With the honed mortising chisel installed in the mortiser
the cutting can begin. Here is how the
piece looks after the first cut of four cuts with this setup has been
made.
All told four different setups will be required. Resetting the machine to make each set of
cuts is fairly quick. Here the second
setup is being made with the heel of the square being used to assure the chisel
is lined up. The black rod on the left
is the left side stop and has already been set. Note the spacer filling the mortise. That’s for backing during the cut to
eliminate any blowout on the back side of the cut. The third and fourth setups are done in quick
succession to finish this work.
One bit of work on the table saw remains and that is to
rip the stiles to their final width which will get rid of the little bit of
chip out on the tenons. After that all
that remains before gluing up the doors is to drill and countersink where the
screws will go through the tenon into the sides of the mortise. Here is that setup on the drill press. The penciled in squares are where I traced
the mortised holes onto the tenons while the door was clamped up checking for
squareness. The countersink bit’s depth
is controlled by a stop set on the drill press while the spacer backs up the tenon
being drilled.
Glue-up of the first door is next. Generally gluing an assembly almost always
seems to me like a mad rush. Here I am using
Titebond III waterproof glue. Not
because I need a waterproof joint but because it gives me a working time of 8-10
minutes versus 4-6 for Titebond Original and every little bit helps. It’s spread the glue, assemble the pieces,
put on eight clamps, check diagonals to make sure the door is square, adjust as
necessary and last wipe off any glue squeeze out.
After an overnight curing of the glue the clamps are
removed and some sanding is done to get rid of the raised grain caused when I
was wiping off the glue squeeze out with a wet cloth. Below is a typical photo of the completed
bridal joint. The doors as set aside for
now but will be referenced soon as they will now drive the measurements of
the rest of the piece.
Next up is to do some more work on the legs. They have been setting for a while and in
checking all but three are straight and square.
The one blank that twisted when cutting the taper has relaxed and while
it still has a bit of twist it’s not insurmountable. The other two have only minor problems that
should not be hard to work around.
However, two of them while straight and square have some substantial
problems that need to be addressed. This
photo is from the third post Making & Using the Taper Jig that shows my two
problem children. The bottom piece’s
flaw showed up while I was surfacing the planks. For now, I plan on filling it in with black
epoxy. The third piece from the bottom
has three cracks that showed up when I ripped the taper.
Here is a closer look at the piece with the three cracks,
it is the one I am going to work on first.
The center crack is the biggest most difficult to take care of as it
wraps around the piece and is visible from three sides.
Doing some poking and prodding I found that the faces of
the center crack have some flexibility which will allow me to glue and clamp
them closed. The large crack on the edge
would not close cleanly and the end ones would not budge at all so they will
need a different repair. The problem is
how to get glue deep into the crack so it can be securely glued together. My solution is to run a bead of glue on the
top then use the shop vac pull the glue all the way through to the other
face. When clamped the glue squeezed out
at the joint on all three sides confirming that it had gotten all the way
through.
Once the glue cured, I took off the clamps and sanded the
faces smooth. Below you can see how the
face cracks disappeared but the split on the top is still pretty ugly.
For the remaining cracks I plan on routing the flaw out
and patching using a method similar to what was done on the door. To start a line is drawn down through the center
of the crack. This represents the center
of the channel to be routed. Since the
cracks are not very wide a ¼” bit in a hand held router will be used. Next is to cut a spacer that equals the
distance from the router edge to the centerline of the bit. One edge is set on the pencil center line
and a fence is clamped in place on the other side. This will assure the center of the bit
follows the pencil line and makes a straight cut. One pass and the slot for the patch is cut.
In order for the patch to truly blend the optimal
solution is to cut if from a piece adjacent to where it’s needed. In this case the taper cutoff from this piece
is going to be the perfect donor. Because
the slots are at an angle the patches need to be cut at an equal angle so the
grain matches up. After some careful
layout with an adjustable angle gauge and a scale I have the three patches
marked. Shown below is the cut slots and
the patches marked with chalk.
With the layout done I use the table saw to cut a blank
off about 1/16” thicker than the dept of the slot then rough cut the patches
about 3/32” wider than the final width using the bandsaw.
The final fitting of the patches is done using a 12” disk
sander and a dial caliper shown in the top photo to sneak up on the finish
width. When the patch fits the top face
is sanded down so it is just a little thicker than the slot is deep. The bottom photo shows the patches set in
place ready to glue.
After that the patches are glued and clamped in
place. Once the glue cures the patch is
brought down flush using a hand plane, scraper and sandpaper. This shows the nearly invisible finished patches; the chalk
marks show where the patches start and finish.
With the patches done the last bit of preparation work is to remove the saw
marks from when I cut the taper on the legs.
In the photo below I have chalked the edge to show the saw marks and
rather than sanding the surface smooth I used a card scraper. It is just a piece of steel with a burr on
the edge. The sharp burr cuts paper thin
shavings off and will flatten the face in nothing flat as shown in the bottom
photo.
Next up – More Leg Problems, Cutting Mortises & Peg
Holes
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