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The Morg$ Mantle – an overdue explanation…coming soon…
•February 10, 2011 • Leave a Comment
The Morg$ Mantle
(Quick reminder, click on thumbnail to be magically transported to a larger photo.)
During a recent carpentry class presentation I was reminded of the fact that I built this thing. It jarred my wee brain into also remembering that I write a woodworking blog, it’s right here! Unfortunately I have been suffering from a high level of procrastination for the last few years, I haven’t built anything and I haven’t really written about anything besides stupid school stuff. I hope to change that with an upcoming description of this custom built-in project, step-by-step right here on this woodworking blog. I’m also excited about recently picking up a job to build some bedside tables of which I sort of have free reign in design. That’s the best way to go about things, free reign. OK, so if not for anyone else but myself I hope to return very soon in order to get the Morg$ Mantle explanation rolling. Happy sawdust making kiddies!
Sexy Cabinet Table Body…parts and pieces
•February 6, 2010 • 2 CommentsYet another long break between posts! Unfortunately I haven’t had my mind on woodworking these past few months, been thinking about how my life is going to change come August and trying to get in as much fun as possible before I’m a poor man. We won’t get into that, this is a blog about woodworking so let’s get back to The Cabinet Table…which sold a few days ago!! Sad to see it go but happy that someone liked it enough to want it in their home. That’s very exciting! Let’s post another finished product photo so we don’t forget what this thing looks like!
The Cabinet Table in open position.
Click the thumbnail then hit the The Cabinet Table (set) button if you would like to see a few more detailed shots. I’m so glad I made photos of the final piece. It’s a little bit sad that I won’t be able get up close to inspect it anymore, or run my hands across its surfaces, or admire the odd not-so-pretty way I decided to attach the legs to the open frame underneath the box. Oh well, I guess if I made art just for my own satisfaction it wouldn’t be as enjoyable as seeing and hearing other people get excited about it. Ok, enough nostalgia and philosophy…it sold, someone else gets to personally enjoy it and that’s that! At least I have my photos.
The last post, long ago, left you off with an explanation of how I made the keyed miter joints. And the last photo you saw was the corner of the box after glue up. That picture was a skip ahead of the process. This picture, already uploaded to the last post, will start us off today. We’re going to talk about the box.
Rabbets and Dadoes
This photo shows a lot of forethought! You can see the basic miter and of course the added slots for the keys, which we’ve already covered so let’s focus on the dado and rabbet, clearly seen cut into the piece on the right. Here is a great example of how the mock up helped my forethought. Look closely and you’ll see the thin space of wood between the end of the dado and the key slot cut. During the mock up I made the mistake of cutting the key slot too close to the bottom of the box side (those two pieces at right, plus two more will create a box or rectangle so we’re calling them the box sides.) The dado and key slot mated which made it difficult to get the actual key inside its slot for it fought against the base of the box which didn’t want to rest happily in its dado. That was a really confusing sentence. Look at this photo up close,
Intricate waste removal with the chisel.
hopefully it will help. See those two gashes cut into the miter, the key slots? See the one on the left? See that dado so dangerously close to it? Imagine if I had cut the dado an 1/8″ higher into that box side (the left part of that piece of wood in this picture is the bottom of the box side.) It would hit the key slot making the key and the corner of the box bottom fight for a home during glue up. See?! Good. I made that mistake on the mock up so needless to say I learned and didn’t let it happen on the real deal.
