Greene & Greene End Table - #23 Top Tongue & Groove Plus Routing Spline Pocket & Starting Splines

The work on the breadboard ends starts with cutting a 3/8” thick tongue on the top’s center section’s ends.  That’s done with the stacked dado.  The tongue is a half inch long so I used the two ¼” outer blades and a 1/16” chipper.  This give me a little overlap so I can make the cut in two passes. 

Cutting a matching 3/8” wide groove in the breadboard is next.  The goal is to have a perfectly centered groove so the face of the breadboard and center panel are dead flush.  To give me a little wiggle room the breadboard is two hundredths of an inch thicker than the center panel.  If everything is perfect, I will have one hundredth of an inch to sand off each side.  If not, that little bit should help me out when bringing the faces flush.  It’s a lot easier to bring the breadboards down than the whole center panel.

The groove starts with the same 5/16” wide dado stack.  First the fence is set so the dado blade is close to being centered on the breadboard.  To get a perfectly centered groove two passes are made rotating the breadboard end for end between them.  The groove is measured and whatever amount it’s too small is divided by two and the fence moved almost that much then recut.  From there I sneak up on a good fit a little at a time. Here is the setup and finished groove.  The magnetic featherboard helps keep the breadboard tight to the fence and 90 degrees to the table.

One of the breadboards ended up with a perfect fit.  Snug but not tight enough to require much force to be set in place.  The other end had a little section that was too tight.  The chalk marks show the part of the tongue that’s too thick.  That’s easily fixed with a couple passes using the shoulder plane.

Here is the top with the breadboard ends dry fitted.  They are long and will be cut down later but they fit tight to the center panel with no gap at all.  I did end up with a little variance at the joint between the faces but in all cases it’s less than the one hundredth inch I had allowed for so flushing them will be easy.

Cutting the slot for the spline is next.  When I first laid it out per the drawings the proportions did not look quite right so I cut some different lengths of paper until it looked right.  The top photo shows what I selected and the bottom shows the resulting layout.  The area highlighted in red is what gets recessed 3/8” deep.

Preparation for routing the recessed slot begins with clamping the breadboard ends on either side of the center section just to provide a wider support base for the router.  The top photo shows this setup with the bottom a closer look at where the slot is going to be routed.

The routing is done using a small trim router with a ¼” diameter bit.  This carbide bit is well over 20 years old and is still sharp.  That’s because I regularly give the carbide cutting edge a quick honing with a fine diamond stone before using it.  Here is the bit with the carbide tip cutting edge circled in red along with the fine diamond hone I use.  The down side is that after all those years of honing the bit now cuts a slot just a shade under ¼” wide.

These two photos show a closer view of how the bit is positioned on the diamond hone for sharpening.  Note that the flat inside face is sharpened and not the beveled edge. 

The left photo shows the slot routing setup.  On the back side of the router, you can see a fence that controls the location of the cut and gives a straight edge.  The right photo is a closer look at the router with the fence in the background.  Since the slot is just over 3/8” wide multiple passes are needed.  Also, the depth will be cut in three passes of about 1/8” each so the bit does not get stressed and with my luck break.

Here the slot’s width is finalized and the first 1/8” deep passes have been made.  From here it’s a matter of adjusting the router’s depth of cut by 1/8” making a couple of passes then adding another 1/8” in depth to get to the full 3/8” slot’s depth.

This is what the full depth slot looks like.  All that’s left to do is square up the back end of the slot which is done using hand with chisels.

After the end is squared up the breadboard is put on and the assembly is checked to make sure the just cut recess and the groove in the breadboard line up.  That’s one down and three to go.  The photo shows the breadboard sticking out beyond the edge of the center section.  That’s not an error it is supposed to be long.  The center section will change in width when the humidity changes but the breadboard will not change in length so while the size of the offset changes it will always be there and look like it’s planned.  If cut flush then part of the time it would look fine but as the wood moves it would either be a little too short or stick out just a little looking like an error.

Making the ebonized spline is next.  They are made out of cherry and will be dyed black later.  The top drawing shows one of the four in-place and the bottom drawing is of the spline itself.

The finished spline is only 3/8” wide and 3” long which is a little small to work with.  I start with blanks about a foot long so they are easy and safe to work.  Once ripped to width and thickness the 1/8” deep offset is cut.  There are several ways to make the offset.  The two I narrowed it down to are using a router bit in the router table or the stack dado set in the table saw.  The router table is picked because it gives me a better cut surface than the dado set which means there is less sanding to achieve a smooth finish surface.  This is what making the offset cut looks like in progress.  The routing needs to be made in multiple passes otherwise there is a good chance of chipping during the cut.

