ROLL-YOUR-OWN 7: A KICK IN THE DRAWERS

[SmokinAl]

G’day again folks and welcome to the next exciting instalment of roll your own: Making The Hang Ten Humidor.

At this point, we’ve got ourselves a nice Spanish Cedar box veneered all over in some stunning looking timber. Surely there’s no reason why we can’t just whack some hinges onto it, flood it with Danish Oil, stick a “Puck” from the wonderful people at Cigarmony (see, I haven’t forgotten you guys) onto the lid and have done with the whole sordid tale is there?

Well, yes, I’ve got a great reason for you. I haven’t finished mine and if I haven’t finished mine then you haven’t finished yours either damn it! I’m not going to do this alone!

Another good reason is that a first class humidor always has its humidification on the bottom.

This necessitates shelving, trays, whatever to put your cigars in.

Now, there’s a lot of good reasons to have your humidification on the bottom of the unit but I’ll give you the top two which should be enough to make a point:

1. Top mounted humidifiers can drip, act as a collection point for dew or fall off onto your cigars. I used to have a Davidoff Humidor that if you dropped the lid, just that would happen. End result was PG and water soaking into the cigars on the top shelf. Not very nice;

2. Moisture in the air rises. Contrary to what most people think moisture does not mix into “air”, rather air is a mixture of separate gasses, of which one is moisture. Every time you open the lid on a desktop humidor (assuming the room you’re in isn’t of a greater Relative Humidity) the moisture will dispel from the humidor. In a humidor with top mounted humectants, the void in the lid will re-stabilise before the cigars beneath it effectively increasing the time that the cigars will bleed their moisture into the environment.

For the Hang Ten Humidor I’m making two trays that stack one on top of the other. The bottom tray is reasonably deep and can hold a few boxes of cigars whilst the top tray is designed more for holding single sticks. These trays use “Zero Clearance Dovetails” which is like a normal dovetail only with zero clearance. (Sorry). What it means is the gap at the top of the triangle in the dovetail is only wide enough for a thin saw blade to pass through. Whenever you see something like this it means it was cut by hand because there’s no way it can be done with machine. Normal dovetails with a wider V can be made in numerous ways, some of which don’t even require a human hand in the process.

Here’s two that were cut by Warren and El Prez. A very nice job too!

I should mention that this was done at the beginning of the night. If we’d tried to do them after dinner and cigars they probably would have looked like this:

Only with a bleeding thumb stuck in the middle, probably mine.

The trays for your humidor can be as simple or elaborate as you like.

The simplest method is probably that which I used for my “Car-mador”, a humidor I built 15 years ago (in one very long day I might add) that has travelled thousands of miles on the parcel shelf of the cars I’ve owned over the years. It has been rained on in the Birdcage at the Melbourne Cup, stolen at Polo, sat upon, rained upon again, you name it. The only thing it hasn’t done is failed (although the polishing has been touched up a few times).

You can probably guess that I’m fond of a nautical rose for a quick piece of marquetry. The wood around the rose is Queensland Walnut. It’s actually 16 triangles that match perfectly in what is called a sunburst pattern.

The tray in this one has sides of Spanish Cedar, a base of Marine Grade Plywood and some strips of Spanish Cedar laying across the ply.

You’ll notice the “Puck” from those great guys at Cigarmony in the bottom.

Up close, it looks this. Mmmm. Cigarmony. That’s www.cigarmony.com Lovely people.

(There, that should keep me in lighter fluid for a while.)

Those of you with a keen eye will notice that the tray is joined with a side rabbet. It’s the same one we used in the construction of the carcase so I won’t explain it again here. If you should require further details on this, they can be found at www.cigarmony.com

Whilst this one is all Spanish Cedar, I thought I’d show off and veneer the inside lip of the box and still get an airtight seal. You really don’t EVER want to do this unless you really, really, really know what you’re doing. It might look a little smarter, but it’s hard to get a good joint around the box lid and it makes the chances of you getting varnish into the carcase skyrocket which will stink up your cigars.

The Hang Ten Humidor is a little different.

Its corners are joined together with the aforementioned dovetails. If anyone would like a mini tutorial on how to do these the old fashioned way I’m happy to oblige.

The tray is made from thin pieces of Spanish Cedar that are much stronger than they look. Joining them together in this way supplies substantial strength, but it’s a real pain in the pants to make. It’s very time consuming and rather finicky. If you get a saw cut wrong, you get to start again.

But the hard work pays off. It looks quite neat in place.

