I see all these beautiful jewelry and keepsake boxes and I want to make some. Where do you find, or how do you make, solid / hardwood stock from 1/8" to 5/8" thick.
I've tried local suppliers and cabinet makers around town and zip, nada. I know that you don't need much at a time. Is there an outlet for a variety of thin wood stock or someone that specializes in it?
most of the time i use my planner to get thinner stock.. if it's 4 quarter or better you can resaw. buying stock that thin is a costly. lowes locally sells red oak in thin stock BUT the price is stupid.. you can find some on ebay at times
This is gonna sound really weird, but I just recently used my Festool circular saw on a rail to rip/resaw three 1½ by 1/8" strips from ¾ thick stock. I actually ripped to about 3/16" and planed the last 1/16" off because my jig and rail weren't as long as my strip, so I had to reposition in the middle of the rip.
If i can do that with a circular saw, you can probably do it with a tablesaw. The circular saw only has a max 2" depth, and both a circular saw and a table saw have a huge kerf relative to a bandsaw, but it is possible.
Dan,
That doesn't surprise me at all. I use my Festool TS75 Plunge saw to cut 1mm x 1mm strips for stringing. For making boxes, though, I'd cut close to the desired width with a band saw, then plane/thickness down to the the desired size.
Hate to say it but Home depot has thin stock poplar, oak, and maple, in 2'-4' lengths about 4" wide. It's usually in pocket racks near their other select wood.
Daniel, yeah, you can buy the stock from HD, but it's usually pretty plain. If I'm going to spend time building a box I want interesting grain and book matching (or at least as much as one can get with a 2.5mm kerf blade…).
Thanks guys. You're right Gary, I should have told you all what tools I have. My problem is that the only power tools that I have are a table mounted router and an old radial arm saw. I do most of my work with hand tools.
I don't have the money now to buy a band saw. I was hoping to find a source where I could buy thin stock.
since jewelery boxed aren't that large, you could also resaw your thicker stock with a handsaw, sure it takes some practice, but with an aid of a fixture to keep your saw inline this is very doable., and the saw kerf is thinner than a table/circular saw, so you won't lose much materials. look into a japanese ryoba pull saw for this.
Try these people, very nice guys and easy to talk to. they supply thin stock specifically for making Shaker Oval Boxes, but I doubt they would object to your using the wood for other square boxes. http://www.shakerovalbox.com/
Since your last post I have in fact tried re-sawing 4/4 and 3/4 oak about 4" - 8" wide and up to 2 feet long and then hand planing to flat. I'm using a japanese pull saw, and I'm glad for the two handed handle. It is a fair amount of work and takes me about an hour to re-saw and plane about 120 sq. in.
It does make me more careful with planning and use.
Not for everyday use, but not as bad as I thought.
cool, glad it works for you, and glad I could have helped.
as others have stated bowsaws are also a good tool for that purpose. they might give you a faster cut because of their mechanics - I've just never used one myself, so I recommended what I knew that would work. 8" x 24" is quite a large board to resaw though - touche!
If you don't have any local hard wood suppliers you may have to go with mail order. Also some cabinet or other wood working shops will resaw (or plane) thicker stock at a reasonable price.
Parkerdude,
If your only going to be making "Small" boxes….and you say a band saw is not in the future for now. Instead of a high-end band saw for re-sawing large stock..maybe you could consider a small table top band saw. I have seen lower end tabletop band saws go for under $99 at the local box store. Something to think about anyways.
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