Help me design a telescope case

[Kenzie]

What thickness would you recommend? I take it I would need to drill a pilot hole to avoid the wood splitting?

[Wideboy]

18mm, 12 usually spits even with a pilot.

[NTECUK]

Dad could box joint. 12 mm ply.
But he was a clever stick like that.
Their must be a YouTube video that will give you inspiration

[Wideboy]

I've never herd of a box joint.

Edit: ah you mean a finger joint. Well if kenzie can manage that then I'd still say go for dovetails. Interlocking angles will prevent it pulling apart if its dropped/knocked about Alot.

[NTECUK]

With good glue it's going to be strong
And it's easier than dove tails

[Wideboy]

Not that much easier. I don't think kenzie has much woodworking experience (no offence, just from what you said) and finger joints are pretty much the same process as cutting dovetails without the angles, they're still pretty tricky. That's why I suggested just screw, glue and butt it. Finger joints and the like are very strong but generally they're for aesthetics over strength as you don't want see screws in a nice piece of hardwood, an effective joint can be achieved with glue and screws and if it's being covered it won't matter how it looks, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with putting the effort into it. When I first saw the thread I thought the idea was to make a nice hardwood presentation kind of case that's why I posted about dovetails ect.

[NTECUK]

New hobbie for him.
The cheapest router out of Lidl and a jig and there's no stopping what he might create lol.
p's
Apologies to my dad who would despaire in the absolute cheat of using a router.

Whittle it out of a tree trunk. anything else is cheating.

[timwilky]

Originally Posted by NTECUK

New hobbie for him.
The cheapest router out of Lidl and a jig and there's no stopping what he might create lol.
p's
Apologies to my dad who would despaire in the absolute cheat of using a router.

I don't know. I gave away my dads Record 405 and about 30 blades last year as I could do a neater job with a decent router. I had no idea where I could source replacement blades or even get them sharpened. Sometimes modern technology is far superior to traditional tools.

[Wideboy]

You sharpen them yourself. When you start In the trade your suppose to learn how to do everything by hand at a* quality before you learn how to do it with power tools. All my work is by hand of manual machinery nothing automated. I've never used a dovetail jig, cnc ect.

I'd pick hand tools over power tooks every time.