Back in the shop again, and today I was focused on the task of figuring out solutions.
First was how to get my large box cut to cut at the correct depth. This was a pretty simple one. It took a little examining of my jig and adjusting of my router and then suddenly I had a correctly depthed large box cut.
Next was learning the correct technique to prevent tearout of box joint teeth in whole or in part. This also turned out to be simple but required some patience. At first, I was was using my router at full depth and at full speed. I thought the speed might be the solution but in reality it was the depth. I slowly plunged the router bit in and gradually cut material away and then I had no problem with tearout of any kind.
Lastly, fix what I broke – where the tearout happened. I lost pieces of teeth and whole teeth. The whole teeth are easy as I made a prototype so I can just steal a tooth from there and replace a tooth. The partial tearouts are harder because they often happen below the teeth line so they take some creative piecing together. I’m still working together. After I get them glued together it will be a matter of sizing them to the proper size without ruining my hard work. Of course all of this has to be done while trying to make it look like it belongs there naturally. Quite a trick!
This is fun and interesting though it’s very slow work.