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[Mark Rothstein]

I searched for previous posts on this topic.  Hope that I am not repeating someone else's.  Also, I have limited experience working with wood; assume I don't know things.

Peter Wilshire's post of his modified matchbox gave me the itch to make a puzzle.  My brother and I have talked about using cubes or legos. But today I found a place with exotic woods about a 10 min drive from home! Talk about feeling like a kid in a candy shop.  This place sells tools, craft supplies, and a wide spectrum of woods, including exotics.  They also cut pieces on site. I found a 1/4in. plank of redheart and 1/4in. scrap planks of purpleheart and padauk.  They smell good. 

Anyway, I have a couple of questions.

First, I think that I picked pretty straight pieces.  But when I sight down them, they are maybe slightly out of true.  Is it worth it taking them back to have them planed further? will a tiny bit of warpage be ok? (these planks are anywhere from 2-3 feet long and the modified match box will be 2.75in. on each side) How about sanding the sides with a sandpaper block?

Update: I just went back to look at the planks.  The two scraps are pretty true.  The redheart, however, dimensions 1/4 by 4 by 36in, has about a 1/4 inch diagonal warp from end to end when I hold one end flat on the counter. Can't plane that and preserve the 1/4in thickness. So, I'm stuck with about 1/12in warp per foot, 1/72in warp each 2 inches.  Probably OK for my purposes, I think. 

But what do you guys do if you are trying to produce pieces to sell, or for a competition?  Do you start with a 1/2 in plank and plane it down? Or can you glue slightly warped pieces together to make a box, and the glue keeps everything true?  How true is true?  Again, for my purposes I suspect that my pieces of wood are just fine. 

Second, as far as tools go, space is an issue, so power tools are out of the question.  My wife has drawn the line at the orbital sander, jigsaw, and circular saws I own.  And I have a very inquisitive five year old son who has a gift with screwdrivers. 

There is a fairly nice miter saw at Hartville Tool's web site, a Nobex Pro Master http://www.hartvilletool.com/product/11136.  Is anyone aware of other miter hand saws that might be as good or better? Eric posted an old pic of his first wood shop with a manual miter saw sitting on his dining table. Made me feel better about my restricted resources. 
 
Thanks,

Mark

[Peter Wiltshire]

Hello Mark, I am glad the Matchbox puzzle inspired you    That particular puzzle is fairly forgiving when it comes to wood.  The pieces are small enough that I think you shouldn't have any troubles with the wood that you purchased.  If you do use a miter hand saw I would recommend using a stop block set on you miter bed to butt the piece your cutting up to.  Put the block in a position that will allow you to cut your largest piece in the puzzle (with 1/4" stock that would be at 2 3/4" from your blade) When your cutting your smaller pieces I recommend leaving your block in place and inserting spacers (pieces of scrap 1/4") to get to your shorter cuts.  The puzzle plans are all in multiples of "Thickness" so this spacer idea will work out nicely.  I also recommend clamping everything down as you cut.  This will help the accuracy of the cuts.

When your gluing the rails on the two side pieces on the box use your 1/4" stock to position them the correct distance from each other, this will also help throw any warp to the outside of the box which can be later sanded down.  All of the sanding on my Matchbox was done by hand, so you will have no problem with a sanding block.  I also attempted to camouflage which panels where moving panels by sawing lines into the box where they naturally occurred, and then where they didn't I created them to throw the puzzle solver off.  I again did this by hand using a small hack saw blade.

When I cut the pieces for my box I ended up using a power compound miter saw, but I also started out with hand tools, the only thing is that it's extremely difficult to get the needed accuracy that mechanical puzzles require using hand tools.  So I highly recommend using power tools for better accuracy.  I have recently purchase my first table saw, and can say that my accuracy has improve enormously.  It's the best purchase I have ever made.

I can't speak too much about dealing with warped wood.  I don't own a planer.  I try to purchase the straightest boards I can, but I am sure some of the others may have advice on dealing with tricky boards.

Here is a link to the plans for the Matchbox if you don't already have them.  Let us know how you make out, I would love to see the finished product. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bruce.viney/Modified%20Matchbox%20Plans.pdf

[Robert Yarger]

Mark,

I don't think I own a board without at least some warp to it.  Unless the warp is bad enough that it can't be safely machined than I use it.  The warp in most boards will all but disappear once you have cut it into pieces about the size of the panels you are needing.  If you cut a 6' board into a few hundred 3" pieces then you would be hard pressed to visually notice any warp in the pieces you made.

However, when makeing puzzles, it is often necessary to make things fit exactly, and a warped board will produce pieces that (although not noticabley skewed) are not perfectly square.  It takes a bit more time, but I actually overcut all of my pieces slighlty and then go back and individually square up each piece to ensure they are perfect.

I have never used a miter saw.  I assume it could make accurate degree cuts, but it seems as if it would be difficult to use for small pieces and produce tear out because of how the angle that the blade contacts the wood.  IF you used one for cutting pieces as small as the matchbox then you would probably have to devise some sort of clamp to hold the pieces firmly in place.

My recommendation if you have limited space and only plan on using 1/4 stock is to get one of the hobby saws from hobby store.  They don't take up much room and I hear they work somewhat decently on thin stock that does not have to be ripped.  They are made for cutting pieces for hobby plane models, pinewood derby cars, and such.

The matchbox is a wonderful first project and I wish you luck with it.  There is nothing as satisfying as makeing your own project.

[Eric Fuller]

Wow am I late to this party!  The miter saw I had was a Nobex, and I did a lot of research before I bought it...they're pretty much top of the line.

As far as warped stock, my opinion is that the jointer, planer and table saw are the minimum tools you can get by with.  I always run all my boards through the jointer first to get a square edge and face.  Then rip the opposite edge to have them parallel, and plane the board with the jointed face down.  This produces a board that is perfectly flat and square.  While some bowing can be dealt with, any cupping or twisting is pretty much out of the question.  While Rober is right that when cut into pieces the amount is negligable, it's still going to be very difficult to get pieces really square.

[Mark Rothstein]

Got a Nobex Champion.  Now I have two puzzles to solve.  First, I have to assemble the Nobex.  The instructions are as follows:  "Look at the diagram.  Place bolts in bottom of mitre."  Think of the Nobex Champion as an easy 40 piece put-together puzzle with trick bolts. 

The second puzzle is a packing puzzle.  All the sides of the box have to fit on one piece of scrap with minimal waste.