Base Trim Travails

The plan for my dovetailed box calls for a base trim. So, I set out into the garage to see if I could build a baseboard.

ripping

The first order of business was to rip my boards into narrower widths. The mighty “Keystone Defender” rip saw does a nice job, despite my inability to saw a straight line.

planing

My general incompetence as a sawyer necessitated a great deal of cleaning up with the jack plane. But I finally had some boards in the proper width.

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chiseling

Then, I laid out, sawed, and chiseled out the tails and pins for two of the corners of the box.

falsehope

I put one corner together, and planed it smooth, and was generally feeling very satisfied with my work, but I had a great deal of trouble getting the second corner to come together. Then it dawned on me that I had some things backwards.

stupid

Somehow, I managed to get things turned around, and made a ziz-zag kind of thing instead of a box-shaped rectangular thing. Because this trim has to fit the box exactly, There was no real remedy for this situation. I had to start the whole thing over.

So, I started over. I ripped, and planed, and laid out, and sawed, and chiseled, and fit, and smoothed all over again. But, this time I marked my wood with a “cabinet maker’s triangle” to keep things lined up correctly.

basetrimdone

After a great deal of monkeying around, my box now has some base trim.

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