Boxes a la Tom Watson

[Tom Watson]

Those boxes were made out of crown molding that was simply ripped at the appropriate places to make the sides. The top was made by ripping crown molding and gluing it back together to form the re curved top.

The cool thing about them is that they look far more complex than they really are.

I happened to make that crown on a W+H Molder but you could certainly do the same thing by starting with some stock molding.

It's interesting to look at a molding profile book, such as the one from Old World Moldings, and imagine what sort of shapes you could saw and re glue them into.

I gave a few away and someone saw one of them and ordered twenty of them to be built as business Christmas gifts (at fifty bucks each - about a thousand bucks for twenty hours work and some cherry that was "too interesting" to go into my usual casegoods projects).

After the run of twenty I decided that was enough.

[Tom Watson]

Yeah, sold it over the Winter. Was sad to see it go but couldn't justify keeping it.

It's an amazing little sucker, for the size of it and what it can do.

[Mike G]

I believe it will Jack.

[Mike G]

Thanks Charlie but I'd never squeeze on into the present shop. The W & H yes but not one of the Woodmaster

The whole expansion things is one of those, somewhere down the road. Right now I've got all the work the shop can handle but not enough to justify the "down the road".

Now a couple of days ago the little news blurbs on the yahoo page I use as a home page said something about some actress, Lopez I think, was going to have twins so I'm patiently waiting for the order to come through.

;-) Mike

[Charlie Self]

And the Shop Fox version is less than half the price (Grizzly is selling it for $895). I haven't seen one yet, but will try to sell an editor on a fast one pager on it, so I can see how it compares to my memories of the W&H.

Charlie Self "The test and the use of man's education is that he finds pleasure in the exercise of his mind." Jacques Barzun

[Tom Watson]

It wasn't the ability to do curved moldings that sold me on the W+H, although I did buy the elliptical jig and used it quite often (and quite profitably - as the money that local millwork shops charge to do curved and elliptical casing is abominable).

The main selling points of the W+H over the others were the reduced setup time, owing to the design of the block that the knives mount on

- which made changing profiles and aligning the cutters much faster and more accurate than on the competing machines, and the solidity of the cast iron W+H v. the sheet metal of the others.

I'd had a friend buy one of the sheet metal housed versions and it just didn't run as solid and smooth as the W+H. The chatter marks were more pronounced. The W+H could turn out a profile that needed very little tuning.

When you get interested in making the decision, ping me, and I'll send you copies of the invoices on the machine.

Regards, Tom.

Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.) tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)

[bridger]

Yeah, I've been eyeballing that thing too, wondering just what it can do and how real a machine it is. If you do that writeup, let us know....

[Nate Perkins]

... (remainder snipped)

Thanks, Tom! Kudos on the great boxes and on the terrific web site.

[Nate Perkins]

Thanks, Larry. Will give it a try. I have cut some simpler edge coves using the table saw method, but haven't yet done a fully buried asymmetrical one. Guess it's time to learn. Tom's boxes are a great inspiration.

[Mike G]

Thank you Tom I'll keep that in mind.

Take care Mike

[Nate Perkins]

Excellent, thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a try. Now I guess I just need to get a Steve Knight smoother (heh, don't I wish). I have a couple of other old planes that will probably get me by until I can get a SK.

Cheers, Nate