Handling natural wood sheets
This afternoon I have plans to go out, so today’s work is a little lighter. In the morning, I glued the Kannuki-side panels onto the 4.2-sun box. Yesterday I didn’t have enough time, so I couldn’t get to the gluing stage. I moved the process forward a bit and, first thing this morning, I prepared the box surface and then glued the panels.
Since the weather is expected to change tonight, I chose to work on the side that is more prone to warping. There really is such a tendency, especially with boxes of 14 steps or fewer—the same side always tends to warp. The cause comes from the amount of bonding area on the panels. The more floating (unsupported) area there is, the more likely warping will occur.
Right now I’m working on 27-steps puzzle boxes, and with boxes of 21 steps or more, this warping problem is less common. These larger steps boxes have a greater bonding area, so warping is much less likely. Still, in this case there’s a slight difference of about 2.2 mm between the left and right sides, so since the humidity was relatively low today, I started with the side that has less bonding area and is more likely to warp.
In the end, I decided to use zebrawood and walnut designs for the top and bottom panels of the 4-sun 27-steps puzzle box of next work (photo). Today I only cut them, but when I have time, I’ll glue them onto MDF boards. Unlike Yosegi sheets, these don’t need to be dried after gluing. Well, since they contain some moisture, it’s probably better to let them dry, but since I won’t be using them right away, they’ll have plenty of time to dry over the next few days. The glue I’m using has less moisture than usual, so it should be fine.
The main issue, however, is that the glue can stick to the surface of these solid wood sheets. If that happens, I need to carefully sand it off with sandpaper, otherwise when the box is finished and coated, the glue marks will show up as white spots. One of the often-mentioned advantages of traditional Yosegi sheets is that this problem is much less visible. Because the Yosegi patterns are so intricate, small imperfections (though of course they shouldn’t happen) are harder to notice. With single-color solid wood sheets, however, even small blemishes stand out clearly.
So, while these sheets have a simple design, they are actually quite challenging to handle during production.
Since the weather is expected to change tonight, I chose to work on the side that is more prone to warping. There really is such a tendency, especially with boxes of 14 steps or fewer—the same side always tends to warp. The cause comes from the amount of bonding area on the panels. The more floating (unsupported) area there is, the more likely warping will occur.
Right now I’m working on 27-steps puzzle boxes, and with boxes of 21 steps or more, this warping problem is less common. These larger steps boxes have a greater bonding area, so warping is much less likely. Still, in this case there’s a slight difference of about 2.2 mm between the left and right sides, so since the humidity was relatively low today, I started with the side that has less bonding area and is more likely to warp.
In the end, I decided to use zebrawood and walnut designs for the top and bottom panels of the 4-sun 27-steps puzzle box of next work (photo). Today I only cut them, but when I have time, I’ll glue them onto MDF boards. Unlike Yosegi sheets, these don’t need to be dried after gluing. Well, since they contain some moisture, it’s probably better to let them dry, but since I won’t be using them right away, they’ll have plenty of time to dry over the next few days. The glue I’m using has less moisture than usual, so it should be fine.
The main issue, however, is that the glue can stick to the surface of these solid wood sheets. If that happens, I need to carefully sand it off with sandpaper, otherwise when the box is finished and coated, the glue marks will show up as white spots. One of the often-mentioned advantages of traditional Yosegi sheets is that this problem is much less visible. Because the Yosegi patterns are so intricate, small imperfections (though of course they shouldn’t happen) are harder to notice. With single-color solid wood sheets, however, even small blemishes stand out clearly.
So, while these sheets have a simple design, they are actually quite challenging to handle during production.
