so in this weeks build video ive go a projectfor making a dice tower this would make an excellent christmas giftits not to late to knock one out this year 2015 and it took me about 1.5 hours to knock thisout ive got a few glueing tricks that are goingto speed up the workflow but still give you
easy wood projects for gifts, good strength long term for this project and then coming up in the next couple of daysmy wife suggested after i made this that we have something that would capture the diceas they come out so i made a tray that also acts as a lid sothat when you store it its a nice little decorative
box that you store just about anywhere youwant here is a quick video of the thing workingbefore we get to the project video i started off this project by raiding my scrapbin trying to find anything i felt would meet the rough dimensions i wanted for this project i was looking to make the box about 8in tall3 to 3.5 in wide and about inch and a half deep or so and i am looking for boards that are aboutthe same thickness that will allow me to maintain that kind of rough shape. i landed on some curly maple and nice boardof walnut
once i plained them to the same thickness i went ahead and ripped a straight edge. because these were scrap boards i knew theyhad a pretty straight edge already so i just ran them over the table saw. this curly maple is also pretty problematicfor a jointer when its thin like this it has a tendency to tear out because parts of thatare end grain that are going over the jointer so the table saw actually gives a cleanercut now im going to square up one edge of thiswalnut board and confirm my length
i was looking for something that was about16 in this one ended up at 15 5/8ths in which was ok because i actually needed anopening at the bottom for the dice to roll out so because the front side is shorter thenthe back side this worked out, i just adjusted my length to 8 inches and the off cut justended up being the front piece without any additional cuts needed and the maple strips down he side will bethe same length i know this looks like the maple might betouching the fence down there at the end… it is not so safety police feel confident that i amnot doing anything wrong
and guys i'm trying out a new formati am not doing as much fast forward i'm trying to give you some realtime video let me know in the comments do you like thisformat? do you want more of it? do you prefer just the fast forward videos? or do you likethe cut aways where you can see more specific steps? so now im ripping the pieces i have cut tolength down to their 1 and a half inch thickness and there i was kind of looking to see wherethe best chatoyance was on the curly maple that way i save the nicest piece and im cuttingoff the piece that might have less of the curly figure
now i have got and extra piece that i havehere and this is going to make the paddles on the inside that the dice are going to bounceoff of. and the way i set that angle is i kind ofjust laid a piece of maple against the side and the walnut to see what looked right andmarked the angle with a pencil and then took that over to the mitersaw and set the anglebased on the pencil mark the bottom piece is going to be what kicksthe dice out of the dice tower and i'm marking the width here. i am going to sneak up on this cut. want thetwo 45s to point into each other so that it will sit flat on the bottom and the back of the dice tower
settings my blade to 45 degrees here for thebottom cuts and i'm adjusting the fence so that i cutright on the edge having a push block here is pretty important.for me this is not the type of cut i am comfortable with pushing through by hand i actually cut my reference mark off so imgoing to go ahead and mark that again now that i have a nice sharp edge to mark against i am using a piece of the walnut to make surethat ihave those boards exactly on the edge i want this to be a nice tight fit you are going to see this its at the bottomwhere the dice come out so spend a little
extra time making sure that that joint istight by sneaking up on the fit quick note with the miter saw: i don't knowif anyone else saw is this way but when i plunge straight down i get a slight waiverin my cut but if i pull the saw all the way out, thendown, then back in to make the cut i get a square cut hear i am cleaning up the smaller pieces justusing the sand paper to get a true square edge and it also takes care of any tear out now for the bottom side i did just use woodglue
but the down side with that is the dry timewith a standard wood glue is pretty long for a project like this with a project like this that is not goingto be sat on or stood on you don't need it to be tough as nails so what im actually going to recommend isthat you put a few dabs of ca glue, or super glue, on the top middle and bottom of thebonding surfaces and spread regular wood glue on the rest of the joint then when you put the board down the ca glueis going to hold it tight like a clamp while the wood glue dries.
this is going to give you all the strengthof regular wood glue but the convenience of caglue being able to speed the project along especially if you are trying to make thisfor a christmas present anything that can save you a couple of hoursin the shop waiting on glue to dry is a good thing todo. i spread glue along the bottom and the sideof the paddles now that the bottoms dried i'm going to comeback with a chisel and clean up any squeeze out to ensure we have a nice flat glueingsurface and now i'm switching gears to use the methodi spoke about earlier with the ca glue
the left side here, i am actually going abit over board with the ca glue and you will see ijust remembered i had the wood glue touse use a thin amount of glue, you don't wanta lot of squeeze out to have to clean up on the right side i remembered and this isthe method i recommend a few drops of caglue to hold it down andregular wood glue in-between and this is the best method for small projects ihave found a quick spray of activator to speed up thecure time of the ca glue now its time for sanding this will take care of any inconsistenciesin the panels if they shifted during glue
up and it preps it for the finish don't forget to sand a little on the inside again thats going to be a pretty visible partof the project sand with the grain if you sand against it, or across it it willleave scratch marks that are difficult to remove now wipe everything down and use some spraylacquer this is a clear semi-gloss finish
which i think gives it a nice appearance for me the trick is lots of light coats andlight sanding in-between thanks for watching please subscribe for morevideos and coming up next week will be the tray slashlid video