Chuck Melton Posted October 9, 2013 Report Share Posted October 9, 2013 I am getting started on the Shaker End Table Guild Build. This is my first furniture build, and I wanted ot use the Project Journal thread to help build some accountability for me to actually get this thing built in a timely fashion. I am aiming to have it finished by 12/1. By gettings started, I mean just getting started. I cut the leg blanks quite some time ago, and all the wood has been sitting in my shop for 6 months. With the recent effort I put into getting the shop cleaned up and organized it's time to start building something. I went through the cut list and selected boards out of my rather healthy stash of walnut and started marking out the rough cut lines for the parts. I marked everything at least 1.5 inches oversized. the legs are very well over sized to allow me to make some mistakes cutting joinery (you may also notice the 5th leg blank labeled spare). I am going with 3 sections of a 7inch wide board for the top (eventual dimension is 18.25). there are two nice cathedral patterns in that board and a fairly straight grained section at the end that I am hoping will fit nicely between the cathedraled pieces. I guess we will see after it is milled. I am going to try to get things cut and milled by the end of the weekend. My one concern is that the board I am using for the legs appearst to be quite a bit darker than everything else. i have an aversion to staining things, so we will see how it progresses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llama Posted October 9, 2013 Report Share Posted October 9, 2013 I can't wait to see this progress! I love these tables Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
..Kev Posted October 9, 2013 Report Share Posted October 9, 2013 Nice, I look forward to seeing this come together! Great start! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byrdie Posted October 9, 2013 Report Share Posted October 9, 2013 The legs will stand out. Fortunately all four legs are the same color and it will look intentional or like a design element. It'll be nice to see how this progresses. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bgreenb Posted October 9, 2013 Report Share Posted October 9, 2013 The legs will stand out. Fortunately all four legs are the same color and it will look intentional or like a design element. It'll be nice to see how this progresses.Agreed - the color variation will be consistent across all legs and will end up as visual interest. Once the finish is applied, I bet the variations will even out a bit anyway (even with just a clear coat). Good luck with the build! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llama Posted October 9, 2013 Report Share Posted October 9, 2013 The legs on the Maple table I built are a bit darker than the rest of the table. I think it adds a good contrast. Yours will be great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G S Haydon Posted October 9, 2013 Report Share Posted October 9, 2013 Great stuff Chuck. I for one am looking forward to this. Tables like this have a delicate strength that is very attractive. On the wood color don't sweat it too much unless the contrast is super crazy. Pieces mellow in time. Most antique stuff looked very different to what it does now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Melton Posted October 10, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2013 Very incremental update: I had a few minutes after dinner to get things cut down to their rough size. I lent my miter saw out for a few days to a friend doing some molding so I had an excuse to do all my crosscuts with my new carcass saw. It was a pleasure being in shop with out listening to the shop vac, dust collector, or a motor. I only cut the apron and drawer side boards in half, They are going to get run over the jointer and through the planer so I didn't want them to be too short. The top board I trimmed to three pieces but left the extra waste on. The top is going to be planed by hand as I only have a 6" jointer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llama Posted October 10, 2013 Report Share Posted October 10, 2013 It really is peaceful without those motors running! Plus, the neighbors won't even know! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Melton Posted October 27, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 27, 2013 I've had a busy couple of weeks at work, but I managed to get a little bit of shop time in today. I got everything milled down to size, and in the case of the legs, down to slightly less than the intended size (they are 1&1/16 instead of 1&1/18). My miter saw is still at my buddies house so I squared off the legs with an old miter box before marking out the mortises. Hopefully tomorrow I will get a couple of mortises chopped and cut the aprons down to size, or the day might get eaten up making that cross cut sled that I have been putting off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoshC1501 Posted October 27, 2013 Report Share Posted October 27, 2013 Just picked up some quarter sawn white oak for this project a couple of days ago. Looking forward to seeing your progress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Melton Posted November 1, 2013 Author Report Share Posted November 1, 2013 So almost a week later, I finally have a functional crosscut sled. I definitely spent way too much time getting it dialed in. I cut my aprons down to size, ripped the front rails from the piece set aside for the drawer front. Upon doing so, I realized that I am an 1/8" shy on the width for the drawer front. I am debating whether to cut a new board for the drawer front or simply reduce the width of the aprons by a blade kerf so I don't have a large gap around the door. The goal for tomorrow is to start chopping some mortises. