Wooden tube for spool

Not having ready access to the  metric 68mm pvc pipe here in the U.S., I looked at several options for the construction of the take-up spool, finally settling on a lesser version of Charles Supplee's "Alternative Construction of Take-Up Spool" on Mel Wright's Busker Organ website:

 http://www.melright.com/busker/jsart35.htm


Since I've got lots of hardwood scrap lying around, I decided I'd try to thinly cut some for use as a wooden spool. While Mr. Supplee's superior version results in a 3-ply all-wood spool, I opted for a wooden skin over a cardboard core.

For the core, I started out with an empty "Love My Carpet" canister which was about 65mm in diameter, then I cut some hardwood on my bandsaw to about 1/16" thick. Limited by the width of my scrap pieces and the maximum height of the bandsaw's mouth, I ended up with a 3-section design.

I soaked the cut pieces in hot water, then I rubber-banded them around the canister and threw it in the oven for about 30 minutes at around 200 degrees F.

Once the pieces had dried, they maintained the shape of the canister. I originally cut the wood pieces slightly oversized, and once they were bent, I sanded them down so they would fit around the cylinder without any major gaps in the seams.

I then peeled the shiny outer layer/label from the canister, so I'd have a nice porous surface for gluing.
In order to maintain it's cylindrical shape, I inserted three 2  1/2" rounds snugly inside the canister - 1 at each end and one in the middle, then I coated the tube in glue:

Once the glue was evenly spread, I put the wood pieces in place, taking care to line up the seams, then wrapped the whole assembly in rubber bands to set overnight. I intentionally left the cardboard core longer than necessary, so I'd have something to grab onto while I adjusted all the pieces and got them bound in place:

The next morning I removed the rubber bands, and sanded the cylinder to help smooth out the seams, while taking care to avoid creating any flat spots on the cylinder. I began with 100 grit, then moved on to 220, 400 and then 1000 grit.

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Pressure Box Lid Staining

Knowing that I wanted to have the inside of the lid stained a different color than the outside, I realized that this presented a challenge regarding the staining of the inside edges of the scrollwork.

Trying to figure out how best to accomplish this two-color arrangement without it turning into messy stain bleeds on the inside surfaces, I decided on a certain order of steps I would take…

First I stained the inside surface with several coats of the lighter (pecan) colored stain, then after that was dry, I sanded and shellacked the inside surface several times. The shellac would not only serve to help keep the lid seams airtight, but also to discourage the darker stain from bleeding into the lighter finish - I hoped…

Next, I prepared to stain the scrollwork edges by applying some "Frog Tape" on the inside of the scrollwork area, making sure there were no wrinkles in the tape and rubbing it down to ensure good adhesion to all the thin surface areas around the scrollwork:

Then, I spent about 45 minutes with a tiny brush and gave all the interior scrollwork edges a couple of coats of the darker (red mahogany) stain.

As soon as this was done, I continued with the stain over all the exterior surfaces.

When I pulled the Frog Tape away, I felt lucky that none of the dark stain had bled through onto the inside surface. There was a thin line of the darker stain where the strips of masking tape had overlapped, but it was easily wiped from the shellacked surface with a little bit of mineral spirits.

Now that that's done, I can shellac the outer surface, and then fit the window to the lid...

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Bearing blocks and staining

In preparation for getting the pressure box and lid all sealed up with shellac, I needed to get the interior stained. Before I could do that, I needed to make sure I had the rear bearing blocks glued & screwed into place, so they'd have a unstained surfaces for better glue adhesion.

I borrowed a forstner bit of the correct size to accommodate the ball bearings I planned on using and cut and drilled some bearing blocks that look a little like pipe flanges:

Once I had the bearing blocks stained and attached, I proceeded to stain the interior of the pressure box and the lid in preparation for the shellac sealing:

Now I've got to wait until the stain is fully dry...

More fun with the pressure box

When I compared the pressure box to the lid, I discovered that while the lid was almost perfectly square, the main part of the box was slightly out of square. It also rocked slightly when I set it on a flat table. In order to square up the box, I decided that some mechanical fasteners were in order - I didn't want to rely on just gluing & clamping.
So, I put the lid in place and using some hardwood scraps, I clamped the lid and the box together, side to side and end to end, to forcibly square the side/end assembly (with the already square lid):








Then I flipped the arrangement upside-down, and drilled some pilot holes for some small screws so that they would screw into the centerlines of the hardwood reinforcing strips that were glued to the lower edges of the side and end pieces:








Before gluing, I drove all the screws in to the bottom panel so that the points stuck out slightly and would "find" their pilot holes in the side/end assembly:









I then applied glue to all of the bottom-facing edges of the side/end assembly, set the bottom panel in place and tightened down all the screws:









Once the glue had dried overnight, I found that everything was square and flat, and I got a nice square fit with the box and the lid.

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