With the perimeter pieces of the base cut and ready I
made the corner blocks. They are made
from a piece of scrap squared up then run through the router to clip off the
inside corner. The drawing shows where the blocks go and on the right is the router table
setup.
I used the chop saw with a stop block to cut all the
blocks to the same length. The length is
set so it is 1/32” shorter than the corner it goes in. That way I have a little play so it can move
just a bit when clamped and not be below the bottom or above the recess for the
plywood top.
Now it is just a matter of gluing, clamping and left to
cure overnight. With the glue cured I
could take off the clamps and was ready to work on the interior structure. I did check for squareness by measuring the
diagonals and they looked just about perfect.
The process for the column support will be to work from
the column out toward the base perimeter pieces. To start, I cut all the bracing to a height
that matches the height of the perimeter piece from the bottom of the rabbit to
the bottom of the piece. With that done
I could trim the spacers that go between the two braces so the column has a
slight interference fit. Below shows the
column ready to fit and set in place.
Now I cut the braces to length. They need to fit snugly, not so tight as to
bow the sides but just right. The
distance between not fitting, fitting and too loose is measured in a couple of
hundredths of an inch. My method is to
set a stop block to cut the piece as close to fitting as I can while being too
big. I then trim off about a hundredth
of an inch using spacers. My spacer of
choice for that is a playing card. They
are right at a hundredth of an inch and I can cut to fit the needed
application. In this case I needed two
cards to get the fit I was looking for.
From here it’s easy to cut the second piece exactly the same length as
the first.
After cutting the long braces I worked to cut the
remainder of the pieces that will support the column. Along the way I made a couple of changes to
the supports that I think will work out better in the long run. Below is a photo of all pieces except one cut
and in place along with the column. The
one exception is the far-right piece. It
is just a placeholder. I will cut the
actual piece when all the others are glued and screwed together.
To get the wire out of the chase that runs the length of
the column I need to cut an access. In
order to provide this access without getting in the way of the screws that
will lock the column to the base I ran it a 45-degree angle. I started by setting the column in a jig that
allows me to drill the hole at the correct angle.
With the hole drilled I put the column in my bench vice
then using a Japanese pull saw cut the waste away and smoothed everything out
with a round rasp.
I now just needed to cut a matching slot in the base to
finish. In the photo below you can see my layout
lines, the hashed area is where the slot will go. 
Note that it goes through two of the base pieces. Once again, I used the pull saw cut the waste
away then rounded the bottom with a round rasp.
In retrospect, it would probably have been easier to cut a square slot
rather than one with a rounded bottom.
Live and learn. This photo is a
little out of sequence as I forgot to take it earlier. It shows the finished slot for wiring along
with the pocket holes drilled. I will back up and go through the drilling of the pocket holes below.
Before I start gluing the pieces together I needed to drill
some holes that will receive pocket screws.
They are drilled in the jig below and have to be done before I glue the
pieces together. The pocket holes allow
me to install the screws from the bottom at an angle getting into places that
would not be possible otherwise. For
the screws that lock the column in place I needed to adjust the depth the drill
cut. I had to reduce the depth cut as a
normal setting would have allowed the screw to penetrate into the wiring
chase. Something I need to avoid.
With all the column support pieces ready, I could work at
gluing them together. Rather than try
and glue up all the parts at once and risk of getting one out of alignment I
opted to do it in steps. The outside
pieces went together as two separate assemblies then the column block was glued
to one assembly. Lastly to this group
the other column block along with the other outside assembly were all glued
together. It’s not hard but was time
consuming in that I let each glue-up step set overnight before proceeding. Anyway, here is what the final glue-up looked
like clamped together.
Once the column support assembly was glued up I could do
the final fitting of the column to its pocket.
Some gentle work with a rasp gave me the tight fit I wanted and squared
the column vertically to the base.
Flipping the base over you can see all the pocket screws
holes in the support assembly that I will use to attach the column to the support assembly
and that to the perimeter base.
Next Up – Completing the Base
No comments:
Post a Comment