Table Week

Week three at Rosewood finished and I have almost two full projects to show for it.  The main project for the week was a shaker night stand.

The first step was to rough cut all the parts and mill them to thickness and cut them to final size.

Each leg has two mortises one on each of the inside faces that will accept the aprons.  After using machines to cut the mortises and tenons the parts come to the bench and I use hand tools to tweak all the joints to get a perfect fit.

After fitting all the joints I go back to the bandsaw and cut the taper on the legs, and after that I use hand planes to clean off all the machine marks.

After all the pieces are handplaned to remove the machine marks I tried a dry assembly to make sure everything fit together.

Once all the parts fit well together everything comes a part and I start to prefinish all the parts.  I used shellac that Ron provided.  This was my first time using shellac and I loved it.  It went on easy, dried quickly and looks great.

With all the parts prefinished I can start to preassemble parts of the table.  Glue goes in the mortises and on the tenons and then two clamps with minimal pressure brings the assemblies together.

After the sub assemblies are finished the whole table can be glued up.  The most important thing I learnt from Ron about glue ups is that a trial run is important before any glue hits the joints.

Once the table was assembled the next step was to cut the runners and kickers that are necessary for fitting the drawer (to be built next week).

I managed to finish the table before the end of the week so I started a second project to keep myself busy.

Stayed tuned for draw making one o one.

Cheers

Hans Christopher