Today I finished cutting the tennons for all the skirt parts. As soon as I get a chamfer bit, I can complete the table base.
|
||||
|
Today I worked on the table base and skirt. Â The first job was to cut all the peg holes, and mortises in the legs. Â Since the table legs have 1/2 of taper across their length, I needed a spacer of the right height to make the center axis parallel to the mortiser table. Â I also used a bit of cutoff material to even out the clamping pressure on the front clamp face. Â Second, I setup the indexing pin on the end of the table to allow each leg to be inserted into the table exactly the same. Â Finally, I setup the depth of the mortiser following my layout lines on the first leg, and set the depth stops. Â Then it was time to go to town!
Pretty simple really. Â Except for the sheer size of the thing. Â My shop floor is the only space I have large and flat enough to glue a 41″ x 98″ table-top. Â My workbench is almost 9′ long, but it is “only” 36 inches wide, which includes the tool-tray on the back. Â The tool tray isn’t exactly flat with the main work surface. Â So, I don’t include it as part of the “flat surface” needed for glue-ups. Finally!
Between various holiday activities, getting a flu right before Christmas, the cold weather, and an insane work schedule for the last two weeks, I haven’t been able to get the last of the 4 legs glued together. Anyway, I finally brought the leg and the glue into the house, let it all warm up, and then took it outside to glue it up. Then I brought it back inside dry. Anyway, all of the legs are dry and ready for the next step: tapering. But, before I can taper them…I need to clean up the glue and plane the maple flush.
Latest update on the table. Ran all the table top planks through the jointer to remove the glue and smooth it all out. Looks nice!
Today my Dad came over and we spent a few hours working Mom’s table. We decided to begin the process of assembling the top. The top is going to be made out of quarter sawn fir with a walnut frame. The outside planks are walnut, as well as the breadboard ends. The fir planks are made from resawn and bookmatched 4×4 fence posts carefully chosen from the local Box Store. They’ve been sitting and drying in my shop all summer. I resawed the 4×4’s about a month ago. I’ve been letting the new sawn surfaces equalize to see how the wood moves before finishing the milling process. Today we finished the milling of the top face and edges. Once we got it all flat and square it was time for a test fit and to arrange the boards into a pleasing layout.  Here is what we came up with:
So, here’s the table-leg prototype.  It is tapered from 3 3/4†to 2 1/2†or so. I cut the tapers using the jointer, this my favorite way to cut tapers. I should have taken some pictures of the process…but, these were all taken after the fact. The basic process is this: |
|
|||
|
Copyright © 2023 Tom Hampton - All Rights Reserved Powered by WordPress & Atahualpa |
||||
