John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

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We're going with box joints. Here's a preliminary chassis in eastern hard rock maple. Going to use some slipfeathers in the corners of the bottom piece, and there we can use things like bloodwood.

se

Yah, no. I was thinking more like this.

jn
 

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I consider this kind of pure marketing waste of material and energy, this abuse of resources in a breathless world, as morally unacceptable.

Esperado, do you pull power cords from the wall of all your appliances that draw standby current? Computers? Or drive the most efficient car in the world? Or no car at all? Never listen to tube amps or Class A solid state ones? Still use Pentium I computer, because it still works? Do not hang around in forums for hours and hours to save electricity? Never buy food in plastic packaging? Walk 5 miles instead using transportation? Stick to wind and solar?

".. morally unacceptable" ? A little bit of double standart perhaps?
 
Precision fit is another interesting problem that nobody seems to think much about. Do you know what happens if you make an 'interleaving' case with parts that are a little too long or a little too thick? Or visa-versa? Well, I had REAL EXPERIENCE with NEAL FEAY about 30 years ago with Vendetta Research boxes. Not only with fit, and straightness, but even with where the holes are drilled. In desperation, I even hired a guy to completely go over the design of the box, to make it 'machinist proof' in construction,
to little or no real improvement.
You guys talk big, but you couldn't have done any better, just different. The other absurd suggestion was adding some extra material, JUST FOR FASHION, it itself, being useless as a shield material. What a waste of money! If you want 'art' buy art for its own sake.
 
jneutron,
What is the actual name of that would construction. I am trying to get my head around that joint and how it was constructed? It is a very nice construction and made me think of a Chinese puzzle box.

"Decorative dovetail" was the linked name. I have a book at home on dovetailing joinery, so figured I'd find an example for steve.

If you take the end piece, and do the init dovetail with the maple...then cut off the maple, plane the inner surface flat.

Repeat the procedure on the maple side.

Then do final dovetailing into both for fit.

ps...I don't think the process is amenable to using a router for the second cutting passes. I think the grain of the first insets will be oriented such that the bit will cause tearout as the bit leaves the work. I suspect you'd have to stick with a table saw for the second passes, and leave the joints square. If you want keyed joints, I suspect handsaw is the way to go.

jn
 
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jneutron,
What is the actual name of that would construction. I am trying to get my head around that joint and how it was constructed? It is a very nice construction and made me think of a Chinese puzzle box.

It's really just a box joint.

What you do is cut some large fingers in the ends. Then take a piece of contrasting wood with matching fingers and glue it on the ends. Then you cut into that to make the final set of fingers.

The other side is the same technique but reversing the woods.

se
 
"Decorative dovetail" was the linked name. I have a book at home on dovetailing joinery, so figured I'd find an example for steve.

If you take the end piece, and do the init dovetail with the maple...then cut off the maple, plane the inner surface flat.

Repeat the procedure on the maple side.

Then do final dovetailing into both for fit.

Except it's not a dovetail, it's a box joint. The cuts are all straight.

se
 
My older Clio system uses a full length PCI slot so I still have a legacy computer in a server case with multiple hard drives and dual Pentium 750's inside. My brother still has an old computer with dual Zeon processors for the same reason of using legacy devices. Not about to toss those out just to replace them with something smaller. Where would I hook up my old Houston Industries plotter that still works, it needs an old ltp printer port connection? Yes I have a newer laptop with multi-core processor for use with my cad system, it won't run on an old machine.

Thanks for the information Steve E and jneutron on the wood joinery. I still like to make things by hand.

And John I would have fired that machinist that could not hold tolerances close enough that it sounds like he was using wood tolerances when making a case! And yes I am a machinist also so don't talk about machine tolerance as if that is not done every day. Standard machine tolerances that any machinist hold today without thinking is at least 0.001" and much tighter if necessary.
 
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