Screen Play (25)

Yet another post in this well-worn path leading to completion of a tsuitate, a type of Japanese portable room divider.

At the conclusion of the previous post, I was one or two kerfs away from closing up the joints at the lower ends of the legs. So, without further ado, here’s that kerfing I was talking about:

There I’m using a 32 tpi dozuki. I’ll save a picture of the result until later on in this post.

I next tackled the profiling of the main frame member, so as to create the look of a two piece frame out of one piece. I first worked at my router table with a top bearing guided rebating bit to take off what I could- about 5/8″. Then it was time to slide the parts back together, ah one:

ah two:

Und three:

On goes the template, and I did a pass or two with an offset bottom bearing spiral bit, normally used for mortising door hinges:

Another pass deepens the cut:

I followed that with a flush trimming bit, and then it was time for the hand tools to clean up the rebate:

I used a couple of corner cutting planes along with chisels and a knife to clean up the rebate.

Here’s how one corner looked as I was getting close to completion:

As you can see I had to do some filing to improve the fit between the re-entrant corners. I’ve also rounded the upper arris of the piece.

Here’s that joint I was kerfing earlier, now that the rebating has been completed:

I have more pictures of the work on those rebates, however I think I’ve covered it adequately enough that the reader will have the general idea.

I followed up by giving the sides of the sill piece a skim with the plane:

Next I did some work on the feet, beginning with a finish planing:

Here’s a look at the resulting surface:

Then I rounded the arrises of the piece and cleaned up the upper curved surfaces somewhat, using a combination of filing and sand paper. Then I thought I’d see how they fit:

Both feet tapped home until they were about 3/8″ (1cm) shy of closing, and then stopped:

It was the end of the day, and it was a hot one, and I’m not one to force things, so I decided to conclude their fitting another time. But hey, I could stand the complete frame up now on the feet to get a sense of the thing:

I’m liking it.

Getting close now. All that remains is a little more fiddling of the fit here and there, the assembly of the grill work, fitting the grill work to the frame pieces, mortising for the foot pegs, preparing the shachi sen (wedges) for the upper frame joints, and another trial assembly or two I’m sure. Stay tuned, and thanks so much for your visit today. –> go to post 26