EdG Posted December 30, 2014 Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 Well I started my first major woodworking project about a month ago. I intend to start with a coffee table then build matching end tables after my return from FL in April. I started this project with a trip to the lumber yard and bought some nice 4/4 (15/16 actually) cherry that was face finished on both sides. While there I noticed they had a pallet of cherry leg blanks 2"x2"x36" so bought two of these to make the four table legs. I let the lumber sit in my basement stickered for about 2 weeks before i started milling the stock. First up was milling the leg stock to final length and thickness which turned out to be 17 1/2" x 1 7/8" x 1 7/8. Once this was done I built a quick jig to cut the mortices. Here is a pic of the legs. oops - having problems uploading pictures. I took the pictures with my iPhone 6 but i see that the pic size exceeds the 1.46MB upload limit. How are folks uploading pictures and how can i reduce the size of my photos (I'm using a Mac Book Pro). Any help would be appreciated. Looking forward to sharing this build with the TWW community here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davewyo Posted December 30, 2014 Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 I had the same trouble posting photos. I was advised to go to photobucket, start an account, copy from there, and post it by using the link icon in the task-bar above. There are other similar services like photobucket. Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdG Posted December 30, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 Thanks Dave. Based on your reply I assume that photo bucket lets you change the size of the photo so that it meets the 1.46MB limit? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
..Kev Posted December 30, 2014 Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 Thanks Dave. Based on your reply I assume that photo bucket lets you change the size of the photo so that it meets the 1.46MB limit? I usually resize before hosting them. Been a long time since I've used photobucket so, not sure if that's an option there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davewyo Posted December 30, 2014 Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 I haven't had to resize on photobucket (just upload 'em, copy the IMG link for your specific photo, and post it), but that would probably be a way to maximize the free storage space. Looking forward to seeing your table. D 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Bailey Posted December 30, 2014 Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 photobucket is a web-hosting site for photos that provides a link for each photo, so instead of uploading the pic to this site you just copy/paste the link to the page with your pics. OR, if you DL them to your computer you should be able to use a photo editing program to resize the photo, though I confess ignorance when it comes to Mac as to which program to use (I just use MS Paint on my PC to resize photos). I always resize mine to 50% and never have trouble uploading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdG Posted December 30, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 Found a way to get the pics uploaded - just emailed them to myself then saved a copy - go figure. Anyway thefirst pic shows the jig I used to cut the mortises. Legs were wedged against the reference face so all mortises are positioned exactly with the same offset, which is a 1/4" from the legs edge. I decided to square off the mortises rather then round the tenons which allowed me to try out the Narex chisels. I'll post more photos later today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted December 30, 2014 Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 I like your jig. Nice start! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstroDave Posted December 30, 2014 Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 I like your mallet... now I know what to do with that unused croquet set... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdG Posted December 30, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 Yeah I had a croquet set that I was about to discard and then thought about my need for a mallet. I put two and two together and came up with the mallet idea. In fact I have three of them with different length handles, even "customized" two of them. One has layers of tape and on the other wrapped in a roll of tennis racket tape I had laying around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdG Posted December 30, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 Saw on another post a Greene & Greene leg indent on a hall table. Did some research and decided this would add a little something to my coffee table design. I made this jig and fortunately had a test leg to experiment on. I was surprised at how simple and easy this jig cut the leg indent. I did experiment with a couple width for the indent and settled on this. I will cut the real legs this evening but thought I'd post the experimental version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
..Kev Posted December 30, 2014 Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 Nicely done! Attention to detail like that pays off huge in the final project! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bushwacked Posted December 30, 2014 Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 Looking great so far. Can't wait to see it finished Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdG Posted December 30, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 Well setup the Greene & Greene leg detail jig and went to town on the four table legs. Before I show the pic I'll say I decided to do another test cut and low and behold the cut was mared. Made another test cut with same result. So I inspected the router and found the template guide had come loose....lesson learned!! Tighten the templated guide and went to work. BTW what do you guys/gales do insure your PC type guides are tight? So here is the result of this evenings work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