The rest of the dado is quite simple, however, you need to think ahead before you make your cut. Here are a few basic key points to keep in mind. How thick does the dado need to be? This of course is determined by what’s going into it. In this case I used a piece of 1/8″ scrap oak plywood backed up by an 1/8″ piece of pegboard material without the holes, I think it’s called hardboard or panelboard. I added this extra piece, glued a full backing onto the entire box bottom, mostly for strength but also to make the exposed bottom look cleaner. Otherwise it would have been the underside of the oak plywood which didn’t look very nice. Remember, people sometimes get into awkward positions to clean or do other things and we certainly don’t want them noticing shotty underbellies of tables. This also relates to the idea of breaking or softening all sharp edges, because people dust and run Pine Sol (yuck) in all the nooks and crannies of furniture, best they not cut themselves on a piece you built! I digress. So the base or bottom of the box is approximately 1/4″ thick. There’s your dado thickness. Determining the depth of cut for this particular project was a matter of choice. I kept my numbers simple by making each box wall dado cut 3/8″ deep bringing my overall box bottom size, length and width, 3/4′” bigger than the inside of the box walls. My wording probably makes it seem more complicated than it is! Here’s another important thing to keep in mind, wood movement, shrinkage and expansion factors. The plywood and panelboard aren’t going to move/bend that much but it’s possible they will expand in high humidity. The box walls are made of real hardwood so movement is possible, even though they are small pieces. I’m not going to pretend I know all the movement qualities/properties of all woods because I don’t, I’m just using a certain kind of common sense that’s useful sometimes. Anyway, considering the possibility of all this movement it’s a good idea to cut your dado just a wee bit larger and deeper than a perfect, snug fit. Of course we don’t want it to be crazy sloppy but I do think it’s a good idea that you leave some play. I like the thought of having tight joints that seem like they’d hold without glue but sometimes that’s not ideal. Dry fitting at this point can be an important step, as depicted by this next lovely photo. You may have to make a pass, fit, make a pass etc.
Base Dado
We all know that we always make sure things are going to fit together before we bust out the glue. Here I used a frame clamp, ye olde strap and ratchet type, to bring my walls tight around the base, testing the fit of the box bottom into the dado. As I mentioned above, I kept a wee bit of wiggle room inside that dado. After a few passes over the table saw I got just the right fit. ALLL right, that should be enough about dadoes for a while! Let’s get on with the rabbet and the open frame I used for the leg support system. Ha, you can hardly call it a system!
Leg Brace Frame
This photo of the upside down box (see that nice panelboard bottom) shows the basic idea for the leg support system. I had to figure out some way to attach four legs to this thing and here’s what I came up with. Remember the rabbet on the bottom of the box walls? This open frame you see on the left fits into it. Here’s a closeup on the right-
Leg Brace Rabbet
Before I cut the miters I rabbeted my pieces to fit onto the box walls, rather than just gluing them on or doweling them in. Remember, there’s a rabbet on the bottom of those box walls. The whole point was to provide strength and structure for the legs, the mock up told me this would work just fine. Of course doweling these pieces into the bottom of the box walls would have provided much more strength but that may have made it difficult to get a good, even spaced ledge all the way around. I’m sure it could have been done with grace but this method worked well too. See how the rabbets don’t match up perfectly? Not a big deal. The basic design doesn’t call for them to be perfect, in fact, I’m not even sure what the basic design principle is! I just thought it would be a good idea to do it this way, kind of along the lines of building blocks…similar to Lincoln Logs! Perhaps what this did was provide more surface area for the glue to adhere to? Enough speculation, let’s get on with life shall we? A quick (I’ll try to make it quick, this post is getting long) tidbit on miters and the rudimentary method I used to get mine nice and square. Check out this series of pics-
Bad 45
cut test cut test cut test
Good 45
Very rarely has any chop saw I’ve used cut a nice, tight 45 degree angle the first time I adjust it. I always double check before cutting the real deal. Most of the time I’ll cut a long piece of wood in half at a 45, put the angled cuts together to form a right angle and check it with the speed square. This time I wanted to make damn sure my 45s would make a nice, square box so I put a little more time and effort into it, double and triple checking before I was happy with the miter. The photos are self explanatory. I did this with the main box frame as well.
I’m going to throw a few more pictures at you because most of the time they speak better than my words.
Mock up main box frame glue up.
The real deal dry fit.
Leg brace frame glue up.
