Optimal Mattress and Nightstand Height
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Optimal Mattress and Nightstand Height by Brian Benham
[image: Optimal Mattress and Nightstand Height Guide]One of the most
overlooked dimensions in bedr...
If you want to watch the rest of the videos in the Table Saw Shop Cabinet Build series here is the playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVgSs4YDBFhv4e81b-Qy-T41OLJgihZv1
Throwing away your woodworking jigs and templates will make you a better designer. Don't fall into old habits and styles by reusing your woodworking jigs and templates. Make each piece a fresh design. Don't let your furniture designs become stale and dated.
If you want to know more about burls check out Sharon’s article on How Artists use burls
The Shou Sugi Ban Frame is made from white oak. I like how the grain of the white oak shows through the char left behind in the grain, and on the front edges, the ray fleck that is traditionally seen on quarter-sawn oak shows through beautifully. You can see this in the section of the video where I trim the second hand of the clock to fit.
More Projects at https://www.briansbenham.com/making-a-burl-clock-with-shou-sugi-ban-finished-frame-and-copper-with-a-crazy-patina/
These floating shelves were a
fun build. The client wanted to have one of the shelves equipped with a custom
train tunnel for his 1950’s era model train.
The overall shape of the design was inspired by part submarine, part star wars
ship, made from walnut.
Train tunnel goes all the way through both upright supports. Trimmed it will a
little walnut trim to kind of act like a row of bricks. This Maybe reminiscent
of my childhood watching Mr Rogers trolley in the neighborhood of make believe.
The
train fit perfectly with just enough space between the top for the train and
top of the tunnel so the villain doesn’t get scraped off during the hijacking.
Each
unit spans a 4 foot by 4 foot wall space, and the shelves are 8″ deep.
Before diving into the project I went out to the Colorado’s mining museum to
see an old steam engine in action. This thing is pretty wild, and got me
excited to build some stuff, so I headed back to the shop and started out by
milling up the lumber and cutting the pieces to length.
The shelves are going to attach to the supports using a combination of a half
lap joint and a bridle joint.
So I set up a jig the thickness of the shelf to rout out the bridle joint
portion using a pattern bit in the router
I built the jig so the sides are the same width as the space between the
shelves so I could use it as a guide to place each shelf in the exact spot on
both vertical supports. This way I am assured that everything will line up
perfectly.
I used the jig as a guide to square up the corners left by round bit before
moving to the next position.
Now
that I had the dados routed out on one side I still needed to transfer their
location to other side, and of course wanted them to be in the exact spot.
Since I am going to be cutting a half lap in between the bridal joints, I just
used pattern bit to get it one started enough so I could use it as a
registration spot.
Then I dropped in a piece of wood in to reset my jig against to cut the dados
on the other side.
Same procedure as before to square up the corners, Once I defined the corner, I
moved the jig out of the way so I could do the final clean up.
Now
to create the half lap portion of the joint, so I don’t rout too far, I cut
some spacers and secured them in place.
Headed over to the router table and finished routing out all the space for the
half lap joints.
Even though each self has a different offset from the vertical support, I still
set up a stop on my miter gauge, to add some stability and to make the cut a
little safer and easier to line up.
Then
I made a plywood story stick where I cut two notches in it the distance between
the vertical supports.
I used that to set up the stop block for each of the three shelves so the
spacing on each shelf would be exactly the same, otherwise the shelves would
not go together.
At this point it seemed to be a good idea to do a test fit to be sure everything
was lining up good.
While I had it together, I made a jig to rout some mortises for some floating
tenons to strengthen the vertical supports across the area where I routed out
for the shelves.
It just clips over the shelves and around the supports, and with a collar and a
plunge bit I routed out a mortise.
I just worked my way around each joint.
I
then switched jigs to rout out a slot in the center of each support to glue in
a French cleat. I will save this jig, so when I get out onto the job site I can
hold it up to the wall to mark the exact location for the mating piece.
And of course I squared up the hole with a chisel.
I
pulled it apart and moved onto a decorative detail of cutting arches on the
fronts of the support pieces.
I made a plywood template on the band saw to be sure I liked the shape.
