Router Plane

Monday, July 15, 2019

FLW Cabinet - #8 Cutting Peg Holes, Gluing up Doors & Fixing Cracks


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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