Ok, here we go from left to right. As always, we do a dry fit…multiple dry fits. I didn’t want to mar the real deal box walls so I cut some spacers out of particle board and used them for my clamp faces. Before this dry fit I put these box walls together many times to check my miters and to check how the base fit into the dado. This last time was right before actual glue up, one last check to make sure some crazy voodoo magic didn’t happen to my miters. Also, meticulous dry fits give you a great idea of how the actual glue up is going to go, regarding what clamps will work most efficiently and the procedure you’ll need to follow in order to complete the task in a timely fashion, before the glue sets up. The middle picture is a great example of how the dry fit aided in preparation. Because of it, I had everything I would need for the glue up and I knew exactly how and when I would need each tool. This, by the way, is the mock up. You can see the real deal in the background waiting to be glued. This is kind of funny and interesting, bare with me as I walkabout on a short tangent for a minute. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do with this project but I had never built anything quite like it, so most aspects were new. Sure I’ve made lots of frames and boxes but there was a lot of forethought that needed to happen in order for this thing to come out nice, as we’ve talked about already. So, as more construction ideas came to mind I would test them out with mock pieces. The mock pieces started adding up step by step and they eventually became their own entity. I would get stuck with a construction step on the real deal, go to the mock up, figure out the problem then go back to the actual piece. This happened quite a few times as the middle picture above shows. You can see the real thing in the background just hanging out waiting to be glued. Before I felt comfortable putting it together I had to try it out on the mock up. See?! Funny stuff. Oh, not sure if I’ve mentioned this but I like the legs on the mock up much better than the real legs. OK, so the mock up glue up went well. One very important thing I learned during this time was that the leg brace frame needed to be glued together BEFORE being attached to the box bottom. You can see that in the photo on the right. At that point the real deal main box had been glued together and fortunately after the glue up the leg brace frame pieces still fit inside, and on top of those rabbets, nice and snug. So before the leg brace frame got attached to the actual piece I glued the four sides together, with the ratchet strap, as they sat snug in the main box frame. Make sense? I hope so. You can see the mock up with legs in the background of this shot.
Well, those are the parts and pieces that make up the main Cabinet Table body. I know I was a bit scattered on this post, please forgive me, I’m out of practice. Hopefully the next post will show up sooner rather than later and I can keep my head straight enough to get through writing about this project. It’s been a few months since completion. Some things were forgotten and lots of brain cells were killed in the meantime. Hmm, a scary thought. That’s why there are these lovely things called cameras.
I think I’ll be able to finish up on the next post. All we have left to talk about is gluing the keys in, making and attaching the legs. Then I can start rambling on about the Morg$ Mantle Project! That was fun. See ya later kiddies.
A Keyed Miter
•November 16, 2009 • Leave a CommentA note: Remember, you should be able to get a preview of the photos by scrolling your mouse over them or you can click and be sent to Flickr for larger views. I need to figure out how to make that link pop up in another window so it makes reading and viewing a bit easier. Also, there are a few linked words throughout the post but they’re kind of hard to see being just a little bit lighter than the rest of the text. I’ll try to change that too. Enjoy!
It’s funny how long it takes me to get back to this blog. I really enjoy writing about my projects but it takes a lot of time for me to gather my thoughts and type them out. And time is something I have a lot of, even when I’m working out of state but mostly when I get back to Missoula. When I’m not working for the man, the money and the system I love to spend most of my time in the shop. It’s hard to sit at the computer when I know I could be building something. Many drafts are started, saved and reworked before the final gets posted. And many days pass by too. Since the last post I managed to start another project that I’m quite excited about. Like all other pieces it’s been a great learning experience and full of many new challenges. It’s been the time consumer that has kept me away from the screen and keyboard. Now I have to finish writing about The Cabinet Table before I can start gathering more sentences in my head and posting photos of The Morg$ Mantle Project! So let’s get on with it.
The keyed miter.
Here we have the keyed miter. This mock up, like all others, was a test to see if I could do it. Mock ups are great because they bring forth unforeseen problems that arise during construction and they help with creativity. If you don’t like the mock up, trash it and start over with a different design. These two mitered pieces were originally cut in order to experiment with the keys but it eventually turned into a full size, usable table…one that has better legs than the real piece! OK. Keyed miters.
Determining key thickness.
The walls on the final piece are about 3/4 of an inch taller than the mock up walls but I stayed with the same key thickness, which is 3/8″. It was a manageable thickness to deal with as far as milling down my scrap pieces of walnut and I think it looks good. Anything smaller and you
Cutting out the walnut keys.
would have to look very closely to notice them and anything thicker would have interfered with the dado on the inside bottoms of the box walls. After making some stock all I did was measure 7/16″ (slightly bigger than the hole because it’s easier to take off wood than fill it in!) from one end and make one cut on the band saw to get my rough key. I’m not sure why this photo shows two band saw kerfs. Ah, it’s been awhile since I did all this. That’s about all there is to say about cutting the keys but I guess I’m getting a little ahead of myself here. Let’s look at some more pics of how I cut the key slots. Oh wait, one more thing. That first photo shows keys that are proud from the faces of the walls. I struggled with a decision on this. I experimented with the other corners of the mock up box and I came out liking this style however, I chose to sand them flush on the real thing. It was just easier that way.
