joinery using jigs, set up blocks, and trial and error

A this point I dry assembled the pieces to check the accuracy of the saw.  The blade was adjusted about 0.5 degrees from vertical, so my pieces had a parallelogram shape to them.  This was adjusted for and the parts we re-cut.

The next challenge was cutting the Birdseye Maple veneer.  

1. I went to Rockler woodworking and hardware on mass ave.
2. I purchased maple veneer

Sizing the veneer was easy using a square and an exacto knife.

With the veneer cut to size, next up was machining the dados in the lamp frame.

1. First up was the measuring stage
2. I transfered the dimensions and positions onto the frame
3. The red blades in the saw cabinet are thin kerf blades (kerf is the description of the width of the saw) the cut a 1/8" dado
4. Cutting this dado in the horizontal components was easy as the cut extends through non-visible sides of the wood
   
   1. Using the fence as a reference and a push stick, I fed the part all of the way through the blade 
5. The vertical components proved to be a challenge as the cut could not go through the ends since they are visible.
   1. I clamped a block to the fence at the start and end of the cut allowing the blade to kiss the end of the workpiece but not penetrate
   2. With the blade as low as possible, I placed the wood over the blade, engaged the saw, and slowly raised the blade to the desired height by counting the handle revolutions (the blade is hidden in the wood)
   3. I then moved the workpiece along the fence until I approached the other block

With all of the parts cut to size, I began gluing the components together (not including the shade veneer)

Still to come:

• Final Assembly
• Final Sanding
• Base Design
• Lamp Installation