Shaker table aprons, dry fit, tapered legs...

Quick update on the weekend's progress.  I finished all mortise and tenons for the legs and aprons and conducted a dry fit.  Some of the mortises were a little loose, but I think they'll still work.  In all I am proud of the way the table is coming together so far.

Once I knew everything was looking ok, I decided it was time to taper the legs.  To do that easily I needed to build a tapering jig.  So I did.  I leveraged the idea from The Woodwhisperer's Guild tapering jig video.  The difference is that Marc used a rail to guide his jig, where I just used the fence.  It worked well for me. In all the excitement, I forgot to take a picture of the tapered legs.  Hopefully, I'll have the glue up done soon, and I'll post a pic then.

Mortise & Tenons & Craftsmanship...

I have been practicing my craftsmanship. I am not saying that I am at the craftsman level, just stating the fact that I am making an effort.I took my time today milling the rails and cutting the mortise & tenons. I was rewarded with a decent fit, and only one goof. The wood for the aprons and rails seems to be sap wood, where the wood for the legs was heartwood. I am curious as to the affect this will have when it comes time for finishing. If any of my 4 readers have had experience with heartwood/sapwood differences with staining Ash, feel free to comment. Hey, comment even if you don't have experience. The grain on the aprons was also wilder than the legs, which led to some pretty bad tearout when jointing. I was able to hide the tearout on the inside of the rails, so it is not an issue.

The time I spent paring out the mortises and tenons flew by. My mind was clear and focused on the job at hand. I wonder, if I were persuing woodworking as a professional craft and not a hobby, would have a similar experience? I can "zone out" when developing software, that is if it is fun, interesting or new. I guess when you are woodworking for a living, it has the danger of ending up like any other profession. Some tasks you look forward to tackling, and the others are just tasks. I wonder which tasks fall into which category. I have a ways to go before I am a "craftsman". I consider myself an "apprentice".  As an apprentice, one of my duties is sharpening tools.  That's a good thing, because the Ash has been brutal on my chisels.

Dirty Harry said it best...

"A man's gotta know his limitations". That's true. One of my many limitations is the ability, or lack thereof, to mill a piece of wood square. Sure, I follow the steps, joint the adjacent sides, rip against the freshly jointed face, plane faces. The wood just never comes out square. The problem with that is this; If you don't start with a square board then you can never expect to get a square piece of furniture. Today, my milling abilities got a little better.

  I started the morning by laying out the legs for the shaker table.  I've never worked with Ash before, but it seems to work similar to Oak.  Cutting the 2" board on my table saw made me realize it's time to put on the WoodWorker II that I got for Christmas.  I used my #5 and #7 to knock off the burn marks from the saw, and the ridges from the jointer.  After getting the legs squared up I tried to find the best grain for the front and back legs.   The wood provided in the Bell Forest is very good.  Straight grained and it looks like it all came from the same part of the tree.  After selecting the legs I marked out the mortise for the side aprons.  I used my drill press and a 3/8" bit to hog out most of the material.  Then I went back with my chisels and pared out the rest of the material.

When hand planing the makeshift legs for my workbench started racking.  I found a piece of dimensional 4x4 laying in the garage and clamped it to the legs.  I drew a red arrow on the picture for clarity. Amazingly, this made it feel like a workbench instead of a tabletop on a set of saw horses.  There's still some movement, but it's 100% better than before.

All in all, it was a pretty productive day.  Got a decent start on the shaker table, and even threw a coat of shellac on the quilt rack.  I'm getting the hang of milling stock square.  Just don't bring your Starrett to my garage.

Roundover done

Here's the quilt rack with roundovers. I made the choice to leave part of the rails square. I think it looks kind of neat with the little "lambs tongue". So now we're ready to do some more sanding and then a coat of shellac in the morning.

Quilt rack dry fit

Finished the tenons this morning. Got the rack dry fit. Now to break out the router and round over the edges, sanding and then a coat of finish.

Ready to roundover the edges

So I decided to give the repair a shot. I'm glad I did. Now, I know that it's not an astonishing fix, and that it's kinda rough around the edges, but it's my first repair for this kind of thing. This is the best side, the other side will be covered by the rails. I plan on using some wood putty to fill the cracks, so I'll get to learn from that too. I spent the rest of the morning shaping the sides with the sander and disc sanded everything.

Measure twice cut once FAIL

You know the saying "Measure twice cut once"? Yeah me too. Thing is, you have to make sure the reference that you're measuring from is the correct line. As you can see, when I overlay one side on the other, the 3/4" mortise for the second side is off by half the mortise. But only for the 2 side-by-side mortises. So, do I scrap the entire side or try to repair the mortises?