Marc: Now that my boards are all cut to width, and all the edges are jointed, I'm going to mark the
locations for my biscuits. You don't need to use biscuits
when you glue up a table top. The long grain glue joint is plenty strong for this things lifetime. Using biscuits in a case like this keeps everything aligned for me. If there is a little bit of a bow, here, or if one of the boards wants to lift up, it keeps them aligned using the
top as your reference point.
It'll be as flat as possible, making my life a whole lot
easier when the glues dry and then it's time to sand it down. I'm going to start marking my locations. Usually, in a case like this, I like to put one near the end, then go in, maybe, 16, 18 inches. I really only want four, really
no more than four per board. Any more than that's kind of overkill.
I already have my boards
in the order that I like, so I number them to
avoid any mix-ups later. Now it's time to create my biscuit slots. I line up the biscuit joiner
with the pencil marks and plunge. I highly recommend a good dust extraction system for this operation. Since the boards are so large, I'm able to make my slots
without clamping the board down.
For added safety, clamps
are always a good idea. I decided to glue up my top in two halves. This makes the project quite
a bit easier to manage. I place each board on end, add
glue to the edge and slots, and spread the glue with my roller. Next, I add a number 20
biscuit to each slot. I also add glue to the other
edges of the middle boards.
No need for biscuits here since the adjoining boards
already have biscuits. Yes, I have made that mistake in the past. We're now ready to clamp
the boards together. All I really need to do is make sure my pencil marks line up and the joints look tight. This is where biscuits
really prove their worth. We aren't really counting on
them for added strength, here. Rather, they're making sure our
boards are properly aligned. Since the biscuits were
all cut using the top of the boards as a reference, everything should line up nicely. If you do have a
particularly stubborn area that wants to stick up, don't be afraid to use a clamp to force it into position. Other options you could use if you don't have a biscuit
joiner would be dowels or long splints cut with a router. I add a few extra clamps for good measure. I find the best way to remove squeeze out is to wait about 30 minutes after the glue up and scrape it away. Look Ma, no stain inhibiting residue.
I follow the exact same glue up procedure for the second half of the table top. After about two hours, it's time to glue the two halves together. I add a few extra clamps and let the table top sit overnight. The next day, I remove any high spots using number 80 cabinet scraper. This tool excels at this job and is far more effective than a sander. I then go over the entire table
with my random orbit sander. I start with 120 grit and
finish up with 180 grit. I do this to both sides, as well as the edges of the table. I've selected my boards
for the long aprons, here. I'm about to give them a quick cut to bring them down to length.
It;s always a good idea to
cut your long pieces first because the cut-offs from those cuts may actually serves as our smaller pieces. For instance, the slats in
the side aprons, themselves, I'm actually going to use the
cut-offs from the table top and even the ones from the long aprons and use those for our smaller pieces. Just a much more efficient way to go. I rough cut my apron stock and side slat stock at the chop saw. It's always a good idea to let the blade come to a complete stop before returning it to
its starting position.
After jointing, planing,
and ripping them to width, I trim one end of each piece
square with my miter gauge. Using a stop block, I batch cut each piece to the appropriate length. Now that all of our parts are cut, let's just do a quick re-cap and make sure we have everything we need. We've got our eight slats. These guys are 16 and
a quarter inches long by three inches wide by a half inch thick.
I've got four side aprons
for top and bottom. We haven't cut the arch
in this yet; we will. These guys are 28 inches
long by three and half wide by three quarters of an inch thick. In fact, they're little bit over three quarters of an inch. I was able to maintain a
little extra thickness. When you can, you may as well. It just makes everything
sturdier and heavier. Our long aprons are 64 inches long. They are three and a half inches wide. Again, three quarters, or in this case, just over three quarters of an inch thick. Our four legs. These guys are three by three and they are actually 29
and a quarter inches long.
