Dining/Game Table - #19 Drilling Peg Holes & Routing Top Edges

After turning the pegs I moved on to the holes in the leaves.  The story stick I used to mark out the locations for the biscuits in the leaves also worked for laying out the pegs.  In order to make it simple to keep track of which leaf goes where the second peg from one end is at a different location in each set of joints.  One matches the biscuit layout, one is 2” to the left and one is 2” to the right.  The green tape in the photo is offset 2” to the right.

Story Stick for Peg Layout

Here is a closer look at the first peg location.  The pencil mark down on the top goes across both leaves.  The joint is about a third of the way down the lower pencil line.

Closeup of Peg Location Marking

After marking the peg location on the faces of the two leaves I stood them on edge, clamped them together and marked the centerline of the hole on the edge.  Both leaves are marked at the same time to for registration.

Transferrng Peg Location to Edge of Leaf

The jig is supposed to center the holes on the leaf edge but just in case I always face it the same way on all the holes in all the leaves.  The tape covers all the holes except for the one I will use.  Anything I can do to make this idiot proof.

Doweling Jig

For side to side alignment the reference line on the jig has to be aligned with the pencil mark on the leaf.  If they don’t line up between leaves then when they are put together they won’t align.  I use a flashlight and a magnifying glass to accurately locate it.  Top photo is from the side and the bottom one is from the top.

Aligning Doweling Jig Used to Make Peg Holes

Using Jig to Drill Peg Holes

Last thing to check is to make sure jig is flat on edge.  If not, then the hole will be drilled at an angle and you guessed it when the pieces are put together they won’t align.  Lots of things can go wrong but it just takes being careful to get it right before drilling the holes.

After drilling the holes the leaf is set back on the table, the pegs are installed in one leaf and a test fit is made.  If I did everything perfect and there was absolutely no error in any of my measurements, or error in setup, the tolerances in the jig were perfect and the pegs were exactly the same size then the leaves would slide together like magic.  HAHAHAHA, not likely.  No matter how careful one is there will be variances, I just try to minimize them.  In this case the leaves fit pretty well.  I needed just a little fine tuning on some of the pegs in order to get a snug fit at the tapered end, perhaps too snug.   I may need to make the fit a little less snug.  As I take them apart and put them together during the rest of the build I will keep that in mind.

Test Fit of Pegs

With the fitting of all the leaves and pegs done I started sanding.  The thickness sander work stopped with 100 grit so I started with 120.  There were a few very minor spots where the joints didn’t line up and the 120 grit does a good job in cleaning these up as I go through and remove all the 100 grit sanding marks.  In this case I use two sanders both with 120 grit, it just speeds things up.  I like woodworking but not so much sanding.  This is not the final sanding grit as later I will go on to a finer paper later.

Starting Finish Sanding of Top

Routing the outside edge of the top is next.  It’s about time as I have cut myself on the sharp edges or gotten splinters more than a few times.  The final perimeter edge treatment has a top round over with a 3/8” radius plus a bottom and corner round over of 3/16”.  I did not take any photos of the top and corner routing as I was concentrating on getting the cuts right.  However, the bottom round overs use the same method as the top. 

With the top edge done I flipped the leaf over and clamped some blocking to it so when I route the end grain edge using the 3/16” router bit it will not blow chunks off the edge as I start and end the cut. 

Routing Underside Round Over of Leaf

In the top photo below the end has been routed with the blocking still in place and the bottom is after it was removed and the long edge routed. 

This is a typical finished outside corner.  No sharp corners anywhere to bang into.

The last routing was with the 1/8” round over for the long interior edges of the leaves and the corners where the abut.  All went well until I was almost to the end of the last edge when some splinters went flying leaving me with a chipped out edge.

#@!* Chipped Edge

Fortunately, it is on the underside of the leaf so only a few bad words were said.  The fix is not really hard, just somewhat time consuming.  First, I cleaned up the damage using a chisel and a sanding block to get a good place to glue on the patch.

Chipped Area Prepared for Patch

Next is to find a piece that closely matched the wood color and grain.  With a piece in hand I sanded a flat to fit at an angle so the grain in the patch matched the leaf.  I applied yellow glue sparingly then used heavy masking tape to hold the patch in place and went to lunch.

Patch Glued and Held in Place with Tape

After letting the glue cure over a long lunch I took the tape off then using a rasp and a couple grits of sandpaper worked the patch down flush with the adjoining surfaces.  The whole patch is about 5/8” long and when done is nearly invisible.

Raw Patch Glued in Place & Finished Patch

Here is the joint between the leaves showing how all the three sizes of round overs go together to eliminate any sharp edges.

Completed Routing Between Leaves

Assembling the leaves back on the table where they go looks like this.  Also, believe it or not a final decision has been made on the playing surface/pad color and it has been ordered.

Table Top with Routing Done

Next Up – Top Brass Pins, Leaf Seal & Applique Pieces