This week, six projects worth sharing — small experiments that kept pointing me toward the next one.
World's 1st? 360° Box Joint Jig
I've designed and built many types of box joint jigs over the years. This time, I tried to set aside the usual concept and came up with one you can move in any direction, a full 360°, while you cut. The structure is very simple: just three pieces of wood and an indexing pin. I think there's still a lot of potential in this jig.
7 Creative Woodworking Ideas
This week I also put out a video that brings together the jigs I've made recently. If you missed any of them, it's a good chance to go back and review.
Can a Chisel Be a Plane?
I wondered whether a chisel could work like a plane, so I went ahead and set one into a plane body. It actually worked, and it produced proper shavings, just like in the video. Fine-tuning how far the blade sticks out turned out to be harder than I expected, though. (The chisel is from Temple Tools.)
Trying a New Wave-Shaped Router Bit
I tried a new router bit from @microjig. After setting the bit height with a jig that finds the center of the stock, I machine one side, then flip the piece over and machine the other side. That creates a wavy joint surface. It doesn't just give you more glue surface. The two profiled faces interlock, so the pieces don't slide around during glue-up. This time I made a small test piece first. Next, I'd like to check how well it holds up, for example by getting it wet. It looks like it could be used in many other ways too, and I think it will widen what I can make.
Dowel Pin Latch Idea
I'd been thinking about a mechanism that uses magnet repulsion for a while, and I thought it could work for something like a latch. But repulsion alone would let the dowel slip out, so this time I routed a groove in the side and drove in a short nail as a stopper. Since this was a test to see whether the idea is practical, I used a wooden dowel. I think a thinner metal rod would make it much more practical. It could work not just as a latch but also as a pivot hinge for a door. If you come up with other uses, please let me know!
Choose Your Box Joint Width
The 360° box joint jig I made before was very simple, but the joint width was limited by the diameter of the bit. This time I wanted to make that width much more flexible. Now the width is set by the cut width you choose at the start, so you're no longer tied to the bit diameter. For the second piece, I use the opposite side of the jig to shift the position so the two pieces interlock. If I come up with another interesting approach, I'd like to try it.
A Note from Taku
None of this week's experiments ended with "done, that's it." What if I used a thin metal rod? Would it hold up when wet? Could I try a different width? Every time I tried something, I found more I wanted to try next.
Box joints, too: after trying so many different things, new ideas have come up. I think it's going to get interesting.
Rather than stopping at "finished," I like to keep going until I can see the next step. That's the way of making things I enjoy most.
— Taku and Masa
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