Inside Phil's Bunker
Cutting the fingers and assembling the box
The next steps are standard Incra LS operations. For simplicity, the detail of these operations is omitted.
Blanks laid out ready to be cut.
Note that the width is slightly short of 4 5/8” (about 1/64”).
After cutting the fingers, a test fit. Note the 3/8" finger. While it looks like the right piece is wider than the left, that is just another piece sticking out from beneath.
Test fit of whole box. Looks good.
Sides with stopped dados for the bottom.
Glue up in progress. Note the cauls. These are used to place clamping pressure directly on fingers to make for a very tight joint. Creation of custom cauls is supported by pyRouterJig and will be covered in a later tutorial.
Top glued on, sanded and ready to cut the lid off. The moment of truth approaches!
In this picture, you can see that we are lined up at the top of the 3/8” finger.
Safety note: before attempting this cut, do your homework. There are a number of ways to do this safely. Read up on proper techniques before making this cut.
Here’s our box with the lid cut off. Note that the fingers all have uniform size, precisely what we were aiming for. Also, mineral spirits were wiped on to show the tightness of the joints. While this is due in part to the accuracy of the Incra LS Positioner it is also due to the use of customized clamping cauls which allowed us to place clamping pressure directly on the fingers.