Next Up – Beveling & Dying Splines Plus Breadboard Attachment

Greene & Greene End Table - #22 Lacquer Small Parts, Top & Shelf Final Glue-up plus Cutting to Size

With all the pieces except for the top and the shelf ready to finish I can consider how that’s going to be done.  The pegs, handle and maybe the ebonized cross supports will be done with the airbrush.  They are small and using the airbrush will work well.  The base is bigger than anything I have used the airbrush for and smaller than anything I have used the HVLP sprayer on.  The upper part with the veneered panels and the drawer will work well with the HVLP sprayer.  However, when spraying the lower rails, legs and spindles I am concerned about the amount of overspray that will occur.   These pieces are only a couple of inches or less wide and the spray fan of the HVLP sprayer is about a foot.  That translates into a lot of wasted finish and atomized lacquer floating around the shop.

In the meantime, I sprayed three coats of lacquer on the smaller pieces including the cross supports with the airbrush.  The reason they get finished first is that I want to give the lacquer time to cure and harden.  They are all a slight interference fit and will be installed using a clamp to press them into place.  The extra curing time for hardening is to reduce the chance of the finish getting damaged during the install.

With the small parts lacquered I moved back to working on the top by trimming the adjoining center faces of the two-board glue-ups to their final size.  I will leave the outer edges a little wide just in case there is a problem with the center glue joint.  Here the two halves of the top are glued and clamped together.

While the top glue joint was curing, I started on the shelf by selecting a board long and wide enough to make the four-piece shelf.  It’s almost always easier to get a good flow of grain if a single board is used.  In the original plan the shelf had breadboard ends and ebony inserts like the drawing below.  However, as the project has progressed, I now think that because the piece is scaled down from the original that’s going to be a bit too busy and will probably delete them both.  The bottom photo shows each half glued up from two boards.

Once the glue cured, I trimmed the edges that will make the center joint in the completed shelf and did a test clamping before gluing them together.  Unfortunately, when checking the joint there was a small gap in the center.  This puzzled me in that the longer joint in the top went together just fine and I had followed the same process with the shelf pieces.  Thinking that maybe there was a problem I adjusted the saw to take just a skim cut thinking that might resolve the problem to no avail.  The gap was still there.  Leaving the fence unchanged I ran the pieces through the saw to see if that might clean things up and it didn’t.  Rather than try another pass through the saw it was time to try a different approach.  Taking the flattest surface in the shop which is the table saw top an 80-grit strip of sandpaper used in the thickness sander gets clamped to the saw and tucked under the rip fence as shown in the photo below.

A pencil line is drawn on the offending edge to track progress and the piece is held up against the fence to keep the edge square then it’s pushed along the sand paper until the line is gone indicating a truly flat surface. 

Just in case the fence is not absolutely square with the table one piece had the show face of the shelf held against the fence and the other piece had the show face held away from the fence.  That way if there is any error it would be cancelled out.  This photo shows an X at the glue joint on the top face.

That did the trick giving me a perfect joint with no gap at all.  A little glue, some clamps and the shelf is glued together.  The shelf’s outer edges still need to be trimmed to bring it to final width once the glue cures.  It’s left a bit oversize in case an unforeseen problem comes up during the gluing.  It is also long enough to not use the breadboard ends and ebony splines.  If I decide that it does need that detail then it can always be cut down.

With the glue cured on both the top and shelf panels they were run through the thickness sander to do any minor flattening moving to finer grits until ending with 120 grit paper.  That’s followed by ripping to final width by taking a little off both edges so the outer boards are the same width.  Last is to cut to length.  Because the panels are too wide to be cut on the chop saw the table saw and sled shown below is used.

Here is the shelf and top cut to final width and length.  I think the grain matching came out pretty well.  Each panel is made up of four different boards.  Can you find the joints?

The top will have breadboard ends and while there are a number of ways to attach the ends to the center panel, I have narrowed it down to two.  Both have a groove in the breadboard that goes over a matching tongue on the center section along with exposed splines where the breadboard and center panel meet.  The difference is in the way the breadboard is attached to the center panel.  Option A, shows the breadboard attached using dowels from below up through slots in the tongue but not all the through the breadboard.  The top photo below is a regular view and the bottom one is an X-ray version.

Option B, does away with the dowels and uses screws installed through the end of the breadboard and run into the center panel then plugged with face grain plugs. 

The center screw will go through a pilot hole to fix the location of the breadboard while the outer screws will go through slots.  That’s because the breadboard grain runs 90 degrees to the grain in the center panel and there will be differential movement when the humidity changes.  Because of that differential movement only the center couple of inches of the breadboard/center panel will be glued together.