The band saw left a little bit of a jagged edge so I hand sanded it smooth with
a flexible sanding strip.
To
reduce tear out and the workload on the router I rough cut the supports with
the band saw and then with a flush trim bit routed them flush to the template.
The
template was held in place with some double stick tape.
The
final decorative detail was cutting the hole for the tunnel. I made a plywood
template the shape of the tunnel, hogged out most of the material at the drill
press, and did the final clean up at the router table
I broke my scroll saw a few years ago, but I have this little baby CNC so I
programed it to cut a trim to for the tunnel.
When installing the trim piece, I dropped a piece of scrap wood in the slot
where the shelf goes to help line up the trim piece to the bottom edge while I
glued it in place.
I intentionally cut it oversized, so I wouldn’t have to worry about lining it
up exactly with the tunnel. Once the glue was dry I flush trim to at the router
table.
Now we are ready for the final glue up, since there are so many parts I used
some epoxy to glue it all together to give me plenty of working time.
Once I got the main shelves together, I cut some stock to make some floating
tenons and the French cleat to hang it on the wall.
I glued and screwed the French cleat into the slot I had made earlier, and set
aside its mate to be screwed to the wall on the jobsite.
I then rounded over the edges at the router table for the floating tenons
Then glued them into place
I finished the whole thing up with some poly, hung it on the clients wall, and
he had a cool shelf that not only displayed his train, but interacted with it
becoming part of the story.
Thanks for watching, please like, comment, subscribe, share, follow me on
Instagram, join me on patron, hit the bell, watch another video, you know what
to do, just do something,
One of my client’s called me up and said, hey I have this compression chamber from a jet engine, we should do something cool to display it. And I was like you have a what? So here we go, the engine came in this really heavy crate standing on end, so the first task was to figure out how to get it out of the crate and turned sideways. At this point I wanted to preserve the crate so I could use it to ship it back to the client, so I didn’t want to just cut the crate open and roll the engine out. So to help get it out I welded up a piece of tubing with a spacer on it to keep it locked into place and hooked it to my engine hoist. Now the design dictated that the engine needed to be on its side and I didn’t really have a plan on how to do this once out of the box, This thing is probably in the 800lbs range so I didn’t just want to lay in on the ground, risk bending the fins. So I built a blocking rig out of some scrap wood to tip the engine on, and after playing a little Tetris I got is situated. The center opening that ran through the engine was wider at the front by about an inch, so I welded up a little bracket with out of steel tubing with an offset on one end so when the engine sat in the new crate it sat level. This was important so I could take accurate measurements and figure out how it was going to be suspended in the table. Once I got the engine situated in the crate, I started working on the base for the table. I milled up some 8/4 lumber for the legs. I figured I needed something substantial to support the weight. I took my time orienting the pieces so when I glued them up the grain direction would help disguise that it wasn’t one piece of wood for the legs. I set up a stop block on my table saw and cut all the legs to length. I oriented the legs so the nicest side faced outwards and then took some time to lay out all the joinery. I used my router to cut the mortises, Since I didn’t have a bit on hand that was wide enough to do it in one pass, I just took multiple passes with a smaller bit to get the job done Since rounded tenons are lazy, I used my chisel to square up the mortises. Moving on to the aprons, I milled and cut them to length. To be sure they came out all the same length; I set up stop blocks for cutting the final pass. I set up a dado stack to cut the tenon cheeks, with a sacrificial fence and readjusted to get the length I wanted. This took a few passes. The top and bottom shoulders of the tenons are going to be cut at different offsets, so instead of creating multiple setups at the table saw I decided to cut those by hand. I used a knife to mark the cut line, this does a few things, severs the fibers so you get a cleaner edge, and gives the saw something to track against to give you a straighter cut. To help facilitate the saw tracking against the knife line I used my chisel to create a channel about the width of the saw bland on the waste side. Dong a little test fit, it was a little tight, so I used my shoulder plane and worked down the sides of the tenons until I was satisfied with the fit. There is going to be a center support that holds one end of the engine up. This support is going to hang from the apron using a bridle joint pinned with a through tenon. So I started out with a jig the width of the center supports and routed out a dado on each side of the apron. Then I marked out the location of the bridal joint on the pieces that are going to hang from the apron and used the table saw to establish the outside edges. This is a key joint so I wanted it fit as snug as I could so I chiseled out by hand the waste creating a flat bottom to seat against the apron. That’s a very satisfying fit. Moving onto the support piece, this is what the end that the engine is going to rest against. These are going to be through tenons, to give it some decorations as well as strength. So to keep the shoulders looking good and sharp instead of using the dado blade to cut the cheeks I stood the workpiece up on end and cut them with my shop jig. This is a much cleaner cut than using the dado blades since it doesn’t leave a bunch of lines on the tenon sides. Then I reset the saw to cut slots for wedges to wedge the tenon in place when I do the final assembly. I of course did a test to be sure I was happy with the fit. Since this is going to carry some substantial weight, and I didn’t want the weight to blow out the bottom, I set up my router table to rout out a grove in the bottom of the supports so I could glue in a spline across the end grain. I think this added a considerable about of strength. Then it was time to glue up the sub assembly for the aprons.
