I have legs!

For my workbench, that is. The sawyer called and I picked up four 4"x4"x36" pieces of kiln dried walnut. Only one has some minimal cracking, which is to be expected from kiln drying, but nothing that would cause structural problems. Wanna know how much it cost? $33 and some change, after tax. That's right. $33. If you're shopping for domestic woods, I suggets you try to find a local sawyer. You'll wait a while, possibly even a year. But the price is right. Pics to come soon. Now, to dig out the workbench plans and mill up the legs.

All day sand fest...

I spent most of the day sanding. By hand. I started around 8 am using 220 grit to put a mild round over on all the corners of the legs & apron. I cleaned up the glue squeeze-out as I went along. When I got the corners like I wanted I took a double-cut file and rounded over the tops of the legs. Then I sanded those too. Once the legs and apron were acceptable I started working on the stand-offs that attach the base to the cabinet. I ended up make three because I split one when drilling out the holes. I like the idea of having the base separated from the cabinet with the stand-offs. I don't think wifey cared for them too much, though. Maybe she'll change her mind when it's all finished.

Two observations:
1. Hand sanding detail is tedious and makes you sore.
2. The result of hand sanding detail is worth the time.


Oh yeah, and I don't absolutely hate the legs anymore.

Tapered the legs...

I got up early this morning to taper the legs. I wanted to have them kind of curve and taper, but they're a little to small for that. I ended up just going with a straight taper. I tried to make a simple table saw tapering jig, but that was going to turn out to be a bunch of work. So, I did a quick band-saw tuneup and cut the taper. The first cut didn't go as expected. At first I thought I had hit a really hard knot. Turns out the drill press was in the way. Mistake #221. After moving the drill press, the tapers went fairly quick.

Unfortunately, at this point I got pretty into what I was doing and forgot to take pics. Basically, I cleaned up the horrible bandsaw job I did to get the tapers. I used my No. 7 plane and got it down nice and flat, then I took my cabinet scraper and cleaned up the transition. They're by no means perfect, but they'll do.

Once I finished the cleanup, it was time for quick sanding and a glue up. Again, I was on a roll so the only picture of the entire leg & apron glue-up that I have is the one you see here.

While I was letting the glue dry I did a final sanding on the cabinet. I progressed from 100 up to 220 grit and put a 2lb cut of shellac on the cabinet, then set it outside to sun dry. Worked pretty well.

Here's the pic...

Here's a couple of pics of the legs. Notice that my mortises are so sloppy I had to use a band clamp to keep everything together. I'm still learning, though. I hate the legs. I don't know why. I'm hoping I'll like them more after I get the taper on them, but right now I just hate them.

Legs...

In earlier posts you saw the legs were quite wide. At first I was
going to make them 1 3/4" x 2 1/2" x 36". Then I got to looking at them and that was just ugly. So, I decided to make them smaller & square. They're still 36" long but now they're 1 1/2" inches square. I spent most of the day making these legs. I was able to dimension them fairly quick. Then came time to make the apron. This is my first attempt at mortise and tenon joints. I'm actually quite proud of them. I did the first one entirely by hand with a small backsaw and some chisels. After the first I used the table-saw to cut the tenons, and the drill press to hog out material for the mortises. There's a pic in the list where you can see the comparison between the handcut tenon, on the left, and the tenon cut with the table saw.

I have a tenoning jig for my table-saw. Unfortunately, the cheek cut on the tenon was so small I couldn't use the jig. So I made the tenon the way I've seen Norm and David do it. I nibbled it away a little at a time. I always thought this would take forever, but it's actually very quick. Especially when the alternative is hand cutting the tenon.

Cabinet legs...

I got all of the leg blanks glued up for the cabinet too. In the first pic you can see 2 leg glue-ups after they were sanded. The second pic shows one leg that just came out of the clamps and the second one clamped up.

Forcast looks good...

So far, the forecast for this weekend looks good for woodworking. The highs are supposed to be in the mid 50s. I hope I'll finally be able to get the stain on the inside pieces of the cabinet. If not, I can at least work on the legs and base some more. I may have to go to the local lumber guy and pick up some clear poplar for the legs. I have about 30 bdft, but it's knotted pretty good and I would like clear legs at least.

Not only that, I can check on the legs for my workbench. He never called to tell me the walnut was done. Maybe he just hasn't gotten to it yet, but we'll see tomorrow.

Still cold....

too cold. In the low 40's so it's still too cold to do the staining. That's OK though, I started working on the legs for the cabinet. I sawed up some poplar and have one leg glued up. 2.5" x 1.25" x 36". I have another almost ready to glue up. Takes me a while to get lumber milled because I have to hand plane the faces. No pics, but soon.