Crump Projects: Walnut Raspberry Pi Enclosure

Continue on with this project:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, & Part 7 All Done!

Milling out the block for the enclosure. I added about a 1/16 of an Inch to all dimensions to comensate for later sanding and what not. So the outside are a little proud of 4"x 2 3/4"x 1 3/4"

As you can see this piece was milled ok but has warped a little in the past few years. So first goal was to make sure I got parallel sides and square corners. The block will be too small to send thru the planner and jointer so did the work at that table saw. First I squared up the one end holding the piece tight to the miter gauge.

Then set the fence at 2 3/4" to cut the short dimension, still using the miter gauge to keep it straight.

This is now the right width. I cut one end to square it up to the long faces Then measuring the 4 inches for the length against the left side of where the blade cut thru the miter gauge and then cut it to length.

Now this leaves us with length and width and all 4 sides square are parallel Now usually I would head to the jointer to square up the last side but because of the size of the block and the grain direction I chose it wouldn't work. So I made sure to sand the bottom to the best I could (more on sanding a perfectly flat side later) then cut the height. This was a bit tricky for a few reasons. On the blade only comes out of the table a bit over half way so I had to make a pass then flip it over and make the other pass. Second the blade is cutting with the grain AND is going to be a "blind" cut, so the teeth are inside the block the whole time and can (and do) heat up and may burn your wood if not careful.