I finished the base with my usual round of General Finishes Seal-A-Cell and multiple topcoats of Arm-R-Seal, then rubbed out with wax and steel wool. I connected the top to the base with oversized holes, threaded inserts and 1/4-20 machine screws/lock washers.

(Screw holes)

(Inserts)

As you can see in the pictures, I didn’t spend as much time working the underside of the top as I did the topside. I figured that anyone looking at the underside probably had too much to drink and wouldn’t notice anyway.

The first marriage of the top to the base went well and immediately invited some chairs and guests.

(Together at last)

Overall, it was a good build and I had fun teaching a bit of woodworking to my “apprentice”.

(foot)

(Peg)

As an extra gift, I made a trivet and candle holder out of the cut-off and waste from my over-flowing cut-off bin. Heck, no need to just let it, well, go to waste!

(Delivered & Installed)

Now…onto another project.

I cut the curves on the feet, risers, beam, and support arms on the band saw and then did lots of sanding on the spindle sander. The fir is really “chippy” and I had originally planned to pattern route the final curves from my templates, but felt that I might get to much chip out and went with the sander. It did ok with some final hand work.

(Starting to finish)!

The risers are connected to the feet and support arms with long mortise and tenons which I doweled like a breadboard end to allow for movement.

I inlaid large walnut dutchmen on both sides of the beam to match the pattern of the top. Fortunately, one of the cutoffs from the beam had some really nice grain patterns, so I used the scrap for the dutchmen.

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The pegs have been cut to size and fit quite well. I am amazed at how stable this base is with just the pegs holding it together. There is no racking or wobble at all. I just need to finish the final coats of varnish and next time you see this, it will be posted as a complete project.

I have since turned my attention to the base. The hardest part was making the cross beam. I laminated a piece of walnut between two pieces of VG fir. Once the glue dried, I resawed it in half and cut the mortises for the pegs from the inside using my router and a jig cut at 5 degrees. I then re-glued the two halves together again. I could have tried to chop a tapered mortise through the beam, but I don’t think my chisel skills are that good to get an accurate slope with clean sides, etc. This method worked great.

First Dry Fit

Beam Lamination

The feet are simply laminations of VG fir with walnut bottoms. I have buried heavy duty appliance levelers in the feet since the house this is going in is an old farm house that’s better than a century old with rather uneven floors.

Feet to be…

The risers are two pieces edge glued. I cut the mortise for the beam on the table saw before gluing them up so that I would get a nice square hole. I used a square piece of mdf in the mortise to keep the pieces from sliding during glue up. Came out nice and even with only glue squeeze out to clean up. Then, it was just a matter of cleaning them up and cutting the tenons for the feet and cross supports. I plan to dowel the tenons, much like the breadboard ends since I expect some movement along such a wide tenon. I put a 1/8 radius bead detail around the mortises to ease the edges a bit. In the pictures, it looks like the beams through tenon and peg are loose, but that’s just the round over shadow line.

Pegs in place

I decided to make the pegs out of left over walnut and fir, only this time with the fir in the middle to contrast wiht the beam. It sounds like an artistic touch, but in reality I didn’t have a solid piece of walnut left thick enough for the pegs and was too cheap to go back to the wood store for 8/4 stock. They just need to be cut to length and rounded out a bit on the edges and corners.

Tight fit…

Tight, inside and out!

Now, I just have a lot of work to do on the bandsaw. Right now it looks blocky, but there’s a lot of detail work ahead. Stay posted….

Since the last update, I hand planed the ends flush to the top and hand sawed them flush to the edges, then routed a roundover profile around the entire thing. I broke out the belt and RO sander and carefully finished the final sanding.

During all of this, my makeshift assembly table (a very big solid core door and a set of saw horses) collapsed and my hand plane nose dived into the top making a VERY big dent and gouge (the door shifted off the saw horse as I wasn’t paying attention during my planing). I steamed the dent back out but there was a significant chunk of wood missing. This was solved with an inlaid walnut dutchman to fix the defect. I then did a symmetric pattern to make it look like a “new design feature.” The first coat of oil is on, and looks pretty good so far.

First Coat of Oil

Dutchman & Steam Repair

Breadboard End

The table is as flat as I think I can get it with my hand tools. I start working on the base next. We worked out a design and full scale drawing for the base and I got a 10/4 rough slab of air dried VG fir from my local wood monger. I’ve made my offerings to the Gods, and hopefully the next phase will go a bit smoother.

As Flat As I Can Make It!

Fresh Wood….

Scale Drawing

I did have some tear out with the #7, but my #4 really did smooth things out. I completed the tenons and mortises for the breadboards.

We then attached the ends with walnut dowels for a contrasted look. I elongated the holes in the tenon with a palm router and it all came together nicely.

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Now I just need to finish planing the breadboards flush to the top.

Next weekend, I’m taking it to our local door and mill works shop to run it through their 46” wide belt sander. The top is almost done!

I had one small lapse in concentration and forgot to back up one edge when routing resulting in some significant tear out. I glued most of it back into position, but there will be a bit of a repair. I am getting pretty good at repairs, since I make a lot of mistakes.

I hope to finish planing the top this week (the ol’ #7 is tuned nicely!) and plan on finishing the top next weekend and start on the base.

Stay tuned….

(Jointed and planed)!

Looks pretty flat:
(Edge view)!

The proud table-owner-to-be:
(Proud owner and shop apprentice)!

I only have a small 6” jointer. The boards are 9.5 inches wide and 7 to 8 feet long. So….Time to finally build the planer sled I saw at finewoodworking.com I made mine out of two 8’ long pieces of melamine shelving from the local big box store. I cut some grooves and glued/screwed them together with pieces of MDF. I figured the MDF would stay more stable than wood with humidity changes. The supports are adjustable with the wedges, and I cut the corresponding slots for the wedges at the same angle so the wedge doesn’t cause the support to tilt. The supports sit on two strips of non-slip stair tread material, which is also attached to the tops of the supports. Rubber “bungee cords” attached to dowels in the ends keep things from falling off. Screws in the ends of the supports keep the wedges in place.

(planer sled construction)!
(adjustable braces)!

The sled came out dead flat and the non-slip material works fantastic. I can push the entire assembly across my makeshift assembly table with just the weight of the board. Now..time to plane (I mean….joint)
(finished sled)!
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I will post it as a project.

Left side:

Front:

Right side:

Side view:

Back:

Top View:

Side View:

Bottom View:

In “action” (no I’m not going to cut my sanding disks box—-it was handy for demonstration purposes):

Position the fence and bit depth for the required cut and put the box in the sled on its corner and pass the entire thing over the bit to cut. I put reference lines on the edge of the sled so that I could reference the center of the cut easily.

Once the dovetail slots are created, now its time to make the splines. I don’t have any pictures of this, but simply pick some stock and pass one edge over the dovetail bit set at the same height. Then, reposition the fence back and make a second pass. The distance you push the fence back sets the width of the spline and takes some trial and error to get it just right. I set it a bit wider than the width of the slot, then snuck up on the final width by making micro adjustment to the fence position. Once you get the spline width so that it just snugly fits in the groove, run a long stip of this and then cross cut it into small pieces. Tap the splines into the grooves and after the glue sets, trim off the excess with a flush trim saw and sand smooth.

Hope this makes sense.