Laying out the key guidelines.
In this photo we see stock pieces for the real box walls and how I laid out the guidelines for cutting the key slots. I put my level on the table as a straight edge and rested two mitered pieces on it. It’s important to note that I marked two pieces at a time, ones that would eventually be glued together. It was an attempt to get the cuts as even as possible on both pieces so after I glued them together I wouldn’t have too much cleaning up to do. It helped but it didn’t work perfectly, as you’ll see in a photo I’ll put up near the end of this post. The spaces from the key to the top and bottom of the walls are the same, leaving a larger space in the middle. When I cut the miters I took great care in making the grain look like a continuous piece of wood, making it wrap around the box as you can see in this pic. Cutting the key slots, sadly enough, took a little bit of this creative edge away so in order to keep the look and the effect I made the space in-between the keys a bit larger than the top and bottom. The last photo in this little line up on the left shows how I saved some of that continuous grain look by making the middle space larger. I think it also mixes things up a little bit, not so uniform and perhaps stagnant as spacing the keys out evenly would have looked.
Initial waste removal with the band saw.
After making my guidelines I used a small band saw to remove the majority of the waste. This was nerve racking because these aren’t mock up pieces! During the start of the first few cuts I noticed that the blade would shift after I got about a sixteenth of an inch in, like it was loose. I could have tightened it but I chose to compensate instead, starting the cut a wee bit inside of my line so after the blade shift I’d be right on. The wood shop co-op baby band saw could definitely use some fine tuning. I’ve only had to mess with it one time when the blade slid off the wheels and after that episode I’d just rather not fiddle with things until it screws up again. I need to read the book! So, I cut down all four of the guidelines then made that swoop you see on the top for both slots. Then I got the blade into that swoop as far as it would go so I could cut out the rest of the waste, leaving only that small triangle to be removed at the bench. But before I went after it with a chisel I cut band saw width slots in that triangle to aid in the remainder of waste removal. You can see what I’m talking about in the next pic.
Intricate waste removal with the chisel.
See the little band saw kerfs? Kind of like cutting a featherboard. This minimized the chance of large pieces breaking off and splintering while using the chisel. First things first, I made sure my chisel was super sharp. During my one week at The Inside Passage School of Fine Woodworking I barely touched upon the intricate and skilled techniques of sharpening chisels and hand plane blades. I believe the first week of the artisan program intensely focuses on sharpening your hand tools which I wish I could have been a part of. I have a very basic idea of the sharpening process so I can get a chisel sharp but I know I’m not doing it the right way. My chisels are of the cheap Ace Hardware variety so I’m not too worried about messing them up. So I got my little chisel sharp and hammered out the rest of the waste, as you can see here. I started with the chisel just inside my pencil mark at a 90 degree angle to the wood surface. As I hammered it into the wood I gradually angled it toward the inside of the key slot. I’ve learned that when you’re making joints it’s A LOT easier to file down a lip rather than the whole surface of the joint. I hope this makes sense because it can really take some time out of your day when you have to clean up your messy waste removal cuts in order to get a nice, tight fitting joint. Thankfully there wasn’t too much filing to be done on these little key slots but I still made that angle with the chisel, just in case. I think that’s starting to become a force of nature kind of thing. I just did it with some joints I made for The Morg$ Mantle Project. It’s nice not having to file the whole face of the joint but I think you must use some caution for it’s possible to get too much of an angle. If there is only a small surface of a lip connecting your joint you probably lose a lot of strength.
Away with the waste!
Alright, almost done with the mitered keys. Just a few more photos. This is the final view of the key slots after all waste removal. Pretty straight forward.
Rabbits and Dadoes
The photo on the right shows the dado for the bottom of the box and the rabbit I used to attach the open frame for the leg support system. See what I mean about that bottom key slot interfering with the dado? I made that mistake on the mock up and when I glued it up it made fitting the bottom of the box kind of a pain. As you can see here, I learned from the mock up.
