Greene & Greene End Table - #8 Finishing Rail Milling

Now that the dados in the rails is the right depth, I can set up the router to cut the grooves in the front rails.  In the photo below the back fence on the router table is in place and a stop on the left set to control the length of the cut.  The highlighted area shows what will be cut away.  Because the depth of the groove is deeper than I want to cut in one pass and there is no good way for the chips to escape two passes will be needed.  When the cut is made the dado will go up against the fence and the highlighted face will be down.

Once both passes are made a little trimming at the right end of the cut using a hand chisel is done squaring that corner up.  This is what the finished cut looks like.  One end on the other front rail gets cut to match then because the left and right ends are mirror images of each other the stop has to get moved to the right side of the router bit.

Offhand one would think once the stop is set the cut would be made same except the instead of moving the piece from right to left you would go from left to right.  That can be done but there is potential problem in cutting left to right or making a climb cut.  When looking down on the router bit installed in a router table it rotates counterclockwise so when the wood is fed from the right the bit’s rotation is pushing the piece up against the fence holding it nice and tight in place.  If fed from the left the bit is trying to push the piece away from the fence which is not what you want.  Routing this way can be done but keeping pressure on the piece holding it tight to the fence is crucial.  A lapse in concentration, letting up on the pressure holding the piece in place, shifting your hands while making the cut, hitting a knot or any number of things can cause the bit to grab the piece and long before you can react things have gone bad.  Depending on the situation it can result in a ruined part or an injury or both.  I learned the hard way when a long time ago I was routing a decorative profile on a picture frame when that happened.  The frame was ruined, the router bit was bent and my fingers were numb from the piece being violently yanked out of my hands.  Fortunately, no blood or real injuries.  It did leave me standing there wondering what the heck had just happened.  Now when using the router table, I just don’t do it.  I do on occasion use a climb cut with a hand-held router when the wood is clamped down but that’s another story.

To get around this problem I use a plunge cut then route from right to left.  That’s done by holding the piece tight to the fence with left end of the piece down on the router table and the right side up above the router bit against the stop.  The piece is then slowly lowered onto the spinning router bit and once it bottoms out against the router table, I can proceed making the cut from right to left.  The photo below shows the piece ready to be lowered.

When done with the routing I did a test fit and as you can see the grooves in the rail and leg match up just like they are supposed to. 

Next is to route the full-length grooves in the back rails.  The top drawing shows what they look like.  The bottom photo shows what the piece looks like stopped midway through a routing pass.  It’s to show the two push blocks used to keep my fingers a safe distance away from the router bit.  When I was in my teens I nearly cut my thumb off on the table saw and as I have gotten older/wiser I error a lot more on the side of caution.  In use I will have one hand on each block and be pushing the piece making the cut.

Cutting tenons and routing a groove in the side rails comes next.  Like the front/back rails there is a top and bottom but unlike the rails both the left and right sides are the same.  The drawing below shows where they go.

These tenons are the simplest to do so far.  The depth of cut is the same on all four side and can be cut in one pass per side.  Once the setup is done it goes really fast.  The photo below shows the setup using a sacrificial fence.  The width of the cut is 7/16” and the stack dado is also 7/16” so if everything is perfect, I wouldn’t need the sacrificial fence to protect the table saw’s rip fence but I would rather be safe than sorry so the sacrificial fence is used.  Setting on top of the table saw fence is a finished tenon.

Once the tenons are cut and the groove laid out I did a test fit to make sure the measurements are correct.  This time they were right on, the red highlighted area shows where the groove goes.  The leg is still long and before assembly I will cut it off even with the top of the top rail.

Routing the groove in these pieces follows the same process as the other routing so I won’t go into that other than to say the grooves in them lined up with the grooves in the leg.  A dry-fit of all the completed pieces is next and this is what that looks like.  All the pieces fit together nicely and when I checked the diagonals for squareness, they were right on.

Next Up – Spindles