Next Up – Top Tongue & Groove Plus Routing Spline Pocket & Starting Splines

Greene & Greene End Table - #21 Plugs Completed & Making the Handle

With the ½” square plugs cut I could move on to the 3/8” and 7/16” square plugs.  They follow the same process as the ½” ones so that does not need to be covered again.  Once they are all cut a small bevel is sanded on the end to be inserted into the mortise so they are easier to start.  That only leaves the ½” by 1½” plugs to complete the illusion of through tenons on the front and back bottom rails.  The drawing on the left shows where two of them go while the drawing on the right is an enlarged version of the plug.  The quirk with these pegs is the outside face of them taper to match the taper of the legs.  That means making them is a little more challenging.

The first step is to cut the exposed face at same angle as the leg taper.  I could have measured the angle then set the chop saw up to cut that angle but the angle is small and there is plenty of room for error.  The easy way is to use one of the tapered off cuts from when the leg was tapered.  In the photo you can see the narrow end of the wedge is against the fence so when I make the cut the new edge matches the taper of the leg.  The “BOT” note on the blank will be the bottom of the finished plug.

Next is to mark all the bevels on all four sides of the plug then sand them.  Here the top photo is ready to sand and the bottom one has the sanded bevel.  These are easy to do as the face being sanded is 90 degrees to the sanding disk.

The other two edges are a different story, they are tapered.  To sand the same exact angle all I have to do is use the same tapered wedge used to make the cut earlier.  I just have to remember to reverse the wedge when sanding the bevel on the second side so the angle matches.  The photos below show what I mean with the wedge.

Last is cutting to length.  That’s done with a stop whose end matches the taper of the leg in this case that's a cutoff from the original leg whose end matches the taper.  The pencil line is square to the blank and will be where the plug is cut.

Here are all the finish plugs including the extras beveled and cut to length ready for the next step.

All of the finish plugs get either stained or dyed black and then sprayed with lacquer.  When they get installed the part of the plug that gets glued into the mortise needs to be bare wood.  That’s done two different ways.  First, the square plugs are pressed into a mortise in a scrap piece of plywood with only the finished area exposed plus 1/32”.  That way the glued part stays unfinished.  Second, for the rectangular plugs blue painters’ tape is used to cover the glued area minus 1/32” so it stays unfinished.  The 1/32” additional finished area over what’s exposed is a cushion to make sure no bare wood shows.  Here are all the plugs ready for finishing.

The India Ink used to “ebonize” the cherry plugs is applied with a small brush.  The container is nearly empty and thickens up a little when setting so it’s thinned with denatured alcohol.

Here’s all the finish plugs either “ebonized” or stained and ready for the lacquer to be applied.  There is another reason besides keeping the bottom of the plugs unfinished the plugs are set either set in mortises like the square ones or screwed down like the rectangular ones.  That’s to keep them in place when I spray on the lacquer.  Otherwise, when hit with the spray they would blow all over the place.

The finish plugs are set aside for a bit and making the drawer handle is next.  The original table has two drawers and mirrored handles as shown in the top photo.  Using just one of those handles would not look right so the handles were merged generally keeping the original form.  The drawing on the bottom shows that. 

Below the drawing shows a closer view of the handle and the bottom photo shows it laid out on the blank.

After layout the handle is roughed out using the bandsaw.  The rough surfaces and arcs are smoothed using the oscillating drum sander.  A fence and offset blocks are used to guide the handle past the drum to give a straight surface.  The offset blocks are needed since the diameter of the drum is bigger than the recess in the handle.  Once the straight surfaces are smoothed and the rough edges left from the bandsaw are removed the drum is replaced with a smaller one to sand the arcs smooth. 

Hand sanding to a finer grit than what’s available on the drum sander is next.   Also, any irregularities in the flat surfaces are sanded out using a flat sanding block.  Here is what the handle looks like before the edges are routed.  The handle is still about 2 ½ inches long.  Light pencil marks about an inch or so in from the ends marks the final size.

Routing a radius on most of the edges is next.  The top photo shows the basic setup.  The bottom photo shows the view from the back with the push block in place.

Cutting to length on the chop saw is next followed by slightly rounding the just cut edges then staining.  Last is to add a couple of screws and blocks in preparation for finishing.

Next is to take the drawer apart and do final sanding on it along with the false front.  Finishing the drawer and its final assembly is done in steps and I will go through them as I get there.  The last bit of work before starting to finish the base and drawer is to remove the ebonized cross supports.  They need to be labeled so they can be put back in the same place and taping the glue joint locations is next.  The photo shows when that work is done. 

Next Up – Lacquer Small Parts, Top & Shelf Final Glue-up plus Cutting to Size

Greene & Greene End Table - #20 Drawer False Front & Plugs Part 1

The last post ended with me considering how to fix a problem where I had the leopardwood needed for the false front glued to piece of cedar backing.  After a day or so thinking about it a solution that does not involve making new veneer came to me.  Luckily for me the fix is not as bad as one would think.  All I have to do is remove the cedar backing which though sounds hard ended up being fairly easy.  The veneered panel gets run through the thickness sander loaded with 36-grit paper and the cedar being really soft gets quickly ground away.  I do have to change to an 80-grit paper and take a few passes to smooth out the surface but all told it did not take too long.  The photo below shows the sanded veneer on the left and a cutoff at the right showing what the leopardwood/cedar panel looked like and the oak false front blank below.