Clean up with the chisel after gluing.
Even though I took great care in trying to get all my guidelines for the key slots uniform on all pieces I still had some clean up to do after gluing the box walls together. It wasn’t too hard of a task and I think part of it was due to a slight shift in pieces as the glue was drying. That gap in the miter decided to present itself after I applied the glue…of course. Every time I did a dry fit for the box walls it was near perfection. Magical, annoying things happen after the glue comes out!
Well, that’s it for the keyed miters. I should have used a darker wood for the keys, something even as dramatic as African Ebony. I know walnut can darken quite a bit when finished with a lacquer or polyurethane but the scrap piece I used for the keys was kind of light and I ended up finishing this piece with three coats of tung oil instead of the poly. The end grain on the walnut darkened nicely of course but the sides are pretty light. Check out one of the final corners here!
I’m not sure where I’ll pick up from on the next post but I assure you, it’s going to interspectacular!
The Cabinet Table…a preliminary explanation
•October 5, 2009 • 2 Comments
The original cabinet door before sanding and re-staining.
It all started with the purchase of a cabinet door. Whenever I stop by Home Resource I always check out the old cabinet door section to see if there’s something I can’t live without. I’ve built a few cabinet top end tables, seen here, and since those projects I’ve gotten kind of addicted to searching out the next one. I noticed this little beauty and thought it would make another nice table similar to the two I’ve already built. It sat in the shop for a few weeks and got moved around during cleaning sessions as I finished and started at least three other projects. During all that time, particularly when I was sitting in the thinking chair meaning to figure out the current dilemma, I would notice it leaning against my scrap pile and I would start to think about what I’d do with it. Then I would shake my head, try to erase those thoughts so I could focus on the task at hand. I’m glad it took some time to come up with a plan because I used it for a project that involved a lot of firsts for me. Well, most of my projects are first time experiences if you don’t count the mock up pieces built just to see if the ideas are possible or if my skills are capable. As I’ve said before, that method proves to be rewarding yet incredibly stressful at the same time. It’s a big confidence booster when you have an excellent idea of how you want to put something together and you do it on the fly, sort of speak. It can also be expensive, time consuming and headache inducing when you get stuck on a joint or you cut an upside down miter and have to start over and scrounge for more materials. All this considered, I still opt for designing and building to coalesce into one. We’ll see if that changes as my experience increases!
This design called for lots of preparation before pieces could be put together and if you’ve read older posts you know that I don’t excel at forethought and detailed, drawn out planning of projects, hence another mock up and a few weeks of building time. I’ll post a final photo here so you can get an idea of what I’ll talk about next. Then we’ll get into the more detailed construction pics.
Final piece 1.
As you can see, it’s a box with legs and a cabinet door for a top. You can see a photo of it with the top up here. I’ve built many frames in my day so the mitered edges for the box were not a big deal. I’ll show you how I achieved the almost perfect miter in the next post or two. When I worked in a woodshop for a trophy company in Alaska, again, back in the day (damn I’m getting old), I had to build a few shadowboxes for customers’ weird medals and pelts and such so I had a little bit of experience with dado-ing in bottoms. Not a big deal as far as planning goes but you still need to have your thoughts straight before diving into this. The difference with this box is that I knew it was going to have to stand up, it needed legs. I fought with my brain about how to accomplish this. First I wanted to incorporate the legs into the bottom of the box, as in join them directly up and through to the inside. I thought about how I could make them rise all the way to the top of the inside walls, maybe even dowel them into those walls somehow. The contrast of dark legs against light inside box would have looked nice yes? Thankfully before too long I realized these thoughts were carrying me away to a land where woodworking is as easy as eating bacon and that those joints were nothing but a fantasy…for now anyway. So I opted for a more simple yet still complicated approach. I built an open frame that rested underneath the main box. This I would use for the major support of the legs, gluing and doweling them into the inside walls of the open frame but in order for that frame to have enough structural integrity to support the legs it had to be rabitted into the main box. Seems simple yes? Well, it still took some forethought and a mock up for me to get it straight in my head before fiddling with the real deal. Here’s that mock up,
The complete mock up.