Even thou it was a good snug fit; I still clamped the joint to be sure I got good contact between the two pieces. Once that piece was dry I glued on a support strip that is going to be attached to a steel frame to add more strength to hold the engine, as well as some rigidity to prevent the aprons from sagging over time, since it will be under constant load. I used a piece of angle iron to be sure I was spaced out properly when I glued it all together. While that was drying I moved on to figuring out how to suspend the engine in the base so that it was level and so that the glass top would pass directly through the center. I scribed the shape of the engine onto some plywood and cut it out at the band saw. I kept refining the shape with the spindle sander until I had a nice fit round the engine and was perfectly centered. I did a dry fit of the frame and used a strip of plywood the thickness of the table top to suspend my plywood template from. This gave me the exact location where I need to cut so the engine would be cradled in the perfect position. I marked its position on the cross brace and routed out a ledge for the engine to sit on. The front of the engine was stepped so I recut my template to create a step effect and routed it out again. I continued this process until I routed all the steps into the cross brace, and it fit snugly to the engine.
So now before I do the final glue up of the base, I needed to take care of a few final details. I wanted the legs to have a slight taper on the outside so I made a quick makeshift jig and cut the tapper on all the legs. Then I wanted to put a peg in the center of the bridle joint so I made another quick jig. This peg adds another layer of ornamentation to the pieces as well as a layer of strength if the glue bonds where to ever brake. Once I had the bulk of the waste cleaned out I finished the final shaping by hand with a chisel.
I milled some stock to fit my peg and cut a slot for a wedge. Then cut them to their final length and glued them into place. I glued the center support piece up as a sub assembly, and then moved on to gluing up the legs. When I cut the tapers I made sure I saved the wedged shaped cut offs, so I could use them as a clamping caul. It is a lot easier to clamp against a square surface than it is to clamp against a tapered surface. Once the sub-assemblies were dry I broke out the long clamps and glued the assemblies together. At this point I did do a test fit to be sure the engine sat in their nicely and discovered that the wood frame held the weight just fine; it didn’t even grown or grunt. But I still wanted the reassurance that overtime the apron would not sag from the constant weight. So I cut some angle iron, drilled some attachment holes, and fitted it to the base. I marked out the shaft location and cut the arch out using my angle grinder. Anyplace where the edge of the steel could be seen if you were standing back form the table I cut a decorative arch to dress it up. Then I set everything in place to make sure it fit then tacked it up.
I pulled it out do the final welds, and weld on some clips to screw the top down when I get to that point, I cleaned up the welds and painted the whole thing black. I screwed it in place and dropped the engine in to be sure everything was just right. I packed the base up out of the way and went to work on inlaying the engine into the slab. I used a flexible curve finding strip to follow the general curve of the engine, and plotted it out on a plywood template. I did a few test fits as I went. The slab I picked out had some cool burls on it that I wanted to be sure to incorporate into the final design, so I used my template as a guide and positioned it around the burls I wanted to save. Then cut it to length. The slabs are too wide overall, so I cut out the center of the slab and re glued the outer edges back together. I gently clamped them up with my parallel clamps, trying not to break the live edge, then I added some glue blocks down the center so I could be sure I pulled the seam tight. A slab with all that burl wood was crazy expensive, so before I started to cut into it I cut out the shape of the engine on some craft paper. This way I could position it on the slab and be sure I had it laid out in the perfect spot. I used my jigsaw to rough cut the shape of the engine out and followed that up with my router and a pattern bit, which followed the template perfectly. On the inside corners where the router couldn’t get, I cleaned them up by hand with a mallet and chisel.
