[ Power saw whirring ] ♪♪ Welcome back to the "Woodsmith Shop".

I'm Phil.

On today's episode, we're going to dig into two of my favorite aspects of woodworking.

One is making small boxes -- great for gifts and ways to explore and expand your woodworking skills.

The other is to make shop built tools and jigs.

And today's project is a veneer press.

It's a giant clamp that's designed to help you work with veneer even easier than you thought possible.

It goes together with some simple hardware and easy to put together project parts.

If you want to build along with us, the plans are at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

But I say it's time to build.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters.

Offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

And by... Kreg, tools designed by woodworkers for woodworkers.

Create what inspires you.

Additional funding provided by... ♪♪ Titebond wood glues, the pro's advantage.

♪♪ And by... ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Theme music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ The first stage in building our veneer press shows exactly the problem we're trying to solve.

In order to glue up the platens for this project, I needed to use pretty much every clamp that we had over in the clamp rack.

So let me get the rest of these off here.

There are two platens on the veneer press.

They're both made out of two layers of 3/4-inch MDF.

Now, to glue these up is a little bit of a trick, because what you want is to be able to have the two layers perfectly flush.

Once you put glue onto something, though, it gets a little slippery and it's tough to keep parts aligned.

So what I did is to make one of the layers the exact size that I needed, and then even rounded the corners here.

From there, it's a matter of spreading glue evenly across the next layer, which is cut slightly oversize.

Now, as I apply the clamps, the only thing I need to make sure is that there's a little bit of overhang all the way around it.

Probably the biggest obstacle to flush trimming the pieces of the platen here are the fact that we're working with MDF, which without dust collection, is going to kick up clouds of dust.

That's why I have the fence installed, even though I'm not going to run the workpiece against it.

I have it for the dust collection to catch as much of it as I can.

When I'm flush trimming here at the router table, I like to use a flush trim bit, the kind of bit where the bearing is on the end of the bit.

That way I can very easily see to make sure that the bearing is in contact with my reference piece, in this case, the top layer of the platen here, and then I can follow it along as I work all the way around the sides of it to get this cleaned up.

The two platens are both joined and separated by a set of threaded rods, some coupling nuts, and springs.

We need to account for those here at the drill press.

What I'm going to do is drill a series of counterbored holes along each edge of both of the platens.

I've laid out those marks here and set the drill press fence so that I have consistent spacing on all of these parts.

It's a lot of holes that we need to drill.

The first thing that I'm going to do is drill the larger counterbore with a big Forstner bit here.

I'll do that on both sides of both parts.

Then I'm going to swap that out for a smaller diameter Forstner bit to drill the through hole using the center point from the counterbore as a way to line things up.

It goes pretty quickly, but you're going to create a lot of really fun, ribbon-like curls along the way.

Our drill press work carries on here, but moving to a different part.

I'm making a set of pressure bars that will apply the clamping pressure to those platens that we were working on.

So that has to allow the threaded rod to pass through.

So I'm going to use a Forstner bit here to drill through holes at each end of these pressure bars.

To make that all happen, I've attached a stop block to the fence on the drill press, that way I don't have to line up to lay out lines on all of them.

I'm also going to do the same thing on some slightly wider pieces here.

These will get cut off to turn into feet in a little while, but I need holes in these as well.

From there, four of the pressure bars, the ones that are going to be on the bottom, will need to have a counterbore to accept a nut that that threaded rod will anchor into.

So I'm going to use a little bit larger Forstner bit to drill out that counterbore.

Then I'll pull the bit out and use the drill press as a press and force that nut down into the counterbore, making sure that it stays flat and level in the hole.

Now that we have the nuts anchored in the bottom set of cauls, I don't want them spinning around in there, so I'm going to lock them in place with a little two-part epoxy.

Now that the epoxy has set up around these nuts that I've put in, I want to add feet to the bottom cauls of our veneer press.

That's going to provide a little bit of a lift to this piece.

It also provides a little extra capacity, so as you tighten down those threaded rods, that rod has somewhere to go.