This picture gives you a pretty clear idea of how it works…but I’m going to go into SO much more detail before we’re through. Aren’t you excited?! Notice the corners of the mitered box? Yes, those are little walnut keys in there. Nice eh? That was another first for me and one of the original ideas I had for this thing before I started building mock ups and what not. We’re going to learn all about how I did those too…and you’re going to like it.
That’s about all I have for this first post, I need some sleep. Hopefully these pictures and my eloquence are tantalizing enough for you to want to come back and learn a little more about how I put the Cabinet Table together…dilettante style. See you soon.
Dining Table Legs…and THE END!
•September 23, 2009 • 2 Comments
Two pieces make one leg.
This is a heavy table. This heavy table requires sturdy legs. Wow. When I start a post I feel like I’m writing a report on Robert Frost in grade school. Who the hell is Robert Frost? I sure didn’t know when I was writing that report and if I remember correctly it started off very similar to today’s beginning. It takes some time to get into it but eventually the flow starts and then I find it difficult to stop. I can’t remember what grade I got on that report. Thankfully no one is grading these blog posts!
Here we go with the legs. The beautiful camera phone photo on the left shows four pieces of 40″x5″x1 1/2″ fir that will make up two legs. This table is burly. See, in grade school I didn’t know what a thesaurus was either but I’ve seen one or two since then. I knew the legs had to support a lot of weight so I chose to keep them simple, straight-lined to the floor and thick. This glue up is pretty basic but of course I did the dry fit test before I slathered on all that glue. The dry fit was important this time not because it was an intricate glue up but because I wanted to make sure the legs would look good. The most noticeable seams would be the tops and the outside sides. For the sides, I wanted to make sure the grain didn’t get so crazy and curvy to where it was identifiable that the leg was indeed made out of two pieces. I got a little bit creative with the tops as
Leg glue up creativity.
you can see here. During the glue up I sandwiched the leg pieces between two throw away boards so I wouldn’t put clamp marks on my good pieces. This also disperses clamp pressure which helps make continuously tight seams. That’s all I have to say about the leg glue up, it’s pretty straightforward, so let’s get on with making those mortises or bridles or lap joints, whatever you want to call them.
This next photo shows the band saw kerfs and the little ledge.
Band saw kerfs and the little ledge.
The ledge is basically a big rabbit I cut with the sliding miter saw. Just a bunch of cuts, back and forth, 1/2″ deep. This is one of two options I came up with for extra support, as I mentioned in the last post. I used the same measurements for each corner tenon but after filing them down I ended up with slightly different sized tenons so each leg mortise was fit specifically to its corresponding tenon. Here is the first one I cut. I removed the majority of waste with the band saw then did a bunch of bench work, filing them down to fit each tenon almost perfectly (have a look). I say almost because nothing is perfect. These joints, after dry fitting all four of them, were tight enough for me to rock the table back and forth and sit on it without fear of moving them out of place or bringing the whole lot down. I’m saying it was a good sturdy table without glue but in the end, I decided to glue them up! But before I post that picture take a look at this one.
Testing bridle joint fit.
Here you can see how these joints come together. Notice the little ledge and how it incorporates that added support I needed. Without it the tenons would be the main support for the whole top, I was fearful they wouldn’t be enough because that top is super heavy. The link above shows once again how I filed down these joints to size. I clamped straight edge pieces of wood on my initial pencil marks then started filing. After that bench work they should fit but that’s not always the case. It took a few times to get that near perfect, tight fit. I would get the tenon started in the mortise, pick up a hammering block and hammer the legs in. If it felt too tight I would hammer them back off, do a little filing then start over. I hope that makes sense. I haven’t been getting too technical with these latest dining table posts because I think a lot of it is self explanatory. Hopefully the pictures help with understanding the process. Here’s the last photo of the leg joint construction and glue up.
The leg glue up.
