Thought i'd start a thread here on working with timber, some of these methods may seem time consuming, but if you want good results your've got to pay the price.

Feel free to enter more good ideas for fabrication. be it steel or wood

Here's a few in no particular order.

1/ Throw away the Tape measure, if you want accurate work you need accurate measurements, buy a cheap steel rule at least 600mm long, still miles better than a tape.

2/ Mark accurate cuts with a knife, this does 2 things a knife cut is a lot more accurate than a pencil line (i still use a pencil, when it's not real critical) and if you score right around the piece you want to cut than you lessen the chance of breakout (chips). i just use a cheap stanley knife (carpet knife with replaceable blades) i tilt the knife slightly to make a square cut on the work side taking into account the sharpened bevel on these blades, means i can use the same blade to mark out on the left or right of a square or straightedge. this leaves a vertical cut on the workpiece on the good side otherwise it would tend to cut a V.

3/ Know your tools, a table saw will cause breakout on the bottom of the cut, a hand held circular saw will cause breakout on the top. A jigsaw can do it either side depending on the type of blade used (upcut or downcut - upcut is more common) - also know how the tools work best, a router likes getting fed into timber that will push the workpiece against a fence, feeding from the wrong side will pull the work off the fence. DON"T PULL THE TIMBER BACKWARDS THRU A SPINNING SAW! this could grab and kickback, and when it does usually the first thing in-line is the family jewels

4/ work to your skill level, dovetails might look nice, but if you havn't picked up a chisel before than stick to something easy. can't cut a straight joint? then devise a method of hiding it, a small strip of timber over a joint adds character and a bit of strength.

5/ Keep the tools sharp! a blunt saw will increase the effort required to use it, be it power or hand. increasing effort to feed into a cut increases the chance of errors.

6/ USE SAFETY PROTECTION. - like goggles, earplugs/muffs, filter mask with MDF. but steer clear of gloves around power tools, gloves decrease your gripping power and you could slip and a loose glove could also be grabbed by a spinning blade. same goes for long hair and drills ... ouch!

7/ Don't use a tool for what it's not intended for, a chisel is no good for undoing screws (ok it might be, but then it's no good for chiseling) a exemption to this rule might be to sharpen up a small screwdriver to use as chisel to clean out a joint, but then it's not used as a screwdriver again.

8/ Make a jig for a difficult job, ok it might seem wasteful of a lump of timber, but believe me a specially made jig for doing a job makes it that much easier.
a - Crossdrilling round stock - use a V-Block
b - ripping timber - use a purpose built straight edge. an easy one to make is to glue a strip on top of another piece of timber (use nice straight timber) then run the saw down this to rip it to the width of your saw base, it can then be sat on you markout lines for a accurate cut.
c - want to drill a lot of holes a set distance apart use a piece of scrap with the holes drilled in it as a guide, lot more accurate than marking out.

9/ Want to divide a piece of timber into equal parts. use this method, say the piece is 187mm wide and you want 5 equal lines for some reason. think of a number thats divideable by 5 like 200mm sit the ruler at a angle with 0 and 200 lined up on the either edge and mark off from there, lot easier than trying to find 43.25mm or something like that. (use that knife to markout!)

10/ Have a nice sturdy well lit place to work at a comfortable height, even a piece of MDF sitting on the kitchen table (ask the missus first!) is better than balancing on a upturned drum.

11/ Don't be afraid to ask for help, that timber yard could cut the sheets to size for a small price, a friend with power tools is a big bonus.

12/ PreDrill holes for screws, nothing worse than assembling a job and then finding the screws have split the timber. edge screwing into mdf is prone to splitting.

13/ study the timber constuction, timber moves with the seasons (remember that sticky door in the house that jams in winter?, it's the house moving with the seasons) in other words try to keep the grain all running the same way if possible. if you looked at a lump of wood under a microscope (not MDF) you would see little tubes running with the grain, these are what the tree drew nurishment thru, so these tubes expand and contract with the humidity which makes timber expand and contract ACROSS the grain, there is still some lengthways movement, but nowhere near the same.

14/ want a nice finish? damp down the timber a little to lift the grain, then sand it off, does a wonderful job. again it's only for real timber not mdf.

15/ while on the subject of MDF, use a proper MDF primer thats not water based, water based primers will soak into mdf, expand the material splitting joints and such. after you use the correct primer you can paint with whatever you like.

16/ Will your design work? try a cardboard mockup first before you take saw to wood, lot cheaper!

Thats about it for now, will add more later.

Great info, thanks.


peace

RiCoda,

Great Info you posted, but how do YOU do it? I mean those instructions are great for how it's supposed to be done, but what you do is *art*

So when's that masterpiece gonna be finished?

Regards..
Ed

Have to say, what you have going with your projector looks really good.

My addition to the list is....

Draw the plan.
Make drawings, either 1/2 or full scale for novice woodworkers and dimension it. Make sure the numbers all add up and are equal, including thicknesses of the panels themselves.

Cutting guide
Clamp a straight edge to guide the tool for cutting. Let's say you are working with a jig saw. On my jig saw the distance from the edge of the blade to the edge of the shoe (the steel plate) is 33mm. So, I mark my panel, then I back off 33mm and mark it again, this is where I clamp my straight edge. Now I can use the strraight edge as the cutting tool guide and make perfectly straight cut by simply keepinig the shoe against the straight edge.

Assembly
1. Spend a few dollars for clamps. They last a lifetime and are great extra hands.
2. Run a bead of adhesive along the joint line, then clamp, predrill and screw. Provides a structurally solid joint and eliminates light leaks in our case.

