Arts & Crafts Dining Room Set #21: Dry Fit!

I found another day off, so I immediately ran out into the shop before I could get distracted. I was able to finish the joinery on the base ends. As with everything else in life, the relative ease of the BeadLock Pro has disadvantages in repeatable accuracy. I don’t know how or why, but I do eight mortises and they only come out within 1/16” of each other. This has caused a 1/8” difference between the mortises, pretty much ruining my reveal on the spindles. I’ll figure out a way to remedy this, but it’s a hassle. I still need to make the mortises for the stretchers, but other than finishing the parts, I’m almost ready for a glue up.

One thing I did figure out is that you need to glue the tenon stock into the ends of the aprons/stretchers to effect a dry fit (the spindles have old-fashioned integral tenons). This way the tenon stays put during assembly & disassembly. I’m thinking about refinishing the top, so that may affect what I do with the base.

-- You can't control the wind, but you can trim your sails