Dining/Game Table - #6 Routing the Roundover & Applying the Banding

Leg & Areas with Roundover

While I let the banding and trim pieces set for a few days I went back to the legs to work on them.  I had left them sanded to 120 grit, the bottom plugs in and all the corners at a hard 90 degrees.  The next step is to round over those corners by routing a 3/16” radius on them.  The easiest way would have been to run the router from top to bottom creating a full length roundover.   However, the easiest is not always the best.  If I had run a continuous roundover that would have created a gap between the round over and the two sets of banding.

The way around that is to leave the corner that is behind the banding at a hard 90 degrees.  Sounds easy but it means quite a bit more work.  First, I have to layout where all the banding goes so I know where not to route.  Second, the routing has to stop right at that line and with 44 such instances I needed to build a jig so I could accurately control where the router stopped every time.  This is the jig that I came up with clamped in place.  The masking tape on the jig is my reference line.  I just line it up with where I want the round over to end, clamp the jig in place and run the router up against the leg of the jig. 

Jig for Routing Roundover

You can see the end result where the router has stopped right at the pencil line. 

Roundover Stopped at Line

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Asymmetrical Routing

Unfortunately, the router bit leaves a little bit of a tail at the end of the cut so the round over does not cleanly end at the line.  Here I have marked the routing with a pencil to make it stand out.  As you can see the tail is asymmetrical and to me looks wrong.  To fix that I will have to wait until I get the banding in place and then come back with a rasp, file and sandpaper to clean up the intersection, all 44 of them.

The good news is that when I got all the routing done the joints at the leg corners were barely visible, even when you know where to look.

Finished Roundover

The banding is next, when I checked the pieces I had rough cut most of them were in good shape.  A couple had bowed a little but not enough to cause a problem when cut into less than 6” pieces.

I decided to start with the bottom banding, no good reason other than they are at the bottom of the leg and I had a fixed edge to line up with.

First I ran all the pieces through the thickness sander this time with a fine (220) grit paper.  That way I will have less final sanding later on.  Next is to cut the pieces to final width.  With that done using the miter saw I cut several pieces 1/8” oversize, mitered 45 degrees on both ends.  I then loosely clamped one on the left side, set the piece to be fitted on top and adjusted the two pieces until they were both in place and aligned with the bottom of the leg.  With both pieces in place I tightened the clamp to securely hold the left piece in place.

Using a .5 mm mechanical pencil I marked the underside of the top piece.  This gets me close to the length of the inside face.

Setup to Mark Banding Piece Length

Since I will be cutting the piece from the front side to minimize splintering I need to transfer the line to the top.  I use a 45-degree steel angle gauge for this.

Transferring Length Mark to Front of Band Piece

Next is to clamp both left and right side pieces in place.  If I had three hands it would really help.  I use a cutoff scrap piece to get them in correct alignment.

Clamping Left & Right Banding Pieces to Leg

The piece I marked earlier gets cut just a tad long then dropped in at the top between the two clamped pieces to check on the fit.  If there is a gap between the back of the piece and the leg, then it is too long.  If it slides back and forth between the miters of the side trim pieces, then it is too short and scrap.  The amount that I trim off when doing the final fitting is really small.  My method is to bring the chop saw down then slide the piece against the body of the blade, raise the saw, start it and make the cut.  What this gives me is a cut equal to the set of the teeth on one side of the blade, in my case that is about 13 thousands of an inch.

Test Fit for Top Banding Piece

When I get close to a final fit I take the piece to the router table and run it through to get the ¼” roundover on the top.  Because the piece has miters on both edges I can’t use the bearing as a guide since there is nothing for it to ride against at the start and end of the cut.  Instead I set the fence up to guide the board.

Router Table Used to Route Roundover on Band

When I get the piece fitted just right I apply glue to the center half of the banding, shoot 4 pin nails to hold it in place then clamp it down.  That’s one down and 31 to go.  I do all four legs this way then let the glue cure for a couple of hours, take off the clamps, rotate the leg, fit another piece and repeat until all four pieces are in place.

Top Band Piece Glued & Clamped in Place

I glue just the center couple of inches because the grain is running one way in the leg and 90 degrees to that in the banding.  This means that as the humidity changes the leg wants to expand/contract one way and the banding the other.  If things are locked together too tight then something is going to give.  Probably the banding would crack or come loose.  By just gluing the center of the banding it reduces the fixed portion of the connection and allows more area of the banding and leg free to move independently.  If I were keeping the table here in the desert climate where it’s dry most the time I would not worry so much.  Remember, the wood was below the minimum detection point of the moisture meter.  However, the table will end up in humid Arkansas so I need to take some extra precautions.

Once the glue has cured there is one last detail to take care of.  I need to route a round over on the vertical corner of the banding where the two pieces meet.  I will use the same size bit I used to round over the corners of the leg for a consistent detail.  The router takes care of 99% of the work but I still need to some finish sanding to blend it all together.  Because the trim pieces are cut sequentially from a single board the grain wraps around the corner pretty well.

Before & After Routing Roundover onto Corner

The top banding follows the same process except both the top and bottom edges have a routed round over.  If you are wondering I did number all the pieces so the grain would wrap around the corners and I would not get them out of order.

Top Band Installation in Progress

Next Up Banding/Leg Intersection & Roughing out Top Pieces