As you can see, the pictures get technical enough without words! Lots of clamps here but every one of them performed an important part of this glue up. I needed to secure the table top to the bench because I had to hammer the legs onto the tenons…remember, tight joints! I used a piece of particle board and two clamps for this, pretty basic. Let’s talk about all the seams that needed pressure during the glue up. First, there’s the up and down seam that consists of the 1/2″ ledge from leg to bottom of table and from bottom of mortise to bottom of tenon. Make sense? Basically they are the seams you can’t really see unless you get down on your knees. The pressure was applied to these seams by hammering in shims between the floor and bottoms of each leg, while the clamped particle board applied top pressure. Second part, the seams around the tenon. The pressure used to squeeze the mortise to the tenon came from one clamp. I was able to use this clamp because of that gap between tenons/legs, the one I spoke of earlier or in the last post. So that idea ended up having two purposes! Third and last seams, the ones where the vertical mortise edges butted against the table top. These were the trickiest seams to clamp. Remember that particle board? It provided two functions as well. Each “prong,” vertical makeup, of the mortise had a designated clamp that sucked the leg into the table top, the mortise into the tenon. I couldn’t apply too much pressure with these, if I did the particle board would move and I’d lose my clamping power. So one end of the clamp was on the particle board and the other on the outside face of the mortise. I used shims between that face and clamp in an effort to not mar the leg piece. Whew, I’ll have to read through this to make sure good sense was made. If you look at the picture, crappy as it may be, you should get the basic idea.
Before and after leg filler strip.
I’ll end this post with the filler strip. Plainly seen above, before and after the leg filler piece. One side fit in quite nicely but I had to shape the other into place. Remember how I glued those two outside tenoned sticks to the main body of the top, the last glue up of the table top? Well, one tenon shoulder was a little bit longer than the body so I had to make up for it in the filler strip. Not a big deal. It’s noticeable to me but when I point it out I’m always told it’s something only I would ever see. Oooh, one thing I’d like to say about this filler…one thing that really makes me angry. It’s moving. The whole seam width-wise across the table, from leg to leg, is moving and you can definitely feel it. It’s worse right where the filler strip butts against the top of the leg. I did not foresee this happening but I will definitely keep this example in mind for future projects. Every single seam on that table was very nice and flush (except for the bottom), all the bridle joints and all the seams running length-wise, nice and flush. But now that damn filler strip had to move around or shrink or whatever it did and it makes me FUME every time I run my fingers over it. Alright, it doesn’t make me that mad, it’s just a table and my lovely KT is happy with it…that means the world is happy too!
Hmm. I thought I would end here but I’m looking at what I have left to talk about regarding this dining table and I see it’s only the staining and finishing. So I’m going to fit it into this post so I can start talking about the next project. I’ll start with the filling of the cracks. Not much to say here because the photo explains it all however, I will point out a few major errors.
Filling in the cracks to make a smooth surface.
The filler I used was an oil based mixture that clearly states on the little jar that it should be used OVER your finish because it does not harden to a sandable surface. First mistake. Second mistake, I used a water based polyurethane. The waterborne finish and the oil based filler did not mix well in the end. The stain did just fine on the filler but the poly had some problems, it seems to be non-existent over the filler. It hardened but it doesn’t look very good. This was my first time using the waterborne poly and although I don’t necessarily have qualms with oil vs. water I do have a problem with poly in general. I don’t like its plastic look and after using the table for a few months I’m not impressed with its durability regarding abrasion. I put three thick coats on and it still dents and scratches very easily. No worries, as I said it’s just a table and I will consider this a test run. Perhaps there are some things I need to learn in order to use the poly correctly, in the right applications. Here are some opinions on water vs. oil based poly.
Half stained.
This little thumbnail (just a reminder, click on it for a larger image) depicts a point halfway through the staining process. I posted it because I wanted to say how much it hurts to make beautiful, natural wood grain unnatural by using an abnormal stain and/or paint. I love the wood (ha, ha), and I love to keep things natural but I must admit that sometimes the look you get after applying stain is quite handsome. Check out the photo and decide for yourself! Here’s a photo of the whole table before the dark walnut stain took over.
Bad stain, bad.
I tried to use a self made glue/sawdust filler to cover some cracks. I didn’t sand away all the glue, stain doesn’t stain glue and this is what it looks like if you try to correct it. Bad. I attempted to match this hole with the existing stain but it was a continuous adventure in failure so I gave up. It’s not too bad, just another thing I notice but no one else does.
OH my goodness gracious sakes! Could it really be?! Could this be the very last photo of The Dining Table?! I think so. That calls for a celebratory Guinness (umm, don’t drink and woodwork.) I have made several attempts to “professionally” photograph this table while it sits in our small dining room but that too has proved to be an adventure in failure. At some point I will have good photos of the finished product and I will post them in the dilettante woodworks portfolio on Flickr but this will have to do for now. Enjoy!