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Melton Posted November 6, 2013 Author Report Share Posted November 6, 2013 This is my first ever hand chopped mortise. It's probably also my first ever mortise for something that wasn't just messing around. The Narex mortising chisel I picked up made pretty short work of it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Melton Posted November 8, 2013 Author Report Share Posted November 8, 2013 I managed to chop the second mortise into this leg during a quick lunch break today. As I had made an error milling my legs, the two 3/8" mortises overlap so it was a touch tricky. I gave myself 50/50 odds on breaking the leg. I took my time and saved the open end of the mortise for last. I think on the other leg that has two long mortises. I think on the other legs, I may not leave the end of the mortise open and have a shorter tenon (I am assuming this would be a stronger joint.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llama Posted November 8, 2013 Report Share Posted November 8, 2013 Nice progress! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Melton Posted November 8, 2013 Author Report Share Posted November 8, 2013 It's taking me about 20 minutes to chop a mortise at this point. I think i am going to get through the rest of them after my appointments wrap up for the day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Melton Posted November 8, 2013 Author Report Share Posted November 8, 2013 I can also say, the the combined 3-4 hours of mortising videos I have watched have certainly helped. It doesn't really seem worthwhile to go through getting the drill press set up when a chisel makes short work of these small mortises Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llama Posted November 8, 2013 Report Share Posted November 8, 2013 I can also say, the the combined 3-4 hours of mortising videos I have watched have certainly helped. It doesn't really seem worthwhile to go through getting the drill press set up when a chisel makes short work of these small mortises The Shaker table DVD by Schwarz has a great section on mortising. If you don't have it, I highly suggest it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G S Haydon Posted November 8, 2013 Report Share Posted November 8, 2013 Good work Chuck . Good on you for the hand cut mortice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Melton Posted November 8, 2013 Author Report Share Posted November 8, 2013 Mortising accomplished. It all went smoothly until the last leg and then a chunk of the mortise wall broke off. I guess I will see what it looks like after the glue dries, it seemed to fit back on ok. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Melton Posted October 2, 2014 Author Report Share Posted October 2, 2014 I probably should have never put the parts for this back on a shelf. It was definitely an out of sight out of mind situation. So.. close to 11 months later I got around to tapering a leg tonight. I think I put this project down because I didn't feel like messing around making a tapering jig, and I had never gotten around to taking the massive machinists vise off of my work bench, so it was in the way when I was trying to figure out a good way to hold the leg to taper it with a hand plane. Fast forward to tonight, I spent some time cleaning the shop after my wife went to bed, then I decided that the giant wart of a a machinist vise really had to get off of my bench. A quick clamping and a little bit of sweat from pushing a smoothing plane, and I tapered my first leg. It was the first time I had used my #4 with the LV PMV11 iron in it... It was a fantastic upgrade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerryMcK Posted October 2, 2014 Report Share Posted October 2, 2014 Good to know you have resumed work on it Chuck. Also nice to hear that the PMV11 is meeting expectations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Melton Posted October 7, 2014 Author Report Share Posted October 7, 2014 11 months later I finally have tapered legs... I took a few days to get my hand planes actually tuned up and it was amazing how fast it went. I think this project sat for so long because I was apprehensive about so many aspects of it. It turns out that just setting out to do it worked out fine. I did do one pretty bone headed thing... I want paying attention to what I was doing when I mated the LV iron to the LV chip breaker on the #5. I went to hog out the bulk of the first taper using the Jack plane and it was pretty tough going. It was still making shavings but damned hard to push... I took it apart to see what the deal was and lo and behold I had set the edge of the iron inside the edge of the chip breaker... So yeah, dull, high angle, bevel up planes aren't a good idea. Once I corrected that bout of stupidity the #5 was going through the walnut with about the same effort as it takes to peel a carrot. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerryMcK Posted October 7, 2014 Report Share Posted October 7, 2014 Been there Chuck. Those soft back irons don't cut very well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Melton Posted October 7, 2014 Author Report Share Posted October 7, 2014 I batched out most of my tenons during lunch today. Apparently last year I cut the piece of wood for the drawer front to length before ripping off front rails... So I am going to end up either milling down an entire new piece of walnut for the drawer front and rails, or maybe try to create some loose tenons to join the rails to the legs. Any thoughts on the loose tenon route? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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