Now the back was a little interesting, I scribed the gear shaft to get the general shape, Then I stood it up and clamped it to my workbench and used a pattern to cut the round shape of the shaft Then I rough cut the waste off, and then chiseled to my scribe line. I set it all back up and cut the top to its final length.
There was a spot where Mother Nature did not want to cooperate with my design idea, so I took a power carver to it and sculpted the edge to fit my design. Once I was satisfied with the fit I rolled out some trace and traced the shape of the grain where I wanted the glass to be inlaid. I sent my template off to the glass company so they could use their waterjet to cut the shape out, so while I was waiting, I started cutting the strips for the bent lamination arch.
I cut all the strips on the band saw and then ran them through the drum sander to remove the saw marks. Off camera I used some walnut plywood to create a bending form, I show how to do this in a past video if you are interested in that process you can go back and check it out. After it was dry I used a card scraper to clean up the bulk of the glue squeeze out and ran it across the jointer. Then I did some layout to figure out all the angles for it and set up a little jig at the table saw to hold the pieces in the right orientation to the blade. Once I had the arches dialed in I milled up some lumber for the cross braces, I temporarily clamped the arches in place so I could layout the brace locations.
Then it was a matter of just doing some hand chiseling. The through mortise needs to be at an angle to follow the path of the arch. So I worked from each side chopping at an angle until I met in the middle. From there, it was some test fitting and parring until I had a nice fit. I took care of some final details, like parring a chamfer on the ends of the tenons, and took all the parts into the finishing room to stain them and prefinished before final assembly. I taped everything off and did the final glue up. The glass is back but now there was a slight problem, even thou I sent them a hard template of the shape I wanted them to cut out, they could not figure out how to get such a complex shape into their computer to create a tool path for the waterjet. So I scanned in my original paper template and used it to create a tool path. There were a few spots where the scan was ambiguous so I had to redraw them. I knew these spots would not me exact to my wood template, so the glass may not fit as nicely in those areas. So to combat that, I glued some felt to the bottom of my router base so I wouldn’t scratch the glass and with extreme care and maximum butt pucker factor, I carefully created a new template to use. I positioned my template, on the table and routed out the shape to fit the glass. One final detail before assembly was to stain the edge. When looking at slabs the client liked the contrast of the edge from the bark. But bark doesn’t always stay on the edge after the slab has dried, so I diluted down the stain that I used on the base and stained the edge of the slab where the bark was, and sealed it all in with some poly. Then it was time to set it all up to take some portfolio pictures. If you want to know more about this project, I have a highlight real on my Instagram that shows more behind the scenes stuff of how all this came together, and of course more pictures are on their and my website. Thanks for watching, and of course, like, subscribe, hit the bell, share, follow me on Instagram, and join me on patreon, whatever you want to do, just do something.
Today I’m building this Nakashima inspired walnut live edge
table.
Let’s get right into it, I’ve already milled and ripped the
legs to their final dimensions, and now I’m cutting a bevel on the bottom of
the legs so they will splay outward.
These legs are going to be attached to an arched base using
a bridle joint.To cut the center notch
on for the bridle joint, and to prevent tear out from the dado blade, I glued
an angled stop block to my jig to register the leg against.
I clamped it in place, and since there is so much material
to be removed I took it in several passes to get to the final depth.
This is also a very wide joint so after I cut the 1st
pass in all the legs, I pulled apart my jig, and flipped the stop block around
so I could cut the 2nd pass. By flipping it around instead of moving
the fence over, I am ensuring that the joint is centered on the leg.
