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Episode 14
 
News:
I just signed up for the next semester of the 2-part woodworking set of classes at the local community college.

I got the plans for the Baby Changing Table yesterday - along with a couple of catalogs.  So, I went and got wood for the changing table today.  I bought way too much, but at least I'll have enough for a very small side project later.

I cut my first dove tail!!!  I really needed a board fixed under one of the extension wings of my table saw so I could clamp things to it.  But I didn't have a board quite long enough.  So I took 2 thin scraps and tried out cutting a tail with my router.  It worked!

Picture Of Dovetail Here

I got the components of my dust collection system delivered!  Except for 1 more horse clamp.  Doh!  But, I bought a copy of Encyclopedia of Woodworking to justify another package.  And can you believe this, but the package is left Forest Park, IL on July 25th, and here it is July 29th, and the package is still not expected to make it to me until Aug 2nd!  Now, I know not many of you are familiar with the Chicagoland area, but from my house to Forest Park is about 45 miles at most.  I could have walked there and picked it up by now…  Anyway, I’ll just say ‘Thank you’ to Amazon for giving me the free USPS free shipping and be done with it next week…

State of the XLeg Table:
The XLeg Table is finished and it's in its intended position next to my recliner.  Pictures of the progression of the table are here.

It was a long road getting there and there have been many developments since I last shared anuthing about the table. 

When last I left you, I think the Thick Leg was ready to be placed in its mortise.  If not, then let me back up for just a second.  I cut the mortises in the lower 3 panels of table top.  The easiest, and best was the third mortise which was the only one that wasn't a thru mortise.  I cut that one using the drill press and a 1 1/2" forstner bit.  Then I just chiseled out the excess.  IT fit great on the second try after clearing out more with the chisel.

The next day I put the lower 3 panels together to see how they all fit on the Thick Leg all at once.  Well, it was not good.  I had cut the mortises separately - probably one of the biggest mistakes during this project.  Doing the mortises seperately, and these being my first, well, let's just say they didn't line up right.  They all fit over the Thick Leg's tenon, but they were skewed a little left or right.  None of them were right on with each other.

I wanted to fix this the best way I knew.  I took the 3 panels to the table saw.  Then I realized that even though I had the panels clamped to each other in the positions that they fit over the tenon, there's no way to run this over the table saw!

So, I got a bright idea!  Screw the boards together, then trim the edges a little, then they'd be square with each other!  So I did it.  Only afterwards did I realize that if you have already cut your mortises, you cannot, or shouldn't really, change the dimensions of the board.

I already had the mortises for both legs cut and trimming the edges put the mortise for the Wide Leg so close to the edge that the Wide Leg's tenon actually busted through the edge because there was very little support.  But that's jumping ahead...

So, I was actually a little excited that I could finally show the table taking shape, that I jumped into gluing up the Thick leg to the table top.  Well, I failed to remove the screws and glue the table top panels to each other before doing this, so the table is going to stand with 4 screws in it and only 3 panels.

It's OK I guess, it's a little neat too.  The Wide Leg is 1" thick, the Thick Leg is 2" thick and the table top is 3" thick...  Kind of cool I guess.

Next I dry fit the Wide Leg.  While doing this I split the Wide Leg pretty badly.  I had every intention of putting a little glue in the crack and fixing it, but I never got around to it.  I had a heck of a time getting the Wide Leg to fit over the Thick Leg and I still don't know what the problem was.  I spent hours filing down the sides of the Wide Leg's mortise that the Thick Leg goes through, but it just wasn't helping.  Eventually what I realized was that the mortise wasn't square with the edge of the board.  That made the entire mortise crooked and angled the Wide Leg to one side - by almost 1/2"!

While trying to decide what to do about the mortise being crooked, I saw that the Wide Leg was also about 1 1/2" too long!  How did that happen?!  Well, I set up my table saw and cut off the excess.  

I decided to straighten out the mortise using the jig saw.  So much for my new love of chisels, rasps and files.  There comes a time when you want something done right now - this was one of those times.  I only had to cut about 3/16" off at the thickest point, but it was enough to straignten out the Wide Leg - for the most part.  This made it simple to get the Wide Leg in place for a glue up.

But wait!  Now that the Wide Leg is in place, it's way too short!  How did that happen?  Just one night ago I had measured it about 3 times and it came out too long each time.  Well, guess what?  I was measuring it without it being seated in it's mortise.  The tenon was still getting caught on the table top, so of course it was too long!

I was almost ready to just glue on the piece I had cut off the night before, but saw that I was right that it was too long in the first place, but only by about 1/4". 

So now I had to take a 1 1/2" wide board and shave 1/4" off of it with the table saw blade tilted at an angle that would have hit my fence (yes, I have a right-tilt table).  So, not to be unsafe, I made a really ad hoc jig to be able to have the board be pushed up against an auxiliary fence and pushed down so it wouldn't take off upwards.  I took a very long and thin piece of scrap and pool-cued the board through the jig.  If you can't picture it, just think of it as passing a very thin board through a wood tunnel with a small push stick.

While getting ready to glue the Wide Leg onto the table I realized that when I had glued the Thick Leg to the table, I didn't clamp it in every direction that it needed support.  So the clamps had pulled the Thick Leg so that it left a large gap, about 3/16", wher the leg should be flush with the table top.  This made gluing the Wide Leg awkward because it was going to have to leave a gap also, since the two pieces depend on each other for their angles.

The only thing I could do, short of ripping the table apart, was to glue very thin scraps into the gaps.  So that's what I did.  You can easily pick the scrap pieces out in the pictures if you know what to look for.  After the glue up I shaved off the excess as well as I could.

Today I leveled the legs and ran through 3 sanding and finishing cycles.  I used 100, 220 and 320 grit with Dark Maple Varathane.  It's the same finish I uses on the plywood cornhole boxes, and was hoping to use it all up.

So, that's the end of the XLeg Table!  For now...

What I learned this week:

1. While chiseling, keep your fingers and hands out of the path of the chisel
2. Don’t drop your chisels
3. Trust your measurements – don’t make a cut just because it doesn’t ‘look’ right
4. Put pressure (clamps) in every critical direction during a glue up
5. If you have joinery at the edges of a piece that you are working on, after the joinery components are cut, you should not make adjustments to the dimensions of the piece
6. Lock the fence down, lock the fence down, lock the fence down
7. Hand tools are cool
8. While removing router bits, watch your hand positioning!
9. Marking guages work better for me than a ruler
10. My respirator makes funny lines on my face
11. Always meticulously look over each board you buy before you check out
12. When finishing use both a sponge brush AND an old cotton T-shirt

Erik Pearson (from Novice Garage Woodworker) and I are working on a new, joint podcast.  We have a name all picked out, we’ve registered a domain.  And thanks to Dave over at the Modern Woodshop Podcast, we’ve got the info necessary to get a site up that’s at least better than my own site.
 
Remember to check out the blog, show notes and leave comments at www.splinteredboard.com for the occasional update and for links to pictures of projects.
 
You can also take a look at my current projects at photos.splinteredboard.com.
 
And, as always, feel free to send me a direct email at splinteredboard@gmail.com, or follow me on Twitter as rwaters73.