The question was… what will I do with it? After much consideration I decided to make a table upon which to attach it to. Unlike most of you, my plan was in my head. Kind of learn as you go type of venture. I started of wanting to try and use my tapering jig to make the legs tapered and it worked out nicely. I decided to make the height of the table around 30”, tall enough to use stools to play or just stand if one feels like it. My initial desire was to put a drawer underneath to hold the chess pieces and such. I found out too late that by tapering the legs as I did, a drawer would be quite the challenge as I started the taper too high on the legs.

I’m sorry that it is upside down. You’ll have to forgive me, but the top isn’t finished. In the photo you can see the framework for the door that will allow access the the cabinet ( it is to the left of the picture). There or no hinges yet and the knob I turned for it isn’t there either, but will be when I’m finished. Here’s a better view of the front:

The joinery is of through dowel construction for the most part with some doweling that does not go through. I used 3/8” dowels with Titebond II glue. The wood is cherry and as can be seen it is not all heartwood. After realizing that a drawer wasn’t going to be a reality on this project I decided to make an enclosure under the table top that would house a couple of shelves. This presented another problem. My original placement of the rials did not take this into consideration because I was thinking of doing a drawer. I realized that the rails would be too high and would not hide the bottom of the enclosure, therefore I needed to come up with a plan that would allow me to widen two of them so that they would match on all four sides. This required a decision also on how would I attach these to the existing table. If I would have planned this ahead of time I could have just doweled it into the legs. Of course, if it would have been planned in the beginning this wouldn’t have been necessary because I would have made all the rails match on all four sides. I decided to make my own cherry pieces in which I drilled and counter sank two screw each. I used my draw knife to fit these. The board I added was a tad narrower than the other one and with limited material I had to use them. They can be seen here:

The blue on there is from my bench dogs and has since been sanded off. Here is the other side of my fix.

I’m still contemplating using my router to make a design out of the joint where the two boards meet or I will make a molding to conceal it. I am using 1/2” birch plywood for the sides and door. I will rabbet the inside of the door frame and glue the plywood from the back to give it the look I want.

The last element that I have to show is my homemade or maybe I should call them my shop made tabletop hold downs or clips: (I apologize for the fuzzy picture)

They are made of cherry and can allow movement of the table because of the slots. Of course, there should be very little movement of the top because it is made of two sheets of 1/2” MDF glued together. I hope to wrap the MDF with cherry and have a piece of acrylic covering the chess top, floating in a groove cut into the wood that wraps the MDF.

This project is on hold for now because of some bulging disc in my neck that will require surgery. Thanks for looking and keep an eye out for my future post of the finished table. ;^)

Sincerely,
Oscorner

Here’s the front:

The rear:

Extra overhead storage:

North side:

View from the house:

I managed to get some extra storage above his car and towards to back of the cover for my lumber and scrap bin. I enclosed the back end with Hardie board and the front to match the house and shop. By closing in the back corner I also gained some protection on the east side of my shop’s 10’ rollup door. No water leaking into the shop, now. It took me about a month to complete with the invaluble help of my neighbor and son.

My Popular Woodworking magazine!

Now I can proudly display it on the project that I made in order to receive it.

Thanks Popular Woodworking and LumberJocks!

His is made of 3/8” plywood. He drew and routed the design onto the plywood sides and inside bottom and colored it once it was finished.

He took advantage of the knots in the plywood when designing the sides of the box. The lid is a friction fit and the box measures: 8” X 8”, so he could use it to store things.

The next task was to completely tape the seams with the three hole tape as seen here:

