To cut the dado in the column I used my stacking dado set
assembling two outside cutters and two inside chippers. With that in place I set the height at ¼”
then with some very careful measuring set the rip fence so the dado was
centered on the piece. A pass through
the table saw and I had half the chase cut. Another pass on the second half and I was done.
Here are some photos of what the chase looks like apart
and clamped together for one last check before gluing up.
Next is to glue the column up. I applied a coat of glue keeping it back from
the edge of the chase to minimize the glue squeeze out that could run into the
chase and clamped it all together. This
is the same photo as the test clamp and I used the same clamps in the same
order as then so did not take another photo.
OK, actually I just forgot to take a photo when I had it all clamped up
but really it did look the same.
After letting the glue cure overnight, I took off all the
clamps and checked the column to make sure it was straight. The result was mixed news. Along the set of faces that had the glue
joint things looked really good.
However, the other two faces have a bit of curve to them. The column is just under 2” wide and 44” long
with maybe 4 or 5 hundredths of an inch gap in the center. Not much but enough that I wanted to correct
it.
I don’t have a jointer and the curve is to gentle for my
long hand plane to take care of so I have to use a different method. I start by taking my 8’ level and clamping it
to the fence on the table saw. That
gives me a straight edge more than twice the length of the column. This means I can take the column then set the
high points against the level so the curve shows up as a gap between the level
and column. Next the width of cut is
set so it just barely skims the end of the column. As the piece moves down the level the cut
removes the curve and I end up with a face as straight as the level. Flipping the piece over I set the newly trued
face against the level reset the width of cut to skim a bit off and make the
cut. It took a couple of times resetting
the fence since I was trying to remove the high ends and just graze the bottom
of the curve.
Setting the column aside to see if was going to remain
flat I took the cutoff from the board the column was made from cut it slightly
over the column width and glued up about a 14” long solid blank for the
cap. I only needed a 2” piece but
something that short is dangerous and difficult to machine. The excess will not go to waste I will keep
it as a turning blank to be used on the lathe for something later.
With that done I could get started on roughing out the
boxes and spacers. The left hand drawing at right shows the boxes highlighted. The right hand one has the spacers highlighted.
From the original board, I had enough material for two of
the boxes. The third needed to come from
another board. As you can see the left
board end is in pretty poor condition. The
good news is that it is nearly one inch thick so I have some material to work
with and clean up. Besides the pieces
for the boxes I had some cutoffs that were big enough for the spacers.
Following the same process as before I cut to rough
length, hand planed 1 straight edge, ripped to rough width, checked for warp
(none found) cup (a little) and bow (a tiny bit). Next is using the thickness sander and 80
grit paper to remove defects, flatten and get to a consistent thickness. When done here are the parts for everything
except for the base.
After letting the column set for a few days I checked it
for straight, flat and true along with the baffles and everything was good to
proceed. Right now, all these pieces
need additional sanding as they were left with either an 80 or 120 grit
surface. I put 150 grit abrasive in the
thickness sander, marked the pieces with a pencil, ran them through until the
pencil marks were gone, changed the grit to 220 and repeated the process. No photo here as they look the same as the
shot above but feel smoother. Here let
me touch them for you – ooh, aah very smooth 😊. I am not done though because hard maple is a
closed grain wood and when I apply a finish if there are ANY scratches they
will stick out like a sore thumb.
Next is to cut the baffles to their final size. Unfortunately, after cutting to length on the
chop saw I had set a couple of the baffles on their end so I could set the rip
width centered on the glue joint. When I
turned away to get my ruler a gust of wind blew them off the bench and they
both landed on the concrete floor crushing a corner. I was not happy but it was my own fault for
setting them up that way. The fix is to
take a damp cloth and using a hot iron steam the area to re-inflate the crushed
cells. Here are before and after photos
of the corner.
Next Up – Fitting Column Cap, Column Dados & Starting
the Base
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