Getting Started

Last time I discussed gluing up the legs, well the first lesson I learned is that gluing up pieces is more challenging than I thought. First I have 4 new Jet parallel clamps but I wanted to glue up 4 legs with 3 pieces of 4/4 stock each then cut them to size. So I thinks to myself – if I glue all of them up at once and put all four legs in the same clamps I could clamp all of them at the same time. I had glue everywhere! It is hard to keep all of the lumber aligned appropriately when applying the clamping pressure, 75% of the legs worked out but one had to be redone so I learned a few things and it was not too expensive in money or more importantly, time wasted. Oh, and I did mention that I had glue everywhere, right? Well what that translates into is that I not only had the glue where it was supposed to go but also between the layers that where not to be glued and would need to be separated. Not much mind you but enough to create extra work, 2 legs had to be chiseled apart. Lesson one – don’t get in a hurry!

Next I jointed 2 sides of the legs and trimmed the other sides to the final 2” dimension then cut them to length. Although I had made mistakes in the glue up what lies ahead scared me to death, cutting the 4 mortises in each leg. I have a Delta drill press and just bought the mortise attachment and had made a couple of test mortises and did a couple in a glass panel door for a bathroom cabinet, it worked OK but was not up to my expectations. Sunday afternoon was spent laying out the mortises and drilling the work pieces. Slow was the order of the day. That’s where we are now, ready to make tenons on the rails. For the bathroom cabinet I just nibbled away at the tenons but it really doesn’t make for a smooth glue surface so I have been studying tenon jigs the last few nights. Awh, to heck with it, I’ll just buy one, but wait, there seems to be a problem…what I have seen leads me to believe that most of the jigs are made for a 3/4 inch wide miter slot and guess what? I have a Craftsman saw that evidently has a miter slot only .740 wide so I guess I am back to making one. I have the plans to several but haven’t made a decision as to which one to build. Simple for speed or more complex to be more versatile and last longer, so what do you think?

-- Dan in Central Oklahoma, Able to turn good wood into saw dust in the blink of an eye!