Wahoo!
I need a photographer…
•September 22, 2009 • 4 Comments(from now on I’ll link all photos to Flickr to conserve space but most importantly for your viewing pleasure)
…that’s a joke. I’m a photographer. Some would say professional but only because I’ve sold prints. I was told a long time ago that the moment you sell your work you’re considered a pro. I don’t necessarily agree with that but hey, you can call me a pro if you want to. AHHH, I just can’t seem to get quality “final project” photos of this dining table. I mentioned in the last post that I was discouraged with the phone pics but I’m looking at the latest table pictures I made with the DSLR and by golly they just suck. It’s sitting in our kitchen and boy was it a pain getting it through the door so I’m hesitant to get it outside and on my favorite cement patio backdrop. I need to go pro on it and set up sheets all over the kitchen so at least I can forget about the background and at the same time maybe help with the light.
Alright, alright on with the woodworking. The last post left you with a bit of a cliffhanger but I don’t know why I’m calling it that because I’m finished talking about dowels. However, I will say that gluing them together was kind of a pain because I only had four long clamps to work with. If I were rich and/or a good money manager I’d have a very nice rack of clamps in the shop but alas, I am neither. The clamps I used weren’t even mine, the beauty of having a space in a co-op! This photo shows the top of the table after I glued the six pieces together.
Top glue up before sanding.
You’ll notice that the two outside sticks are longer than the main body. This is where the project gets interesting…finally. The idea to use bridle joints for the legs had been in my mind for a very long time. I even built a practice run in the form of The French Table in order to see if I were capable of such things. I am. The French Table turned into one of my best pieces and this dining table is still standing, wahoo. During this project I probably had at least a full day’s worth of sitting in the thinking chair, this part being the first major obstacle. Even before cutting these six top pieces I had to think about how the tenons were going to fit together. I chose to cut the outside pieces to a length long enough for tenons to be made at each corner. I figured this would make it easier to fit the “mortised” legs into the tenons then fill in that lengthwise gap with a strip of wood. I hope that makes sense. I even got a little confused here. This picture shows the layout of the top pieces, BEFORE gluing them up. I connected the four inner sticks before gluing those two outside pieces on because it would have been a real pain to cut those corner tenons after a complete glue up. This next photo will help.
Gluing the last two top pieces after cutting the tenons.
Now you can imagine the mortised legs coming up and fitting around the corner tenons. Before I get ahead of myself let’s talk about the tenons. Have a look at this picture on the
Filing the tenons
right and you’ll see part of the shaping process. I marked all my dimensions then got rid of the major waste with the band saw. Now comes the intricate filing process. It may look like overkill but each of those clamps serves a purpose. One is holding the piece to the table, the others are holding small pieces of straight edged wood on my initial marks. This step is extremely helpful in preventing the wood from blowing out as I rigorously file away. Keep in mind this was done for all four tenons and recognize the work I put into this! tee hee.
The mock up mortise for the bridle joint.
After I cut and filed down the corner tenons it was time to sit back down in the thinking chair. I knew the bridle joints on each corner would be strong because the tenons were two inches thick but after picking this thing up I knew I had to re-evaluate the situation. I didn’t want those tenons supporting all the weight of the table top so I had to figure something out. I came up with two options and originally I wanted to use both of them but the second would have been too much work. The first is that small ledge you see in the photo on the left. This is the one I went with. The other option is shown in the right photo as a sort of mock up sketch. I thought I would mortise in that piece I spoke of earlier, the one in between the legs, but that was just getting way too creative. I felt confident that little ledge would give me the extra support I needed. In the left photo you can also see how I planned on leaving the tenons proud of the leg surface. I had to cut about 3/8 off with skill saw to make it look good but we’ll talk about that later.
In fact, I think I’ll leave you here. We’ll pick up again, hopefully sooner than later this time, with the making of the legs, their mortises and little ledges. Hope you enjoyed this post! Hmm, I may fiddle around with the blog theme in order to use more of the web page. Seems kind of a waste to try and fit all this writing into a thin strip in the middle of the page. We’ll see what I can do. have fun in the wood shop and don’t cut yourself!