They're angled pieces just for a little flair here on our shop project, and are going to get glued down right over the top of that nut, capturing it in its counterbore.

I had drilled the through hole on long blanks over at the drill press that you'll remember, so I'm going to cut these free using a hand saw.

I drew layout lines on all four sides to guide my cutting as I make this.

Time to veer towards a little bit of metal working here.

I have the threaded rod that will apply the clamping pressure On the top end of it, we're going to install a coupling nut and then a handwheel that'll be used to give you a little bit of leverage to apply the torque here.

But I don't want this coupling nut sliding around on the threaded rod.

So we're going to anchor it in place with some steel pins.

So I've clamped it all up in the vise here and then used a punch... ...to mark the location of a hole and to keep the drill bit from skittering around.

Then I'm going to use a small twist bit here and a little bit of oil just to lubricate the hole to prevent a lot of heat buildup that could end up making the bit break.

And then you're just going to work your way slow and steady down all the way through, applying a little drop of oil now and again, just to keep the whole process going.

Then, like I said, once we're done, you can just cut small pieces of steel rod that will fit into the hole, tap it in place, and then file it flush.

The next stage is heading back into woodworking territory.

What we want to do is create some larger diameter handles to be able to crank down on the threaded rod.

Now, we can use the coupling nuts with a wrench, but to be able to go a little quicker, I'm going to make some plywood handles here and I'm using a big hole saw.

Now, when you're working with a hole saw, you want to drill through slow and steady.

Dial the speed down and just kind of watch it as you go.

I like to go halfway in from one side, flip it over, and then finish it up on the other side just to make the process a little bit more efficient so that these teeth aren't quite so buried in the work piece.

Alright, we need to convert our circles for the handles into doughnuts, so to speak.

So what I did is installed a Forstner bit in the drill press and then grabbed these guys in a hand screw clamp, centered it under the bit, and then drilled them out.

Now we can install them onto the assembled coupling nut and threaded rod.

To do that, I'm just placing each of my doughnuts over the opening in the face vise.

Then I can slip the threaded rod and the coupling nut and get it started.

And then with gentle mallet taps... ...I can tap the coupling nut into the handle, getting it roughly centered.

I want to leave enough space up above to be able to get a wrench on there if I need to later on.

Alright, I want to wrap up work on the cauls, both the top and the bottom.

After getting the clamps off of the feet, I sanded all the faces and then headed over to the router table, and I wanted to ease all of the sharp edges with a chamfer bit, took care of the feet as well as the smaller upper cauls.

Now, the key thing here, when you're using this as a veneer press, is being able to get adequate clamping pressure even in the middle of the panel that you're working on.

To help with that, we're creating a little bit of a crown along the length of each of these cauls.

To create that crown, it's just done with a couple of layers of masking tape.

So I'm going to put a long layer down on the top edge here.

And then a second layer creates a very slight rise in the middle of it.

I'm just going to use the other -- one of my other ones as a guide here.

There we go.

Now, as the clamping pressure gets applied with the handwheels and the threaded rod, this small hump in the middle helps focus some clamping pressure, especially on the middle of the panel.

Assembling the veneer press is really just a matter of stacking pieces together.

It's a little bit like blocks when you were a kid.

I'm starting with the four lower cauls, these feet down here, and then I'll add -- the lower platen gets stacked onto that.

From there, you'll remember these larger counterbores that we drilled on the inside of the platen.

Those will hold compression springs.

From there, the top platen gets set into place, and then I can bring in the upper cauls, will go over the top of that platen.

And then down through it all are the threaded rod and the knobs that we made.

Throw in a handful of washers as we go along here, and what we'll end up with is a veneer press.

Alright, there we go.

I think it's time we put this to use.

♪♪ Next step is to cut an oversized piece of what we're calling a substrate for the lid panel.

I'm using some 1/4-inch MDF here, and I can also use that as a guide to cut out my two pieces.

We're going to veneer both sides of this panel.

It's small enough that we can tackle both of these at the same time.

So I'll just set it on the panel here.

And then I'm going to use a rotary fabric cutter to cut the veneer around my piece.

