Project Information
I always try to make some Christmas presents in the shop so I knocked out cheese slicers for the four kids and one for the wife unit. They are all kind of a variation of a theme, and from the same piece of cherry, so this is kind of cosmic. And they were fun to build. They are about 5 3/4 inches by 9 inches and 7/8 inches thick.
I found the mechanisms on the web at CheeseSlicing.com. They are about $5 a pop. You can get them in chrome or black. They were nice to deal with and even offer deals for multiple purchases.
http://www.cheeseslicing.com/site/681068/page/924433
I needed to make some jigs to make the boards. First was a circle (semi-circle?) jig for the bandsaw. I used the miter gauge slot to hold the jig in place. I glued a fence to the pivot arm and clamped the pieces to it. The pivot point is about 16 inches from the blade and I think this gave a nice gentle curve. I kept track of pieces so I could reassemble them to get matching grain. I spent some time creating a matching sanding block, but found that I was able to do nice glue-ups without sanding any of the curves. Straight from the bandsaw to the clamps. I did the surface leveling after the glue dried with a thickness sander.
These boards need a 1/4 inch hole drilled into the rear corner. This is 3 inches deep, so I used a jig clamped to the drill press to keep everything vertical and true.
They also need a groove cut into them for the wire. This groove is about 3/16 inches wide. It goes almost all the way through at the rear of the board (so the wire can wrap around the handle) and just 1/8 inch deep at the front. I settled on about a 5 degree angle and used a sliding table on the bandsaw. I placed a scrap stick behind the board at the bottom to create this angle. The groove is 2 1/2 inches from the end. I clamped a stop block to be able to repeat this. I found that I needed about two saw curfs to create a good groove width.
They were sanded to 220 grit, coated with sanding sealer, and then oiled. I plan to add a couple more coats of oil, and silicon sticky feet before they go under the tree.
Steve
I found the mechanisms on the web at CheeseSlicing.com. They are about $5 a pop. You can get them in chrome or black. They were nice to deal with and even offer deals for multiple purchases.
http://www.cheeseslicing.com/site/681068/page/924433
I needed to make some jigs to make the boards. First was a circle (semi-circle?) jig for the bandsaw. I used the miter gauge slot to hold the jig in place. I glued a fence to the pivot arm and clamped the pieces to it. The pivot point is about 16 inches from the blade and I think this gave a nice gentle curve. I kept track of pieces so I could reassemble them to get matching grain. I spent some time creating a matching sanding block, but found that I was able to do nice glue-ups without sanding any of the curves. Straight from the bandsaw to the clamps. I did the surface leveling after the glue dried with a thickness sander.
These boards need a 1/4 inch hole drilled into the rear corner. This is 3 inches deep, so I used a jig clamped to the drill press to keep everything vertical and true.
They also need a groove cut into them for the wire. This groove is about 3/16 inches wide. It goes almost all the way through at the rear of the board (so the wire can wrap around the handle) and just 1/8 inch deep at the front. I settled on about a 5 degree angle and used a sliding table on the bandsaw. I placed a scrap stick behind the board at the bottom to create this angle. The groove is 2 1/2 inches from the end. I clamped a stop block to be able to repeat this. I found that I needed about two saw curfs to create a good groove width.
They were sanded to 220 grit, coated with sanding sealer, and then oiled. I plan to add a couple more coats of oil, and silicon sticky feet before they go under the tree.
Steve
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