Moving on to the arched base, I used a thin strip of maple and
bent it between a few nails to create the desired arched shape and trace onto
the work piece.
The arch is going to
be attached to a Bezier curved trestle so before I cut the arched shape I am
cutting the corresponding joint using a similar process as before.
I also want to cut the corresponding joints for the legs as
well.To I am building a router jig
around the leg to ensure I have an exact leg width.I clamped the jig down to my work piece and
routed out the waste.
To transfer the location of the dado on the other side, I
used my marking knife and a straight edge and just marked a line around the
piece, Rest my jig and cut the other side.
I did a test fit, and it was a little too tight, I guess
better to be too tight than lose, so I rest my jig eyeballing the amount and
slowly snuck up on a nice snug fit.
Once I was satisfied with the fit, I took it to the miter
saw, and cut the piece to its final length while introducing a slight angle or
add a little visual interest.
Now moving onto the Bezier curved trestle piece, I played
around in Sketchup with different curves until I found one I liked, I printed
it out to scale, cut it out and traced in onto my work piece.
I used the same method as the arch piece to cut the joinery,
and then cut the shape out at the band saw.
To smooth out the band saw marks, on the convex radius I
used the disc sander, and on the concave curves I used the spindle sander.
Then anyplace that needed a little extra fairing of the
curves, I used a flexible sanding strip and smoothed it out by hand.
This joint is part bridle joint part half lap, and since it
was difficult to mark the exact depth of the half lap while it was square, and
too dangerous to cut on the table saw.I
marked it out and did the final cut by hand.
I did a test fit, and it was just a tiny bit too tight so I
pulled it apart and paired off a little and tried again.
Perfect fit, I’ll just sand the bottom to match the radius
of the curve after I assemble it.
I repeated the process on the curved trestle.
Then before cutting the legs to their final length I did a
little math to figure out the angle they were coming off the arch so the top
would site level.
Once I figured that out I cut them all to length at that
angle.
The top is going to be attached to the legs using through
tenons, so I set up a stop block so I could cut all the shoulders of the tenons
to the same length.
Of course the shoulder on the opposing side needed to be cut
from the other side of the blade.I did
some careful layout and repositioned the stop block on the other side of the
blade and cut the opposing shoulder.
I did the same operation when cutting the cheeks of the
tenon away. I cut one side and then reset to cut the other.Accept this time instead of being opposing it
just needed to be parallel so I just slid my stop block over the width of the
tenon and I was set to go.
At this point I removed a fair amount of stock so it was
getting sketchy to stand up in the table saw and have a good surface to
reverence from, so I laid out the final cuts, and cut them by hand.
To help secure the tenons to the top, I am going to use some
wedges, so I cut a couple of slots in the tenon at the band saw.
To prevent splitting the leg I drilled holes at the end of
the slots to relive the pressure.
It is time to glue the base together, with five pieces and 4
joints, I wanted to make sure I had enough working time with the glue to be
able to assemblyall the partsas well as do any kind of adjustments to the
legs that may have been needed to be sure the top sits level.
While that was drying, I turned my attention to the
top.
The top of course was a bit too big for my planner so I
flattened it using a sled and my router.
Once the top was flat, I went to work laying out the
mortises for the legs. Since their isn’t much of a square surface to measure
from, I just positioned the base where I thought it looked good and built a
template around the legs.A little CA
glue and ½” plywood worked out great.
Now with a little stubby pattern bit, I routed out a pocket
on the underside of the top following my plywood jig,.
I transferred the center of the mortise to the face side using
an 1/8” drill bit.I then flipped over
the top and drilled a larger clearance hole for the router bit; the reason for
the 2 step process was because I wanted to reduce the chance of blow on the
face side.If the large drill bit blew
out a big splinter it could have ruined the face side, or at least causing me
to remove a bunch of material to get past that scar.
Now from the top side I used a larger pattern bit to finish
removing the waste material.
Then I did the final cleanup by hand with a mallet and
chisel.
Once the template material was removed it was time to do a
test fit.
And of course the test fit was too tight so I did a little
more hand work to strategically remove some more stock.
Once I was happy with the fit, I ripped some material for
the wedges, tapered them at the disc sander and drove them home.
