Aurora Night Stand #1: Progress to date

I wanted a small table with a draw to put next to my recliner and liked the looks of this table by Darrell Peart: Aurora Nightstand On the page you can see a link to plans for the table from American Furniture Design so I bought them.

The plans contain an “E” sized drawing, and a 8 page booklet with parts list and instructions. These plans are the worst woodworking-related product I have ever purchased. The instructions had so many mistakes, math errors, mis-named parts, omitted steps, etc. I stopped using them after the first page. The drawing is labeled full scale, but is a mix of half scale and something else I can’t figure out. I bought the plans because my skills are such I need the step-by-step directions; I would have gotten more complete in less time if I had just made it up as I went along.

Anyway, here’s where I’m at:

I glued up legs, including a practice piece, and rounded over the edges in my $8 router table (have I mentioned how pleased I am with my $8 router table?)

I used my mortising chisel to cut out for the ebony plugs. Much easier than using it in the drill press.

By the way, in the picture above are some stands I made based on a video from someone here (I think he was a Canadian, eh!) These are great and so handy they havn’t left my bench since I made them. If you dont have a pair, grab some scrap, glue them up, and cover the top edge with packing tape so glue doesn’t stick. Make sure they are tall enough that your clamps will fit underneath.

For the Blacker indent on the legs, I ignored the instructions in the plans and used Darrell’s book to make this jig:

Then, a whole bunch of stuff happened and I glued up the base:

For the finger draw, I again turned to Darrell’s book for instructions. I built my first table saw sled:

This is where I discovered the fence on my cross-cut sled was out of alignment. I checked, checked again, and double-secret checked, and sure enough all the draw parts were out of square on the cross cuts. I decided I had two choices: I could throw the parts in the scrap bin and make all new ones, or I could try them anyway and see how it turnes out. Then if I throw them into the scrap bin I’ll have had some practice. So off I went and cut the proud finger joints for the draw front.

In my next post I’ll include pictures of the results; if necessary, I’ll make sure there blurry and poorly lit so no one can see any problems…

Robb