At this point the newly prepared veneer gets glued onto the oak base just like before with the pieces sandwiched between plastic, cauls above and below with several clamps.

The next day the clamps are removed and the blank squared up.  Running the blank through the sander is next to get proper thickness.  Last is to cut the blank to size so there is a 1/16” gap between the false front and the base.  Here is what it looks like once all that is done.  Once fitted the drawer gets removed and the slides taken off.  They will be put back on after the piece has been lacquered.

Next, I am going to work on preparing the base for finishing rather than going back and working on the top.  Because I will be adding the finished plugs to all the mortises after the frame has been lacquered, I need to put a temporary pine filler piece in each place where a plug will go.  That’s to prevent finish from getting sprayed in them so I can get a good glue joint when the final plugs are installed.  There are 40 finished plugs that have to be made in four different sizes.  Four ½”x 1½” oak, eight ½” square oak, sixteen 3/8” square black and twelve 5/16” black ones.  That’s plus the equal number of pine ones to be used during finishing.  It all starts with ripping material slightly oversize then running them through the thickness sander to remove any saw marks and get a perfect fit.  This photo shows oak being ripped for the ½ x 1½” plugs.

Here are all blanks sized for thickness and width.  The top two groups are the ½” x 1½” oak and pine filler along with the ½” square oak and filler.  The bottom two groups are the 3/8” square cherry and filler along with the 5/16” square cherry and filler.  The cherry pieces will be ebonized black.

As the temporary filler plugs vary from ¼” to 3/8” long they are just too short to be cut on the chop saw.   In its place they will be cut using the bench hook and the Japanese pull saw.  Here is the setup along with a couple cut plugs.  Before cutting to length the ends got one swipe across sandpaper to add a little bevel.  That makes them easier to start in the hole.

After being cut they are pushed in flush.  Below the left photo shows the end while the right photo shows the back left top set of plugs.  If you are wondering what the little hole is in the lower right plug it’s not decoration.  When installing I had pushed this plug in a little too much so it needed to be backed out a little.  The only way to do that is to run a small screw partway in then using a pair of pliers pull the plug out flush.  Once flush the screw is removed leaving the hole.

Making the final plugs is next.  Rather than leave the exposed ends cut square they will have a little bevel on them.  Since the plugs vary from 5/16” to ½” square I did some prototypes of various sized bevels.  I settled on two different sizes, a 1/16” wide bevel for the 5/16” and 3/8” plugs.  The ½” ones will be a little larger at 3/32”.

Since there are a lot of these plugs to make it makes sense to set work out a production method to make them.  The bevels on the end of the plug are first.  Shown below is the ½” plug that has a 3/32” bevel.  To save time I only marked opposite sides as that gave me enough marks to make the four bevels.

The bevels are made using the 12” disk sander.  After setting the fence to 45 degrees the blank is set so I can see the line.  The first bevel is made by gently pushing the blank into the sanding disk stopping when the angle intersects the line.  That’s shown in the top photo.  The blank is then flipped 180 degrees and the other side is beveled.  The bottom photo shows that completed.

Next the remaining two sides are beveled the same except the bevel is brought down to the line.  You can see that in the left photo.  As a check the bevels are closely examined to see if they meet at the corner.  If one is short it’s touched up until the corners and the transition between the bevel and the sides all match up.  Because the disk sander has a pretty coarse grit, they bevels need to be sanded smooth.  To maintain the crispness of the edges a 220-grit cloth back sanding disk is pressed onto the big sander.   The coarse disk is rough enough it holds the 220 one in place.  Moving the fence back and forth keeps the bevel constant and sands it smooth just like with the ends on the shelf supports.

Cutting the plugs to length is next and it’s done on the chop saw because the final plugs are a little longer than the temporary ones.  The top photo is the setup.  A stop is used to make sure they are all the same length along with a backer both under and behind the plug.  That’s to minimize any chipout during the cut.  This is the largest square plug and it’s only 5/8” long.  That’s way too small for me to hand hold while being cut so I use the eraser on a pencil to hold it in place.  The bottom photo shows the cut plug.  Better to ruin a pencil than my finger.

Here’s the ½” square cut plugs ready for the next step.  Only eight are needed but I made three extras in case there is a problem later on.  It’s easier to make extra now when everything is set up than to redo the setups later.  Also, once setup making them went pretty quick.  As a matter of fact, it took almost as long to set up the tripod, camera, lights and the like to take the photos as it did to make these.  That said there are still 32 plugs of various sizes to go.

Next Up – Plugs Completed & Making the Handle