With the help of this forum, i have greatly stepped up the functional quality of my slip joint folders. I have two design templates that I'm using now and am able to reproduce slip joints that work well and look good.
This leaves me with my last hurdle, fitting bolsters properly. I struggle with aligning them correctly on both the belly and the spine of the handle. I have tried two methods:
1) put both liners together and scribe a line on each liner. It's pretty easy to get these lines to have endpoints that match since you're holding liners together. The lines show the bolster-scale transition line. The main problem i have here is that the epoxy that squeezes out obscures the line, and I can't really tell if I'm hitting that line exactly when i go to clamp.
2) glue one side together, doesn't really matter how. Then after it dries, i glue the other side and lightly clamp it, then slide it around a bit while holding the other glued up handle side up against it and fiddling with it until it looks like it will match, then tighten the clamps down. The clamps always move the piece and i get misalignment, or just the inherent inaccuracy of this method makes it not work well.
So I don't know. Any tricks to getting this right? Maybe just don't get epoxy near the edge so it won't squeeze out in method 1? It would work, but is there a better way?
Here is a pic to show what i mean by misalignment.
This leaves me with my last hurdle, fitting bolsters properly. I struggle with aligning them correctly on both the belly and the spine of the handle. I have tried two methods:
1) put both liners together and scribe a line on each liner. It's pretty easy to get these lines to have endpoints that match since you're holding liners together. The lines show the bolster-scale transition line. The main problem i have here is that the epoxy that squeezes out obscures the line, and I can't really tell if I'm hitting that line exactly when i go to clamp.
2) glue one side together, doesn't really matter how. Then after it dries, i glue the other side and lightly clamp it, then slide it around a bit while holding the other glued up handle side up against it and fiddling with it until it looks like it will match, then tighten the clamps down. The clamps always move the piece and i get misalignment, or just the inherent inaccuracy of this method makes it not work well.
So I don't know. Any tricks to getting this right? Maybe just don't get epoxy near the edge so it won't squeeze out in method 1? It would work, but is there a better way?
Here is a pic to show what i mean by misalignment.
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