Let's talk a little bit
about our joinery options. We have to find someway of attaching our aprons to our table legs. The easiest and probably
the most common thing to do in this scenario
is mortise and tenon. We already know that there's
a couple different types. Either the loose mortise and tenon or an interval mortise and
tenon would be the way to go. Keep in mind, though, the
pieces that I've cut now, they're kind of exactly the distance that I want between my legs. What I'm counting on is a
loose tenon style construction. If you're going to do an integral tenon, you need a little bit more
length on your pieces. Your long aprons, instead
of 64, add three inches. They're going to be 67. Your short aprons, instead of being 28, those guys are going to be 31. What that does is it
gives you an opportunity to have an inch and a
half tenon on either side. Just as an FYI, if you are
going to do the integral tenons, my recommendation is to go an inch and a half long on the tenon, three inches wide, and three
eighths of an inch thick.
I know I mentioned that I'm going to do a loose tenon
construction, but actually, what I'm doing is using
the Festool Domino. I've been lucky enough
to have access to it and I really want to give it a workout just to see how it handles
this type of application. What I would recommend for you guys is probably the integral tenon. You can do a loose tenon, and actually, putting a mortise in your short aprons really isn't going to be too difficult. In fact, just to show you real quick, I would probably just put it in my bench, and I would make sure
that the end is flush with the surface of my bench.
Use a straight edge to confirm that. Then, with your router
and your router guide, you can actually very easily and safely cut yourself a mortise in here for a loose tenon construction. But, when you've got a 64 inch apron, it's a little dicier figuring out how to put a mortise into
the end of this board. You can do it, and if
you were going to do it and you were determined that that's how you wanted this joinery to be, I would clamp it into the bench and I would grab several boards, or a couple nice thick
boards, and I would clamp them to both sides of this piece
to give you a nice wide base at the top for the router to ride on. It's not really the safest
thing to do, so honestly, I think the integral tenon,
for the average person, is going to be the best way to go. When installing slats
into an apron like this, I find it easier to insert the entire slat into a mortise that's cut
perfectly sized for that piece, but it can be a little bit tricky.
You may want to consider
going with a smaller mortise and creating a little baby tenon on here so that you have the
advantage of that shoulder. That shoulder is going
to give you a little bit of a cleaner appearance. If you're having problems
with your accuracy, and your holes for your
mortises are a little bit off, maybe it slipped with the router, or your hollow chisel mortiser may not have been aligned perfectly, that might be something
you want to consider. If you're pretty well
comfortable with those things, you should be able to
make a nice clean mortise and these pieces should
sit right down inside them and that actually simplifies
the process for you. Just a quick note, although I cut mine at 16 and a quarter, because
that's the exact distance I want between that top
and bottom side rail …
I messed up. If you want integral
tenons on your side slats, cut them to 18 and a quarter inches long instead of 16 and a quarter, which is what's listed in the plan. That gives you a one
inch tenon on each side. To make the mortises in my
aprons using the Domino, I simply place two pencil
marks on my work piece one inch in from each end. With the piece securely clamped, I line up the Domino with my
pencil marks and slowly plunge. Like all tools from Festool, the Domino was a delight to use. To be perfectly honest,
the Domino shaved off about a full day from
my building schedule.
When time is money, a full
day is a very big deal. Before you cut your
mortises into your legs, it's very important to
keep your legs organized. Sometime there's a distinct green
pattern that you want to see. Keep in mind the rear right
leg is not going to be as visible as the front right leg. When you're selecting
the grain and the faces you like the most, keep that in mind. What I usually do is I
mark on the top of the leg in a spot that's never going to be seen.
In this case, this is
rear right, so I put RR. I'll put, for the front, it'll be FR. This way, I can always keep them straight, so when I start drawing on
the locations of my mortises, I can have my orientation
and my frame of mind is in the right spot and I
won't make a mistake that way. To make the mortises in my leg stop, I simple transfer the pencil marks from the previous operation. I then extend the lines
using my adjustable square. After raising the Domino's
fence a half inch, which will give us the half
inch reveal that we're after, I make the matching
mortises and the leg stop. Sometimes, a picture is
worth a thousand words. I know I used the Domino
to create my mortises, but most of you won't have
the Domino as an option until April when the tool is released. Regardless of whether you plan
on doing a loose tenon joint or the integral tenon joint, you're going to need to
put mortises in your legs. I recommend drawing the mortise location out on the actual leg pieces.
Whether you use a router or
a hollow chisel mortiser, these guidelines will help
to insure your accuracy. I recommend making your mortise 11/16 in from the outside edge of the leg. The mortise itself should be
three eighths of an inch wide, three inches long, and one
and a half inches deep..