Garage Light – #2 Corner Posts, Rough Blanks, Main Horizontal Pieces & Glue-up

Next is to cut the rabbit at the top and bottom of the post so the cross bars can be inset.  The left drawing shows the top part of the post with the highlighted area showing what needs to be cut.  The right drawing shows how the highlighted cross bars will fit into the rabbit in the post.

Using a similar setup on the table saw I made a cut on the left side of a test piece in the top photo below and it’s not quite what I wanted.  The three red arrows point toward where the scoring blades cut just a little deeper leaving a little groove that would be fine if the rabbit was filled with the cross bar but as you can see in the right drawing above the cut face extends above the cross bar so the scoring cut would be visible.  There are a couple of ways to solve that but I choose to make the cut using the router table. The bottom photo shows the test finished routed rabbit on both the face and edges.

Cutting the dado highlighted in the drawing on the left is next.  It’s done with the dado blade since if some scoring lines show up it’s not a problem since the bottom of the dado will not be visible.  In the right photo the test piece is on edge after the first pass has been made.  From here the fence will be moved to the left or right so the final cut width is correct and is aligned with the pencil marks (red arrows).  This completes the work on the blank and it is ready to have the final cuts made to make the posts.

Cutting the posts out of the finished blank is a two-step process.  First, the fence is set to cut the blank down the center then the blank is set face down on the saw and ripped into two pieces.  The photo shows one blank cut in half (left) and the other (right) ready to be cut.

Just a word on safety here.  When working with power equipment and small pieces where my fingers could get at all close to the cutting tool I use something that will keep them at a safe distance.  When ripping the blanks in half this push block is what was used.  It’s not just fingers; eyes, ears and lungs need to be protected with the appropriate gear.  Anyway, once the blanks are ripped in half the fence is set to the post’s final width and both pieces are run through the saw once more.

Here the left drawing shows most of the remaining parts to be cut, their size and quantity.  While working on the posts I also spent some time deciding how to cut up the material to make best use of the many odds and ends.  I decided to take some of the pieces and rough cut them down into the various thicknesses needed.  There may not be enough to do everything but it’s sure going to take care of a lot of them.  The photo shows the various thicknesses needed separated into groups ranging from 9/16” thick on the left down to ¼” on the far right.

The next set of pieces to be made are the Side and Front pieces shown highlighted in the left rendering.  The right shows the dimensions of the individual pieces along with the quantity needed.

The first step is to take the ½” rough cut pieces and bring them down to exactly ½” tall so they fit in the dados cut into the posts.  That’s done by running them through the thickness sander followed by ripping them down with the table saw to the required 3/8” thick.  These pieces are cut into blanks about ¼” longer than needed.  That’s so if I run into a small problem making the rabbits there is a little room to trim the piece down.  Cutting the rabbits is next and because the tips of the rabbit cut will be exposed, I wanted a really smooth surface so used the router to cut them. 

After routing the rabbit on one end of the pieces they get cut to finish length on the chop using a stop block so they are all the same.

Once cut to length it’s back to router table to cut the second rabbit in the Front pieces, the side pieces are only cut on one end.  Here are all the Side and Front pieces plus one extra of each finished and ready to be used.

Gluing the Side and Front pieces together, highlighted in the drawing, and indicated with the red arrows is next.  The back piece is a temporary spacer and not part of this glue-up but a piece gets attached later.  Shown here are the clamps and jig I made to make sure the three pieces are glued up square and the joints tight.  The circled areas are the glue joints.

Here is the clamping jig with the pieces glued and clamped in place.  Once in place a ½” long by .025” diameter pin nail is shot into the joints center.  You can just see it at the red arrow’s point but the zoomed in view shows it better. 

Once the glue cures the process is repeated twice more.  Gluing the “U” shaped sub-assemblies to the four posts is next but first a clamped dry fit is done to make sure everything goes together as planned.  Once clamped together the assembly is checked to make sure all the joints are tight and square.  All the time and effort that went into accurately making the individual parts paid off since everything fit together except for one spacer that was just about 1/64” too long.  A quick trip to the big disk sander took care of that problem and it was time to disassemble and start gluing and pin nailing the pieces together.

Next Up – Gluing All Sorts of Pieces Together