Egg cup holder

First of all, I clamped the acrylic in a bench vice with two pieces of wood either side of it just to make sure it would not scratch the acrylic. The acrylic that I used was rough around the edges so using flat file I Cross filed to get rid of any saw cuts and draw filed it to get rid of any scratches made from the cross filing until the scratches were gone all around. I then got wet and dry paper and used grade 1200, 600 and 400 grits to make the surface finish smooth and shiny, it also gets rid of any dirt and grain left after the filing from the edges. I slowly brushed my fingers across the edges to see if the surface finish was smooth I left the protective plastic on the acrylic so I could mark out the centre of the 4 sided shape, then I used the pillar drill to cut out the circle on the Acrylic.

Health and safety is very important in the making stages so I made sure I was wearing my apron and goggles so I could protect my clothes from any spillages such as the water from wet and dry and also protect my face from any bits of acrylic or wood chips that could fly out during the drilling. After the drilling, I used a template to mark out where I needed to bend the acrylic to actually form the shape off an egg cup holder. I used a strip heater to bend the acrylic, I placed the piece of acrylic on the heater where I marked out the line and kept flipping the piece of acrylic every few seconds so the acrylic didn’t melt. I quickly removed the acrylic and placed it inside a bending jig which then was pushed at a 90 degree angle and left to settle and cool for approximately 1 minute. I took out the Acrylic and repeated the same steps for the other side of the acrylic to get two bent sides. Finally I left the acrylic to cool down.

Soldering Ring

First of all, use an Engineers square to check if your piece of copper is square or not (Vital because it is important for when doing the actual soldering process) so you get a nice join. Get a piece of paper and wrap it around your chosen finger which you are going to wear the ring on and mark with pencil where it joins. This then can be used as a template to actually mark on the Piece of copper how long the piece should be. To mark the length on the copper material use a scribe and make sure it is visible.
Place your piece of copper in a vice with two pieces of scrap wood on either side so it protects your piece from scratching, make sure you have it as low as possible for full support; you don’t want the copper to be wobbling whilst cutting it. To cut the Copper piece to your finger size, use a junior hack saw instead of a hack saw because the piece of metal is small so there is so need for a big hack saw. Make sure you’re not cutting it right where you have marked it because you may need to file it later on as it has been cut on the band saw previously.

The sides need to be smooth and shiny, to do this you need to cross file and draw file the metal until you do not see any scratches. You need to get rid of the burs, so file at an angle to slowly slide off the burs. Once you have done that, you can either use a piece of circular metal or the Tin man stake to shape the copper into the circular ring. Using a bossing mallet hit the copper strip into a circular shape all round.

Once you have the two ends joining from the form of a circle, you are ready to solder the copper. To solder it, you need to add a strip of solder and add a bit of flux onto the join, you then heat it until it has turned into a bright red colour and till you see the reaction actually happen. After that place the ring into some water, which will instantly cool it down. If you are not pleased with the outcome, you can still use the tin man stake to make the ring even more circular

Comb Joint

Get two pieces of wood that you wish to join together. Use a pencil to mark the thickness of the material by putting one piece of the wood on top of the other one. You need to make sure you get the same size all the way around from the pencil mark so you cannot just do it with a ruler, as it has to be extremely accurate, to do this, use a Try square to go all the way around the piece of wood and mark each side exactly to scale.

Measure out The fingers of the joint using a pencil and a try square/steel ruler, so you know where to cut it. The wood should be placed in a vice. It must be vertical so that the Tenon saw is always cutting down in a straight line; otherwise you are not going to be able to join the two pieces together in the end. Avoid putting the wood in the vice at an angle as it will be virtually impossible to use the saw accurately, when cutting it is important to cut on the waste wood side of the line, so you can go back to it once you have cut it and then sand to the pencil line you marked on. Once you have cut downwards, turn the wood sideways in a vice and then you can cut downwards again to cut waste material off. All these processes have to be repeated on the second piece of wood but you need to make sure the fingers are opposite to your first piece.

Dovetail joint

The dovetail joint is like the comb joint but much more difficult and requires more accuracy and work. The first step is to mark a line at the end of the first piece of timber that is as wide as the thickness of your second piece of timber. Make sure to mark this line around all faces and sides of the timber, as like before with the comb joint. The next step is marking out the dovetails, there are a few ways of doing this but the easiest and most accurate would be to use a dovetail gauge. Mark it out using a pencil and draw over your waste material so you know where to cut.

To cut your dovetails you can use a band saw. When using a band saw make sure to follow the lines and not cut too deep but remember this method requires much more skill and precision, if you are not able to use the band saw you can just use a dovetail saw to cut your piece. Before you go onto sanding and filing you want to use the first piece to measure where you need to cut onto your second piece. Yet again you follow the same steps, use the saw bench or a dovetail saw to cut the piece.

Finally file and sand down the dovetails into a correct fit so both pieces join together tightly, not to tight otherwise it can break the dovetails, but tight enough so it doesn’t just fall off.

Mitred Joint

Get two pieces of wood that you wish to join together into the Mitre Joint. Cut each end at a perfect 45-degree angle. To do this you can use many techniques; marking out or machinery. I used a Mitre Box, which is made out of wood that has slots at either 45 degrees or 90 degrees to cut your angle at. I placed my piece of wood into the box and clamped it using a mini G Clamp so it didn’t move whilst cutting. I sued a Tenon saw to cut the wood.
After I did it to my first piece, I repeated the same steps with my second piece. Make sure the paired pieces are of equal length after the angles have been cut. Sand each end gently to get rid of any bits of wood sticking out, not too much otherwise you will have trouble trying to make both sides equal again.
The best glue to use for wood is PVA (poly vinyl acetate) so apply even across the angled part and join together into the shape of an edge of a photo frame (triangular). Find a flat work surface and place pieces of wood in corner clamps. Make sure you wipe away any excess glue that has come out due to pressure. Leave it to dry for a few hours.
You can just leave it how it is but there could be a chance of it snapping off so you can nail the corners together. Make sure the clamps are still in place. You can use brads and a small claw hammer, or an electric nail gun that shoots out brad-sized finish nails. You can fill the holes with wood filler and then sand it off to give it a smooth surface finish afterwards.

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