Sawdust on the Floor

Welcome back, today we’ll continue with our wall clock project, building the outer box for the clock. Grab a cup of coffee and let’s get started. 

Again using the same 4/4 lumber as before, I created the outer box.  It measures 14 1/4″ by 23 5/8″ and is 4 1/4″ deep.

The outer box is deeper then the inner box by 5/8 of an inch.  The reason is that I cut a 3/8″ deep rabbet along the inside of the outer box and installed a piece of 1/4″ oak plywood in the dado to form a back of the clock. When the inner box was later installed, the front edge of the inner and outer box would be  same point. 

One of the weakest woodworking joints is a butt  joint, because of the limited surface areas that glue can be applied to. If you are interested in more on the relative strength of various woodworking joints, see my post, How Strong Are Your Joints? So I cut 3/4″ wide 3/8″ deep rabbets along the ends of the side stiles, where the top and bottom rails would later be joined. Not only is this a stronger joint, but it really looks better.  With the work done to the outer rails and stiles, it was time for some assembly.  After applying glue to all the joints, the rails and stiles were connected together, then the plywood back was installed and secured with small nails from my nail gun.  After verifying that the case was really square, it was set aside to dry. 

The easy way to verify that the case is square is to measure across the diagonals. both measurements must be the same for the case to be square. I have always had problems with this because while I understand the concept, it leaves a lot of wiggle room.  To get an accurate reading, you must place the tape in exactly the same place each and every time.  And that is sometimes a difficult thing to do, particularly if you are working on a big piece. I have found an inexpensive little tool that helps me get better readings.  It is the Square check for tape measures, from Rockler.  You simply place your tape in the holder and stretch it to the opposite corner, record the value, and then repeat for the opposite corner. No more second guessing your self. 

Once this outer box assembly was dry, I installed the inner box within the of the outer box.  This was a simple matter of gluing the ends of the stiles of the inner box to the top and bottom rails of the outer box.  But before I did that, I took one more step,  which I almost forgot to do this and that would have been a real bummer.  I installed the remote speaker for the clock into the space formed between the lower ends of the  inner case stiles, the bottom rail of the inner case and the bottom rail of the outer case.  I also drilled a small hole in the side of the inner box, and ran wires from the speaker up to the yet to be installed clock mechanism. So that the sound could escape the case, I also drilled a 3/4″ diameter hole into the bottom rail of the outer case. 

There is a sketch in part 1 of this project that details the inner and outer boxes, that may help make this a little clearer. 

With the inner and outer boxes connected together, I also connected the plywood back to the rails and stiles of the inner box, with pin nails from my nail gun. So now I had the case built, and all that remained was to apply the trim, make the door and install the clock itself. 

The trim actually took more time to do then the rest of the clock did.  The problem was that I wanted really wide cove molding, which I found was not commercially available at  any place near me.  And if it had been, I suspect that it would have been cost prohibitive.  So I did what any woodworker would do, I made my own. We’ll leave that for tomorrow as it’s time for dinner.  See you tomorrow morning and we’ll make the cove molding from scratch.

Related posts:

1. Woodworking Project -Wall Clock Part 1
2. Woodworking Project Table Top Clock Part 2
3. Woodworking Project – Table Top Clock
4. Woodworking Project – Circuit Breaker Panel Part 2 – Raised Panels
5. Woodworking Project – Steamer Trunk Part 1