Once dry I trimmed off the excess and sanded smooth the
sickout.
If you are interested in what other projects I am working
gives me a follow over on Instagram and of course here are a few other videos
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leave a comment you know what to do, Thanks for watching.
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Video Recap
How to build a Sawhorse
Today’s project is building a pair of sawhorses. The joinery and overall styling of these sawhorses was primarily taken from a lot of Japanese Style joinery.
I decided to make them out of hard maple so they could take a beating out on the job site. I later regretted that decision when I decided to hand cut some of the joinery. Hard Maple is a workout to chisel through.
I did my layout primarily in chalk, so if I needed to move a board to maximize the use of material it was easy to rub off the markings.
Once I got everything laid out I rough cut all the parts to their approximate size and started squaring up the lumber at the Jointer and planer.
By the way if you are interested in building a pair I will have a set of plans available on my website. If you build a pair tag me on Instagram, I’d love to see them.
Once my material was squared up I started with making the template for the base, I ripped a piece of plywood to the height of my base piece to creating the template to rout from.
These paper templates will be in the plans that you can print out.
I traced it out with a sharpie and cut it out on the band saw. I made sure I left the line so any leftover band saw marks could be sanded out. The spindle sander works really well for this.
To save material, I nested them on my board and just loosely cut them out on the band saw.
I left them a little large so I could cut a notch for my push stick so I would have a square, safe place, to push against while to ripping them to width. I ripped them to their exact width to be sure they all would be the same height increasing the chance all my joinery would fit tightly together.
Then I went back to the band saw and cut out the shape being sure I left the line.
To clean them up and rout them to their final shape I attached my plywood template to the blank by pushing both pieces against my fence to be sure the back edges stayed flush with each other.
To flush them to the template I used a Pattern bit that has a bearing on both top and bottom. This way I can always rout with the grain minimizing any tear out.
Once I routed one side of the base, I flipped it over and adjusted the bit height so the barring would contact the top of the plywood template and routed out the other side.
Instead of trying to get both pieces perfectly aligned, I glued the finished piece to the rough blank; once it was dry I headed back to the router table to flush everything up, using the same process as before.
I set the base pieces aside and started cutting the rest of the pieces to length.
The upper and lower rail lengths I just measured, marked, and cut to length. But for the legs I set a stop block up on my miter gauge to work from. This insured each leg would be exactly the same height, so my sawhorses would be the exact same height.
And while I was at the saw, I cut the tops to length.
Moving onto the joinery I established the shoulder of the tenons by doing a kerf cut at the table saw using the fence as a guide.
Then I set the band saw up at the same depth as the kerf cut to cut away the cheeks of the tenon.
Now to build a quick little jig for my router to cut the mortise in the legs for the lower rail tenon to go through.
I started out ripping some scrap plywood to about 3” wide, this should give me a solid base to rout on.
I then used the leg to mark its width on the tenon.
I cleaned up the band saw marks with my block plane being careful not to go past my line. Cleaning the end up not only looks better but will help in the assembly as you won’t have to drive that whole tenon through the mortise. It will only get tight where it counts.
Then I put it vertically in my vise and lined up the edge of my plywood strip to my line that I had drawn earlier.
I made sure it was square, and then I built my jig around the tenon pressing the part tight against the tenon wall while gluing them in place with CA glue.
I flipped the jig over and filled in any gaps that could cause me problems if I stop paying attention to where my bearing is tracking.
I added some layout lines, and clamped my template down to them.
On the back side, I added some stop blocks so each time I put the template to a leg , it would land in the exact spot every time.
Now with a pattern bit I started routing out for the mortise following the template.
The bit I had on hand was not deep enough to go all the way through, so once I established the outline of the mortise, I removed the template and used the wall of the mortise to ride the bearing against going even deeper.
That still was just not quite deep enough so I drilled a hole the rest of the way through and switched to a bit that has the Bering on the tip, and finished the hole.
So I have the mortise cut out but the corners are the same radius as the router bit so I squared them up with a mallet and chisel.
