Pressure Box Initial Assembly

I started putting the pressure box and lid pieces together. Getting everything to line up precisely was a bit of a challenge.

One of the first minor problems I noticed was that the shorter side pieces and tracker bar platform pieces were all just slightly too long to allow the longer sides to fit flush with the bottom and the lid top. Since I had cut them all from a single length of ripped 1/4" plywood, they were all exactly the same amount too long. (about 1/32")

The amount I needed to remove was too small to handle with the bandsaw, and I knew from previous mistakes that hand sanding the end of a thin strip of wood to remove a little length often results in an edge that's less than square.

I remedied this problem by clamping all the pieces together so I could run them over my sanding block and gradually reduce their lengths. By clamping all the pieces together I could keep the end cuts square.

 And here's how the ends looked after sanding. (the one piece that looks shorter is actually a reinforcement strip that had already been glued on to one of the plywood strips)

Once all the pieces had been sized more precisely, it was time to glue everything (almost everything) together.

(Since I'm going to be staining and shellacking the pressure box in a multi-step process, I elected to keep from gluing the bottom on at this point.)

Here's a pic of the lid pieces finally glued together:

Here's the pressure box glued together (without the bottom):

Another view of the pressure box, lid and bottom:

And stacked together to check the fit:

(Click here to view this build and others at the John Smith Busker Forum)