One thing I frequently do on a project is generate an
exploded view. That way I can see all of
the parts and how they go together. This
view is accurate as of now but I have two different ways for the playing
surface structural support to be constructed and have not made up my mind as to
which way I am going yet.
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| Exploded Table & Leg |
At long last I could start actual construction, some 9
months after the project was first discussed.
Going into my stack of oak I sorted through the boards to select the
ones for the legs. I wanted to legs to
have similar grain and the wood in each leg to match as close as I could. To get that level of continuity I decided to
make each leg out of a single board.
Here are the four boards I selected plus one short in case I run into a
problem.
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| Selected Oak Leg Boards |
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| Moisture Meter |
As all the boards have been sitting stickered in my
storage room for months I assumed that they would be dry but you know what
happens when one assumes something. Just
to make sure I checked them with a moisture meter and found that one registered
5% but most of them registered 0%. At
first I thought the meter had broken or the battery was bad. However, after checking the instructions I
found the meter range is from 5% to 50%.
It is so dry here that most of the boards have dried out to less than 5%
moisture content.
With the boards selected and the moisture content checked
I could start laying out my rough cuts.
The oak lumber I bought was surfaced on the two wide faces and had one
edge ripped straight. Well, more or less
straight but more on that later. Neither
end was trimmed and as such all had cracks of varying severity. I had a few ends like this one that impacted
my layout.
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| Cracks in Untrimmed Oak Board Edge |
Here is a stack of rough cut pieces for one of the
legs. Note how similar the grain and color is between the pieces. To make sure I could keep track of
which piece goes to which leg as the milling progressed I labeled the
ends. L1-S stands for Leg 1, Short and
L1-L stands for Leg 1, Long.
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| Leg 1 Central Column Pieces |
After I cut all the pieces that will make up the structural
part of the legs I ran them through the thickness sander. This will do two things, first give me a
constant thickness to the pieces. As
they come from the mill they are fairly close but not close enough. More than a precise thickness I need a
consistent thickness. There are going to
be rabbits cut into the edges of two pieces that will receive the other two
legs parts to make the leg center section.
As long as everything is a consistent thickness I can cut the rabbit to
match. If the pieces are different
thickness then some will fit and some will not.
The second reason is to get rid of the planer scallops from the mill. Here you can see the peaks and valleys the
planer left.
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| Planer Scalloping |
With the boards at a consistent thickness I could move on
to getting a straight edge. As I said
before the boards from the mill had one edge ripped straight. Some were pretty good and some not so straight. The ones with minor imperfections I could
clean up on the table saw but the ones that were curved or otherwise too far
from being straight needed other help.
If I had a long bed jointer I could use that but I don’t. If I had a long jointer plane I could use it
to get a straight edge but I don’t. In
situations like this I clamp the board in a jig that holds it in place so a
router can cut a straight edge. You can
just see the edge of the oak to be cut sandwiched in the jig.
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| Oak Board Ready For Edge to be Trimmed |
The board is set so that a little bit extends beyond the
cutting plane of the router all along the board’s edge. The amount sticking out varies depending on
how un-straight the board is. Here I
marked the face of the board with a pencil so you can see how much I am taking
off.
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| Pencil Line Showing Cutting Plane |
A cut is then made using a router with a solid carbide
spiral bit guided by the jig’s straight steel tube to give me the straight
edge. A pencil line drawn down the
board’s edge so after the cut I can verify that the full edge has been
trimmed.
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| Router Ready to True up Board's Edge |
This particular board had such a curve in it that I had
to take two passes with the router to get a straight edge. Here is the finished piece; clean, straight
and true. If the board is really, really
out of whack or I am trying to get a straight grained piece out of a board
whose grain runs diagonally I will mark a straight line and cut close to the
line using a bandsaw.
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| Straight Edge on Board |
With one straight edge I labeled each piece showing it’s
final width, which face would be exposed or hidden, if I needed to trim one or
both sides plus any other needed notes.
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| Cutting Information |
This piece had a crack in one end so the note here lets
me know that I need take the majority off this end when cutting to length.
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| Cutting Information |
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| Pitch on Saw Blade & Cleaned up |
Now I was ready to rip the wider pieces to width. The narrow ones will be cut later once I am
finished with the rabbits and I get the final dimension. Well I was almost ready, when I checked my
saw blade it needed a little maintenance.
Before starting this project, I had built a piece out of cedar and the
pitch/resin had built up on the blade’s carbide cutting tips. I spent a few minutes with an oak scrap
popping them off so I had a clean cutting edge.
With a clean blade I could start ripping the boards to
width. Here is my setup. The boards to be cut are to the right of the
saw’s fence with the edge to be cut towards the saw blade. Cut boards are to the right of the
ruler. The process of cutting to width
is not a single pass. Remember from
above some of the boards needed to be cut on both sides to remove defects. For those sequence is to make one pass a
little wide then a second light cut to clean up. For all the pieces I will cut slightly wider
than the final dimension then make light pass to give me the final width.
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| Lumber Arrangement for Ripping |
Next Up – Finish Milling Major Leg Pieces & Test Fits
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