Now, to apply the veneer pieces to our substrate panel, I'm going to use a special veneer glue that has a lot of extra solids in it to help get a really strong bond, and then also to avoid the glue from seeping through the veneer and showing through on the back side.

First things first... I'm going to put down a layer of wax paper here just to protect my work surface, and then I'll apply a little bit of glue onto this surface, and then using a notched spreader to distribute it all the way around.

Alright.

There's the first side.

I'm going to flip that over and stick it onto our veneer here.

Remember, both of these pieces are oversized, so I don't have to worry about getting it perfectly positioned.

Now I can do the same thing on the other side.

Alright, now I can bring the other piece of veneer in.

And I really don't want the veneer sliding around as I apply pressure with the veneer press.

So I'm going to use just a couple of pieces of masking tape to hold this little package together.

Alright, now we'll add a second layer of wax paper.

This keeps any glue that was to squeeze out from sticking to the parts of our veneer press.

Now I can take this whole sandwich, slide it in place, and then clamp it down.

I'll use the handwheels to bring the cauls down into place.

And if I need to add a little bit more oomph here, I'll grab a wrench and add a little bit more torque.

I'm going to leave our veneered panel in the veneer press to cook for a little while.

And while that's setting up, we can work on the box itself.

I have the four pieces for the box here, the front and back and the two sides, and that's where I'm going to get started.

I want to join these pieces together with a few little pieces of double-sided tape.

And the reason for that is it's going to help us to lay out some of the details here and do some of the shaping on what ends up being a much larger blank than these pieces by themselves.

Don't need much for tape.

Make sure they're lined up and pin them together.

On the box, there's a curve on the front and back ends of the two side pieces.

If this box appeals to you, the plans are at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

To lay out that curve, I have a compass set for 1 inch, and I can put the point right at the seam of the parts and draw in that curve.

On the back end, I want to lay out the location for the hinge pivot hole, so I'll use a square to draw that line and then another one that I have set up for the intersecting point.

I'll take this over to the drill press, and then drill a small hole through both of these pieces at the same time, guaranteeing that they're going to line up.

The outside faces of our two sides curve in a little bit.

To lay out that curve, I have a template here made from 1/4-inch hardboard.

So what I'll do is line up the center lines of the sides and the template, and then line up where those curves are that I drew with the compass.

And then I can trace that, trace that line, and then do the same thing along the opposite side.

I'm here at the band saw to remove most of the waste from that curved area.

And you can see why I've left the two side pieces taped together.

I have a much thicker, wider blank, so that as I make that cut, it's not going to wobble and fall on either side.

So I'm going to make a cut on one side, and then the same thing down the other side.

And then to wrap things up, I'll cut away as much of the waste as I can from one end, turn it around, and then do the other end.

As great as a band saw is for roughing out material, it's going to leave some blade marks that we're going to have to deal with, and that's where another set of tools comes in.

I'm going to start with a coarse and a half-round rasp here to even out the curve -- I can feel some lumps and bumps in there -- as well as deal with most of those blade marks.

Rasp work goes best when you're moving not only forward into the stroke, but along the edge of the work piece as well, because that'll help smooth out those lumps and bumps and give you a scratch pattern that's different from the blade marks to help you know when you've removed those.

Now I'm going to switch to a finer rasp to remove those marks.

The final step is to finish up the smoothing.

And on a curved surface like this, I like using a card scraper.

The type of shavings that you get are indicating how smooth it is.

At the starting point, it's these really kind of coarse, almost sawdust-like as I cut through where the teeth of the rasp went.

But then as we get down past those, we have more curls that look like shavings from a hand plane.

I said there was going to be a lot of work here at the router table for joinery and router table work we did.

I started with the two side pieces here, and the first detail was to cut a wide rabbet along the back end of each of those parts.

I set up a straight bit and used a backer block, both to stop, tear out, and to guide the workpiece.

Make this cut in several passes, kind of creeping your way towards the fence for the final cut.

From there, I swapped out to a narrower bit in order to cut smaller dadoes near the back end, and then also the front end.