Now every time I show me squaring up a mortise, there is always someone in the comment section that says why you didn’t just make the Tenon round. Well the tenon is already square so it would be more difficult to make it match the radius of mortise unless you have a fancy panta router or something of that nature.
And more importantly, and this is just my personal preference, Round tenons look dumb, they just do they look dumb.
Did a little test fit to be sure I was on track; I think that looks pretty tight for a square tenon?
Moving on to joining the leg to the base, I did the exact same procedure for creating this jig as I did for the previous tenon, this one is just a bit longer and wider.
And I did the same routing operation in the base. I routed out as much as I could from one side then drilled a hole through and finished routing out from the other side.
I used much longer bits for this operation so a work of caution. The larger and longer the bit the bigger the chance it will catch, so take your time with these mortises and go slow.
And of course I squared it up with a chisel.
I am going to secure these with wedges from the underside, so I cut some slots for the wedges to go at the band saw.
To widen them up a little I just bumped the fence over a bit and made 2 passes per slot.
To help prevent the wedges from splitting the legs I drilled an oversize hole at the base of each slot
I set the legs aside and build another jig using the same process as before. This jig is to rout a mortise in the lower rail for the horizontal wedges to pass through.
I routed the hole about a 1/16” past my layout line so when I drive the wedges in, they won’t bottom out against it
Then I squared up the corners of the mortise because I don’t want to make wedges with rounded edges.
I set the lower rails aside and moved on to the upper rails. The upper rails are going to have a decorative element to the end so I cut out my template and transferred the shape to my work piece.
Then I Cut it out at the band saw, and removed the saw marks at the spindle sander.
I’m down to the last little bit of joinery.
I found the center on both the lower rail and upper rail and lined them up as a match pair. This is important so your legs don’t end up crooked.
Then I used the shoulder of the Tenon from the lower rail to mark the location for the half lap joint on the upper rail.
I used the leg to scribe the exact width onto the rail so I would get a nice tight fit.
Then I used the knife to mark the outline round all sides where the joint will be cut.
I set my chisel about the width of a saw blade away from my line and give it a whack to create a trough for my sawblade to track in.
I used my pull saw to cut down to my layout lines.
And yes if you want your joint to come out perfect you have to make a super serious maximum concertation face like that while you cut. If you don’t it’s not going to turn out good.
Then I chiseled out the waste working towards my line, but before I went all the way, I flipped the piece over and worked from both sides. This prevents a big chunk blowing out past your line.
I did the same layout on the legs for the matting piece. This time I was even more careful to work from both sides when chiseling out the waste. Since the joint is going with the grain, it would be easy to split off a large chunk past your layout line if not careful.
Once last thing to do to the leg before assembly, I wanted to add a decorative cloud life to the leg. I sketch out a shape I liked on some plywood,
Then traced it onto the leg, and cut off the bulk of the waste on the band saw.
Then attached my template to the workpiece and routed out the final shape, using the same process as before, adjusting the bit switching back and forth from top and lower bearing insuring I am always cutting with the grain to prevent tear out.
Now I am finally ready to assemble the legs. I added some glue and, drove the leg into the base, flipped it over and secured it with some wedges. Anything sticking out I’ll just sand flush after the glue dries.
To make the wedges I ripped some scrap wood to the width of the mortise and then ripped of 1/8” wide strips. I cut them to length and sanded a taper on one end.
With the combo of glue and the wedges I don’t think this is ever going to come apart or loosen up.
I then made some larger wedges for the lower rail. Since these wedges are decorative as well as functional they needed to be more precise so I cut the taper on the band saw using a jig.
The jig is basically a larger piece that was safer to cut on a diagonal, and then I glued a stop block to the face of it so I could make repeatable cuts.
I added some glue, tapped the pieces together and wedge it in place.
You don’t necessarily have to add glue to this joint if it ever loosens up you can just tap the wedge in a little more, But I don’t want to ever have to worry about it while I’m on a jobsite so I glued everything together.
While the bases are drying I moved onto the top. I laid out my dog holes for my hold fast and other bench accessories and drill them out at the drill press.
I have a combination of hold fasts and planning stops, the holdfast that I like best have a 7/8” diameter while the planning stops have a ¾” diameter so I did a combination of 7/8 and ¾” holes, in a layout patter that I thought would work for me and my work flow so I can use both types.
