Dining/Game Table - #7 Banding/Leg Intersection & Roughing out Top Pieces

With the banding done I can now go back and clean up the round over/banding intersection.  As I said before this is all done with hand tools like a rasp, file and sandpaper.  

Before & After Closeup of  Leg Roundover Blending

Not hard, just time consuming since there are 44 of them to do.  It takes about 45 minutes per leg to do all the cleanup and blending.

Before & After of Leg Roundover Blending

The legs are nearly done, just the applique pieces need to be added but that won’t happen until much later in the process.  Since they are stained with a different mix I will need to do the legs first then apply the applique pieces.

Completed Legs

Leg Applique Size Testing

Because I had changed the size of the banding I thought that I might need to change the size of the applique pieces on the legs.  The best way to see is to cut a test applique piece and tape it to the leg to see how it looks.   The right leg has the piece sized per the drawing.  The left one is just 1/8” thinner at 1¾” wide.  Not much, but the devil is in the details.  I looked at it set on the workbench at eye level and setting on the floor as you would normally see it.  Consensus is that the narrower piece looked more in scale and like an accent.  The right one just seemed a little too bulky.  Surprisingly the height did not change from the drawing even though I had made the bands wider.  It looks good here and even better when on the floor.  Setting it on the floor changes the perspective in that it clips the distance between the top band and the applique due to the ½” band thickness

With the size decision made I took the random width applique pieces, ripped them all to a constant slightly oversize width and ran them through the thickness sander again using a fairly fine 220 grit abrasive.  While none of the pieces had gone really crazy there was some minor cupping in a few.  So with everything now flat I stickered them for air flow and set them aside to see what happens.

Rough Cut Applique Pieces

Next is to select the material for the four aprons.  I found a single board that I can get all four pieces out of and have very little waste.  Fortunately, the knot holes at the right end are outside the area that I need. 

Apron Layout

I started out by rough cutting the board to length about an inch long then ripping those pieces to about ¼” too wide.  I let them set overnight to see if they are stable.  The next day I ran them through the thickness sander to flatten and get rid of the planer scallops.  With that done I set them where they go in each leg.  This gives me an idea of what the table will look like.  Fortunately, I had two left and two right legs – they are mirror copies of each other.  I know it sounds silly but it can happen that you end up with 3 left legs and one right.

Test Fit of Table Rails

While the side rails are stabilizing I pulled out some more oak for the top arm rest picture frame and the 4 pieces that will form the sides of the well leading down to the playing surface. 

A little creative layout got the pieces I needed out of a couple of boards. 

When I went to cut one of the boards to rough length I noticed that it looked cupped.  Setting a straight edge across the piece confirmed my suspicions.  Actually it was not any great feat of observation as the board was cupped almost 1/8”. 

Cupped Board Inner Rail Board

Since I was going to rip it into narrower pieces I was not too concerned so I went ahead, made my rough cuts to length then ripped to rough width.  With that done I set the straight edge on the ripped narrower pieces and found the cup had been reduced to less than 1/16”. 

Rough Ripped Inner Rail

That small amount I can take out with the thickness sander and at the same time remove the planer scallops. 

Inner Rail After Flattening

When ripping boards to width sometimes the cutoff piece on the outboard side of the saw blade right at the end of the cut will end up with a little bump as shown below.  They are not always this big but frequently they are there. 

Cutoff Piece with End Nib

If  the piece is scrap, then it’s no problem.  However, if you are going to use that edge against the rip fence to cut another piece then it’s a problem.  As you make that next cut everything will go smooth until that bump hits the back edge of the fence and that’s not good.  If it’s big then it can stop your forward progress leaving you holding the board with the saw running and no real option except to turn the saw off, wait for the blade to stop, remove the board, get rid of the bump and recut the piece.  If it’s a small bump it can cause worse problems in that it can cause the board to shift toward the blade allowing the bump to continue on down the fence face and giving you a taper the width of the bump from the point it hits the fence until you finish the cut.  Now instead of parallel edges you have a taper at one end.   For my saw I would have the last 18 inches of the cut tapered.  Imagine if you are trying to glue up pieces for a table top with one tapered end.  You end up with gaposis and bad words being used.  The cure is to keep an eye on the cutoff and if there is a bump get rid of it.  I use a knife or a scrap block with some 120 grit sandpaper fastened to it with spray adhesive.

End Nib Removed & Sanding Block

With these parts cut it pretty much completes the rough cut work for the exposed oak.  There is still the structure and interior bracing needed to support the sunken playing surface.  For now, I am going to let the rough cut pieces set and see if they are stable.  I will pay particular attention to the cupped pieces to see if they are done moving around.

Rough Cut Parts

Next Up – Design Discussions, Humidity Driven Expansion & Contraction, Attaching First Rail to Leg