What these dadoes are for is to hold the front and back of our box.

Now, at this point, we could bring in the two front and back pieces, and they require a groove near the bottom edge to hold the case bottom.

This one's really easy to do.

You just plough the groove straight through.

I use a push block just to keep the piece flat on the router table.

On the sides, that groove doesn't extend all the way through.

It stops at the dadoes near the front and the back.

I drew some marks on the outside of the side pieces, and then drew some pencil lines on the router table fence to align the cut so that I could lower the piece over the spinning bit at one dado and then route to the other dado.

You can tell by hearing when you reach that other dado and when to stop routing.

From there, we wanted -- I needed to wrap up with a few more rabbet cuts.

So I brought back the front and back, and I cut a rabbet along each end of these pieces.

That leaves just a little bit of a tongue that will fit into the dadoes that I cut in the sides.

The last rabbet is long grain, and I cut those on the, what are the top edges of the side pieces, and that's going to help register the lid of our box.

Putting a bead of glue into the grooves and the dadoes is all you need to do to assemble the box body.

Then wrap all the parts around the bottom of it.

And I just used a pair of clamps.

With that done, it kind of gave me an overall size to start working on the lid of the box.

And the showcase for that lid is that veneered panel that I pulled out of our veneer press that we made earlier in the episode.

You can see what it looks like.

I got a nice flat result here, and it looks great, trimmed it up and framed it with a hardwood frame.

That frame is joined with stub tenon and groove joinery, so that involves routing a groove on the inside edge of all of these pieces to accommodate that panel.

Then on the ends of the lid sides, I formed a tongue, which is just a matter of cutting a rabbet on each face.

A little backer block on these pieces keeps them square and prevents tear out.

Then I could glue this lid together around the panel.

Put glue in the grooves and then on the ends of the tenons, and then you can squeeze it all together with another pair of clamps.

Then I used that template we used on the sides to lay out an arc along the front of the lid, cut that at the band saw, and smoothed it.

Roundover bit in the router table ease the top edges of the lid.

I swapped out that bit for a cove bit to route a little bit of a hollow on the underside of the lid, which forms a handle once it's in place.

Now, what I've done in the meantime is made a hinge block that goes on the bottom side here.

It's a narrow piece.

I routed a roundover on each edge of a wide blank to give me that half round look, and then cut that free at the table saw and then glued it in place on the inside of the frame.

Now, to join the lid to the box... ...we're going to use small brass pins.

I'm going to clamp the box and the lid in place in my vise, drill a pilot hole through the existing holes in the sides and into that lid block.

And then I can tap the brass rod into place to wrap up our fun little box project.

♪♪ One of the best parts of working with veneer is what you can do with it.

There are so many different styles and patterns that are available.

So on this box project, we used a burl walnut veneer.

It's a great look, but you can find it in almost any species and any grain pattern.

And it's a great way to customize your furniture projects.

And you don't even have to be limited to boxes.

There's a million ways to use veneer in your projects.

If you're ready to build along with this box project or the veneer press, the plans for both of them are at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

It's the place you can find all kinds of other great furniture and shop project plans, inspiration to get you back out into your workshop, and then next time, you can join us right back here in the Woodsmith Shop for another great project build.

We'll see you then.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Announcer: If you'd like to get more video tips and techniques, sign up for the free weekly Woodsmith eTip.

Every week, you'll receive an e-mail with a video tip to get more out of your table saw, router table, and more.

Sign up at WoodsmithShop.com.

Everything in today's show comes from the newly expanded Woodsmith Guild Edition, with shop projects, plans, tips, and techniques.

To get a free preview issue of the Woodsmith Guild Edition and a free Woodsmith book, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

In addition, past seasons of "The Woodsmith Shop" are available on DVD.

Or you can watch them online from your computer, tablet, or mobile device.

For more information, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters.

Offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

♪♪ And by... Kreg, tools designed by woodworkers for woodworkers.

Create what inspires you.

Additional funding provided by... ♪♪ Titebond wood glues, the pro's advantage.

♪♪ And by... ♪♪ ♪♪