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| Filler Pieces in Legs |
There are two places where I have to add a filler strip
to align the long pieces of the leg.
Both are at the top of the leg with one thin and one thick piece. I could have designed the piece so they would
have not been needed but doing so would have increased the machining difficulty
considerably with no gain in strength or appearance.
When I was cutting the leg pieces to size I marked the
cutoffs so I knew which piece they came off of.
Now I can go back, retrieve that cutoff and use it to make the thin filler
strip. Since it’s from the same board
the grain and color matches very well. I
start by cutting a blank about 7” long so I am not working with such short
pieces then rip the filler on the table saw just a little thick. Next is to use thickness sander to bring it
down so it’s just a smidge oversize.
This also removes any table saw marks from the strip.
To get the length I hold the piece in place and score
using a marking knife. Look just to the
left of the knife point and you can see the score line in the wood. I use the knife because it gives me a score
line right at the exact length. No need
to worry about a fat pencil line or if the pencil is sharp enough to get in the
corner. The final cut is made with a
miter saw using the score line as a guide.
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| Marking Knife and Score Line for Filler Strip |
To install I apply some glue to the filler strip then use
a flat plate vice-grip style clamp to assure the edges are parallel.
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| Filler Strip Clamped in Place Ready for Pin Nails |
A few pin nails hold the piece in place and a block
spreads the clamping pressure to assure a gap free joint. It did not take very long until I had all the
filler strips glued up and set aside to cure.
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| Thin Filler Strips Glued, Clamped and Curing |
I use an air powered pin nailer that fires very thin pins
to hold the filler strips in place. The
pins are 23 gauge, that’s just about 22 thousandths thick. They all but disappear in the pores of the
oak. The pins really don’t hold the
filler strip in place permanently but act to keep it from shifting until the
glue dries. Think of them as temporary
clamps.
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| Pencil and 23 Gauge, 1/2" Pin Nail |
Once the glue cures I remove the clamps and sand the filler
strips flat with the adjacent surfaces.
The only place you would be able to see much of a difference is where
the ends meet or the end grain joint.
That is not a problem since the top band that wraps the leg covers that
joint. There is a second (thicker) filler
strip that goes through almost the same fitting and gluing process as the thin
ones. Only difference is that it fits in
a pocket and does not need the pin nails to hold it in place while the glue
cures. Clamping takes care of it just
fine. Here are the before and after
views.
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| Before and After Filler Strip Installation |
Earlier on I had cut plywood fillers to plug the bottom
of the leg. I could now run a bead of
glue inside the leg and against the earlier blocking I had installed. Then all that was needed was to push the plug
in until it bottomed out against the blocking and clamp it until the glue
cured.
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| Leg Bottom Plugs Glued and Clamped in Place |
With all that done I could start on the banding that
wraps the legs and the trim pieces. The
banding is just under ½” thick and stained the same color as the legs. The trim is just under ¼” thick and stained a
darker accent color, both still to be determined. We are pretty close but the stain color is not yet finalized.
The oak boards I have are 13/16” of an inch thick. That means that I can rip the board
vertically and get both banding and trim pieces out of one board with no
waste. There is just one tiny little
problem, the width of that rip cut and any cleanup to the cut can’t be any more
than 1/16” wide. The only tool I know of
that will give me a kerf that narrow is a bandsaw. Even then it’s going to be interesting in
making a 4’ long freehand cut that does not vary.
First is to rough cut the 4’ blanks a bit wide for the
banding and trim. The 4’ length works
out to be the banding needed for two legs and is not so long that is will be
awkward to rip. Next I clamp the board
in my bench vices then using a pair of marking gauges, one set at ¼” and one
set at ½” layout my maximum cut lines.
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| Banding and Trim Blank Ready for Layout Lines |
Looking at those lines there sure does not seem to be much
room between them.
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| Bandsaw Lines to Cut Between |
With the layout done it’s on to the bandsaw. Here is the setup, on the left is my pivot
point and to the right is a magnetic featherboard that keeps pressure on the
board helping it keep at 90 degrees to the table.
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| Bandsaw Setup |
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| End View of Flat-sawn Blank |
I can’t use a regular fence as a guide for a couple of
reasons. First is blade drift, a
tendency for the blade to want to cut at an angle not parallel to the fence and
because of the wood. The wood reason
takes some explanation. The oak I am using
is nearly flat-sawn. That means the
growth rings are pretty much parallel to where the bandsaw blade will cut.
An example is as the blade cuts the board the left side
of the blade may hit the hard part of the growth ring while the right side of
the blade is in the softer wood. The
blade wants to head down the path of least resistance causing it to go off on
it’s own. In this case toward the softer
wood or to the right, not necessarily where I want it to go. That’s why I can be cutting along with the
drift set just right getting a nice straight line and then the blade will
change direction. When that happens I need
to adjust the angle the board is being fed into the blade by swinging the uncut
part of the board one way or the other.
In the end everything worked out fine and I kept the blade between the
lines. A few passes through the
thickness sander and I had all the banding and applique pieces I needed for the
legs plus the ones needed for the rails.
Here are the pieces stickered and set aside. I will let them set for a bit so I can see if
any of them decide to go all curly-que on me.
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| Banding and Trim Pieces Set Aside to Check for Stablity |
Next Up – Routing the Round Over, Applying the Banding
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