..Kev Posted December 30, 2014 Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 I typically make my jigs big enough to be able to clamp them down someplace. I also sometimes leave my stock long so that I can screw the jig to the stock and then trim when finished. If I rely on double stick tape (turners tape) I'm always a lot more careful pushing the router around so that things don't come loose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdG Posted December 31, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2014 Tiods, actually I took this pic after the router cute. When i actually did the real cuts the rear and front of the jig were clamped to the legs. As you well noted the my jig was slightly larger than the legs thus allowing me to clamp the legs tight against the jig. You are I deed very observant. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
..Kev Posted December 31, 2014 Report Share Posted December 31, 2014 Tiods, actually I took this pic after the router cute. When i actually did the real cuts the rear and front of the jig were clamped to the legs. As you well noted the my jig was slightly larger than the legs thus allowing me to clamp the legs tight against the jig. You are I deed very observant. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdG Posted December 31, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2014 Thought I'd add a sketch of the coffee table I am building. The actual as built has deviated only slightly from the original design e.g. the table legs are actually 17.5" rather than 17.25" shown in the sketch. Note the lower shelf on the table will be about 10" wide whereas the stretchers are ~14" leg-to-leg. The width of the shelf is not cast in concrete i may go with less width after I've seen it on the dry fit. I plan on gluing up the shelf later today so maybe in the next day or so I'll have the aprons and stretchers done for a near full dry fit run. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdwerker Posted December 31, 2014 Report Share Posted December 31, 2014 Looking good ! I use a pair of pliers, gently, to tighten that ring on the bushing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdG Posted January 2, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2015 Made good progress on the coffee table over the past two days. Aprons and stretcher cut on my ts sled using a stop block which helped ensure all pieces where cut to the same size. I then prepared the haunch tenons with a dado blade using my miter gauge which I had attached a long secondary fence to which I again attached a stop block. Using my new LN rabbit block plan I trimmed each tenon to its associated mortise. Unfortunately I trimmed one a little to much such that it was floating in its mortise. Searching the internet I found trick to fix this in a FWW article. Just took a couple of deep shavings from a cutoff then glued them to each side of the tenon. When all was dry I trimmed, very carefully until it's was snug in its mortise. So my first dry fit shown here was somewhat a success. I say that because although all M/T joints fit nicely, the table wobbled. I determined that two haunches were not flush to the leg top thus forcing the legs down and to proud of the others. I also determined that my bench top was not really that flat. So I'm off to fix the offending haunches. I'll post the results later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
..Kev Posted January 2, 2015 Report Share Posted January 2, 2015 Nice work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdG Posted January 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2015 Got the two offending haunches fixed so that they sit flush with the top of the legs. What I decided to do here was chop off 1/8" off the haunch with a 3/8 mortise chisel. This gave adequate play for the tenons to move up. I did the second dry fit using a couple of saw horses, plank and 1/4" hardboard. Checked for overall flatness and it was very close to being flat...flatter than my bench top! The result was excellent...no more wobble. I also got around to gluing up the shelf but not before I spent time with my LN 62 flatting out the two boards which had a nice twist in them. Took about 1/2 hr to get one side flat enough on each board before sending them through my Dewalt 735 planner. Removing the twist result in the boards being just shy of 3/4". Now to decide how the shelf will be attached to the stretchers. After glue up I'll try and see how long a tenon I can get away with. The shelf will be 40 5/8" long so not sure how much tenon I'll need to adequately support the shelf. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
..Kev Posted January 3, 2015 Report Share Posted January 3, 2015 I see you're already checking out how it will look in the wine cellar Nice work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdG Posted January 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2015 The wine cellar is just on the other side of my shop. The light you see in the background is the light over my work bench. But yeah maybe a future project being a tasting table! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdG Posted January 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2015 Cleaned up the glue joint and only needed a couple passes with my WR #4 to clean up the rest of the board. Attaching a pic of the shelf resting on the stretchers. The shelf is still about 6" oversized in length and about 3/4" in width. Won't cut to final until I nail down how it will be attached to the shelf. So need some help here on attaching the shelf. I did a trial tenon on the shelf to visually see how much bite I'd have. The attached pic shows a 3/8" tenon resting on the actual stretcher. With a 3/8" tenon I have 7/16" of meat behind the tenon. If I go 1/2" tenon then I'm left with only 5/16". So my question is are either of these sized tenons an option or are they to thin to support the 10"x 40" shelf. I do not anticipate the shelf holding any appreciable weight - it's more decorative than functional. The associated mortise would be approx 1/2 longer then the tenon to allow for wood movement. So 9" mortise with 81/2" long tenon. My other option is just to attach a block to the stretchers then screw the shelf to the block thru elongated holes. I'd rather go the M/T route if possible. Opinions and thoughts appreciated in advance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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