I still need to glue some handles into this, make some dividers, finish sand the tray bottom and do the top tray (which means Ken has to come over and do his corner...Ken, oh Keeenn!) but we’re sure getting there.

So there you go folks. We’ve got a box with a tray that in yours will have some supports underneath it to hold it above your “Puck” (you know where to get them from). All that’s left for you to do is the polishing and fitting the hinges which is what we’ll be doing in next week’s exciting episode.

Until then, Cheers,

Al.

[Colt45]

:clap:

Love the car-mador and it's history

[El Presidente]

Looking good Al

[CIGARHead]

I don't care what they say about you Al, you're tops in my book mate! Such a beautiful piece of art you are building.

[SmokinAl]

» I don't care what they say about you Al, you're tops in my book mate! Such

» a beautiful piece of art you are building.

Ohh. You should hear the things they say...shameful rumours...

[Dr.G]

Looks fantastic! :-D :-D :-D

I admire your work and am with Colt with regards to your car-midor!

Keep up the excellent work!!!

Cheers,

George

[Don Candido]

» » I don't care what they say about you Al, you're tops in my book mate!

» Such

» » a beautiful piece of art you are building.

»

» Ohh. You should hear the things they say...shameful rumours...

I just hope - one day, to aspire to a level of "mateship" with you Al. Is that the correct use of the "word"? :-)

[SmokinAl]

» :clap:

»

» Love the car-mador and it's history

The Carmidor was stolen at The Melbourne Cup one year. Myself and a mate spent about the next 2 hours searching for it, going from tent to tent. During the expedition I met a girl who volunteered to help us. We finally gave it up as a lost cause and came back to our hosts tent and there was the carmidor, sitting in the same place it had disappeared from, smokes intact!

The girl I met on the expedition and I were together for 2 years.

The Karma-dor. (Its real name.)

Outlandish, but true. Who says smoking is bad for you? :-D

Mateship, Love and Cigars. I wouldn't be dead for quids.

[n2advnture]

WOW! That's is a killer tray system and looks phenomenal!

~Mark

ps - couldn't you at least mention what humidification device you're going to use? geeez

[asc]

Looking VERY sweet!

I'm envious of you guys who can work wood.

I've got a cabinet and a bunch of rough cut spanish cedar that I'd eventually like to combine into a cabinet humi...but I haven't the faintest idea of where to begin :-|

[SmokinAl]

» WOW! That's is a killer tray system and looks phenomenal!

»

» ~Mark

»

» ps - couldn't you at least mention what humidification device you're going

» to use? geeez

CIGARMONY...CIGARRRRRMONY

ASC, take a few pictures of the inside of the cabinet and I'll kick you off. Will also need internal dimensions of the space WxHxD. Should be easy enough.

[asc]

» ASC, take a few pictures of the inside of the cabinet and I'll kick you

» off. Will also need internal dimensions of the space WxHxD. Should be easy

» enough.

NICE!!!

Thanks a billion Al!!!

I'll remember this and do so in time, I may have a chance to do some work with it this summer. However, right now with finals ramping up and a first new born on the way...I'm trying to keep "odd projects" at bay!

[Fatshotbud]

Great stuff!

[SmokinAl]

» WOW! That's is a killer tray system and looks phenomenal!

Mark, I meant to mention that this is one of the easy ones. I've done these torsion boxes in patterns before. Think of a series of arcs starting in the bottom right hand corner and decreasing in curvature as they go across to the left. Then do the same thing again from the top left. It looks very cool but the last time around took 3 whole days to steam bend and cut just one tray this size. If I can find a picture I'll post it because no-one in their right mind would try and rip that one off :-D

[Dr.G]

I'll post it because no-one in

» their right mind would try and rip that one off :-D

But it might end up on You tube as more 'porn'! ;-)

[SmokinAl]

» I'll post it because no-one in

» » their right mind would try and rip that one off :-D

»

» But it might end up on You tube as more 'porn'! ;-)

G'day George, how are you doing? I can just imagine someone trying to steam bend 4mm wide Spanish Cedar to do this without having experience at it...they'd need your professional services more than mine! :-D

[Dr.G]

I can just imagine someone trying to

» steam bend 4mm wide Spanish Cedar to do this without having experience at

» it...they'd need your professional services more than mine! :-D

:-D :-D :-D

I'm good! Back in ED and lovin' it!

look forward to more and more pics...these torsion draws sound hot!

P.S. How do you assemble the 'famous' draw sides? Is it again male/female dovetailing?