Tools
Buy commercial grade tools when you can. Bosch or Porter Cable rather than mass market price point power tools. You will appreciate the difference immediately.

Patience
Take your time, set a few hours aside here and there for woodworking. Try not to steal 30 minutes here and 60 minutes there.

John

Other tips:

1) Don’t measure: It’s more accurate to say don't trust a tape measure over reality. Where ever possible mark out using an already cut piece. Ideally cut identical pieces without changing anything in the setup. I.e. cut the sides, front and back heights in one group, then the widths of the front and back with the top and bottom and then the lengths of the sides and top and bottom.

2) get way more wood than necessary, and don't throw away off cuts. This allows test cuts to be done before having to cut into a side that takes 4+ cuts to remake if it doesn't work how you expected.

Pin a thread called, "Safety and injury", and devote the thread to power tool injury pics. There are a lot of noobs buying saws.

Always keep all fingers and other body parts as far away from the saw blade as possible, If you are cutting a thin peice and need to push it thru a band/circular saw then use a piece of scrap wood to push it thru and guide the wood your cutting strait with your other hand on the part past the saw if possible. I had a friend take off his thumb on a band saw when I was in wood shop in highschool, man that looked painful.

good point.

I saw a mate paint no mans land on his bandsaw and table saw of an area around the sharp cuttin bits, then taught himself not to let the digits enter this area, after a while he reckons it's second nature. he can still count to 10 on his fingers so it must work for him.

another thing is kickback, if your've ever seen a table saw grab a offcut and throw it back you can usually guess which body part is in the firing line, stand to one side of the cutting path of power tools all the time and never try to remove a offcut while the saw is running, poke it away with a stick of scrap or kill the power and wait for the blade to stop.

Hey all, great thread! Since the whole idea of this project is DIY, I would like to try to apply my non-existent woodworking skills and build the box myself. But I want to be realistic about what I can accomplish with my tools/budget. (otherwise, I can go with one of those sweet pre-made boxes that Slusher builds)

I was wondering about the tools necessary to build:


-a straight forward box

with

-a sled for the lcd

and

-a sliding focus box.


I don't have a garage and I don't have room for the larger table saw units I've seen used and I'm worried I may not have what I need to get this done.


Specifically, I'm worried about the groove cuts necessary for creating a frame/sled for the lcd panel.


I have the following tools:


-Cordless Ryobi Drill 9 volt.

-Skil Jigsaw



-Corded Dremel

-A scrap table I can use to clamp various pieces of wood to for cutting, etc.


Would this be enough to accomplish my goals?


thanks for your time!

-J

With the tools you have you wouldn't be able to efficiently route grooves into anything. You could always use aluminum channeling. Others have had good success with that. You could always buy a router and a small router table with a fence. That'd allow you to use a 1/8" bit and route out a channel.

Thanks for the info, Quadmasta! I did a quick search and didn't find anything on aluminum channeling in the forum. Any ideas where I might find info on that?

Also, as far as the Dremel goes, would something like this work? It's a light-duty attachment that turns the dremel into a router..



thanks!

-J

Neato, I have a dremel & haven't seen that yet. Dremels rock! wish I would have had one to mount my glass.

When I built my sled I used sticks of 1/2" X 1/2" X 3' & 5/8" X 5/8" X 3' stock pieces of wood for my railings. Get em @ Home Depot. I used the 5/8" in betweent the rear fresnel & the lcd. Perfect 5/8" spacer... Used the 1/2" pieces on the other sides of the rear fresnel & lcd to hold them into place.

I counter sunk screws into the sticks to hold them to the sled walls. Worked out very well. The design is very similiar to the pics posted in Pyrometman's plog. Will hopefully post pics when I get a camera...

Hey Psylynt, thanks for the tip!

I wasn't even thinking of using two individual pieces to create a channel. DUH Leave it to me to go the route(r..ha ha) of buying $80 worth of tools instead of buying 2 bucks worth of wood at Home Depot

I checked out Pyrometman's plog and he has a very clean, tight set-up. I'll add him to the list of folks to mimic when I finally get my parts together.

I checked for your PLOG, but you don't have one up yet? I'll keep an eye out for it.

thanks again!

-J

Maler23

what you could do to make life a bit easier is ask a lumber yard to cut your sheet to size for the box, they don't charge a lot and do a damm neater job than using your jigsaw to cut sheets. a cabinet maker/joiner could also do any routing for a small fee.

but if you want to do it all yourself i wouldn't buy a router yet, get a circular saw with a fence, with this you could cut the sheets and cut rebates for the lcd, glass etc. might take a bit longer, but a circular saw is a must have for timber work.

I had a question...hopefully this is the right place to ask...

In all the plans the recommended thickness for enclosure materials is HUGE...why is 3/4" material used?

Wouldn't a framed enclosure w/ a thinner 1/4" or even 1/2" sheeting be better? Lighter? Conduct heat better?

Thanks,
Mezmer

I would suspect the thicknesses used would facilitate things like making router grooves, etc, while still maintaining strength of the outer case. Keep in mind, the LCD is pretty fragile; any flex in the housing of the pj would likely be disastrous, and some of the components (like an iron-core ballast) can be pretty heavy. I do think 3/4" is overkill, particularly if one were using solid wood as opposed to plywood, but if you were to use something much lighter/thinner, you would almost have to use a metal frame of some sort, and pay particular attention to the rigidity of it. As for getting rid of heat, wood of any thickness is a notoriously poor conductor of heat; a metal enclosure would work better in that regard, but you'd have to insulate that joker for safety reasons (your pj would be become distinctly unfavorable with the wife if one of the kids burned themselves on the case).