This was a somewhat tedious job because of all the seams. I felt that the mitered corners came out quite well and I was getting excited about finishing the process of gluing it up. I did a test piece with some of the burl on a scrap piece of pine. When I coated it with the glue it became obvious that the burl had many small holes that would allow the glue to seep through. To stop this so that I didn’t end up with a strip of veneer sandwiched between two boards, I covered it with the painters tape before clamping another piece of pine over it. The next day I was quite pleased with the outcome. The burl was glued on flat and the painter’s tape kept the glue from seeping through to the other board. Now that I had proved that this method worked, I was ready to glue up the veneer to the MDF. I applied painter’s tape over all the burl and any small cracks that were evident in the seams. What a job! I applied Titebond II to the MDF and spread it nice and even across the whole surface. I taped on side of the veneer to one side of the MDF so that I could flip it over onto the glue. I worked my way from the end closest to the taped end across the MDF with my wooden roller making sure that the veneer was mated flat to it. I then took another board of MDF and clamped it on top of the veneer using cauls to equalize the pressure applied across the entire surface without applying too much pressure. Just enough to get a little squeeze out. The next day I removed the clamps and noticed that the maple border had a couple of spots that were bubbled up and a few of the maple squares were in the same shape. Needles to say I wasn’t happy with my results after my test piece worked so well. My next discouragement came when I began the process of removing the three hole tape. I used a sponge dampened just enough to dampen the tape as was described in material I read about veneering. I started to remove the tape which was coming off nicely, when I notice more wrinkling of the maple veneer squares and border. :^( Now what was I to do? I had to get the tape off and this was the process in which to do it. I continued removing the tape and as I did I tried to think of what I could try to fix this mess. I decided to try using an iron to heat the veneer, thus removing the moisture and hopefully getting the glue to reactivate. Well the veneer started to lay down, but it was turning color. The iron was set too high! I turned it down and tried again. The glue started letting go and I could see that this was going to get worse before it got better, so I canned the idea of using the iron. I sanded the darkened veneer and tried rolling it with my wooden roller hoping that as it cooled that the glue would hold. Well, I think I was back to where I started. I finished removing the tape. Afterward, I decided to put the veneered piece on the driveway direct sun light hoping it would dry the veneer allowing it to flatten out. I seemed to work somewhat, but not perfectly. I then decided that while it was flatter to go ahead and seal it with several coats of poly. I seal the back of the MDF with shellac. I brought it into the house hoping the the air conditioner would further drop the humidity in the veneer. Well, I’ll let you be the judge. Of course, there is still some bubbled spots that the camera doesn’t show and one spot along the border and the edge of the substrate that didn’t hold. I will re-glue it. My only solution it to put 1/8” acrylic over the entire board so that the chess pieces will not be affected by the bubbling. Here is what it looks like:

Any suggestions from my more experienced veneerer’s on how to avoid this in the future and what it is I did wrong would be greatly appreciated. I plan to make this into a table with a drawer as a completed project in the near future and will post when I finish it.

Here is a shot of my cut veneer as I prepare to begin the task of taping with painter’s tape:

I decided to make the chest board out of 1/2” MDF. The process of taping the strips was tedious and a bit nerve racking, especially with the difficulty I had getting the seams to match up. I tried numbering the strips as I cut them, but found that didn’t work too well. This is what my taping job looked like after about 30 minutes:

This is what it looked like after trimming the excess off and taping all of the joints: Oops, I got ahead of myself…this picture shows the taping after reversing every other one:

Here’s a view of the other side…not bad, right?

I would have rathered not have seams in the middle of a couple of the squares, but it is a good learning experience that will teach me how to deal with this in the future. Here is a look at the show side of the checker board: Great looking veneer…thanks again, Karson!

I then applied the three hole tape on the show side of the checker board and this is what it looks like, now:

My next job is to work on the veneer that will border the checker board and make a press that will help me clamp the veneer to the substrate after applying Titebond II. I kind of wanted to do the coating of glue on both and then ironing over it to reactivate the glue, but I will have to do some test pieces of both before trying it on this large project.

A veneer saw, three hole tape and a wooden roller. With his help and others I plan to build a chess board for my son. Well, to veneer one needs veneer, right? Karson, being the super kind and pushy guy that he is said that he would supply me with some veneer, so that I wouldn’t be able to come up with anymore excuses not to try veneering. When the package arrived, I was overwelmed to say the least. My son and wife almost had to pick me up off of the floor. Well enough of the suspense…check this out.

Isn’t that some beautiful stuff? Now, I’m more nervous than ever to cut this great looking veneer. Well, I have a few projects to get out of the way, but will continue this journey as soon as possible.

The top oven rack puller is what I call my commercial grade. It is longer and thicker than the other two. If you grab the rack from underneath you can support the weight of that twenty plus turkey while pulling the rack out . Here is a closer look at the handle:

And the business end:

Now for the other two:

This style is preferred by my wife, because it has a notch on the end that helps when pushing the rack back in:

The finish is several coats of shellac. I made the grooves with my bandsaw and finished them with a round file.