Once I had the holes drilled I glued the upper rail down the center of the top. After it dried I transferred the holes from the top all the way through the upper rail so the holdfasts could pass through it.
I added some glue to the half lap joints and glued the top down.
The final finishing touches, I added some feet to prevent the sawhorses from rocking on uneven ground, and rounded over the top edge to make it more comfortable to work at.
Thank you for watching,
Plans are available on my website and if you want to see what I am working on for future video’s give me a follow on Instagram, and of course, if you are not subscribed already, do so, and hit the bell to be notified when the next video comes out.
And most importantly, rounded though tenons look dumb
This dining table was made in a Scandinavian modern style for a client who moved to Colorado from Sweden. I hope it reminders her a little bit of home every time she sits down for a meal. It is made from solid cherry; the top edge is rounded over to create a pillowed effect along the edge. The legs are angled from all sides and sculpted to a similar pillowed effect on the edge of the legs. It is approximately 42” DIA, and stands 30” tall
How to make a circle cutting jig fully adjustable quick and
simple
Today I’m making this circle cutting jig, because I need to
cut a really big circle for this table.
It has incremental swing arm, a non-destructive way to
attach it to your material, and is fully adjustable to dial in the exact radius
you want.
So to get started I ripped a strip off some scrap plywood to
act as the swing arm.You can make this
strip as long as you want to make as big of a circle you.For this jig, I am about 2 feet long.
I do have a sketch on my website if you want all the
measurements.
I marked down the center and laid out 1” increments.
I head to the drill press to drill ¼” holes down the length.
Then I used some ¼” plywood and cut a perfect square and
marked the center.
I used a forester bit to counter sink for a T nut and
switched out the drill bit to drill the through hole.
I positioned the T nut over a dog hole and drove it
home.
I’m sure I could get a shorter T nut that wouldn’t stick
through, but this is what I had on hand and I didn’t want to drive across town
for a 50cent piece, so I just filled the points flush.
To make room for the shaft of the T nut, I just ran a dado
down the center of the swing arm.
I should mention that your pivot point plywood should be
about the same thickness as your base plate. It will make assembly a little
easier
I ripped of a piece of scrap plywood to start making a
bracket to attach the jig to the router.
I measured the distance between the holes on my router.
Drilled some through holes
Did a test fit and marked the length so I wouldn’t have a
bunch of extra material sticking out, and cut it off at the chop saw.
Then I counter sunk for the heads of the bolts, this would
have been easier before I drilled the through holes, but I’m just making it up
as I go.
I got another scrap of plywood and marked the width I by
holding it up to what I had already made. I did this without the base plate attached
Then I marked the length and cut it off at the chop saw.
I pre drilled some screw holes to attach it to the swing
arm, and flipped it over to pre drill some holes to attach it to the mounting
block I had made earlier.
I then glued and screwed it to the swing arm.
I then glued and screwed it to the mounting block in the
router.
The bolts stick out about a 1 ½” so you can a little over an
inch of adjustability between the pivot points drilled in the swing arm.
To locate the jig on your work piece, I line the points up with
my layout lines, mark the perimeter so I know where to put the double stick
tape, and stick her down.
I pick a pivot hole close the size I want, and while I am there,
I marked out the radius in inches along the swing arm.
Then using the bolts, I fine-tuned the radius to my layout
line, and cut the circle.
Stay tuned, my next video will be of the round table
build.
If you want to see what I have coming for future video, give
me a follow on Instagram, and of course. Like, subscribe and hit the bell to be notified when the next video
comes out.
I had several question come up after the original video was published, that I thought were good ones that also correspond with the video footage I had that didn't make the original cut. So here is a little more information on how I
stained and finished the stone,
Stained and finished the Mahogany,
and built the bent lamination form.
Today I’m building this mirror frame for a client that
wanted it to appear like it was floating off the wall.
Now I realize that the shadows in the picture are hiding the
floating aspect, so you’re just going to have to use your imagination.
One of the key ingredients to getting perfect miters is to
start out with perfect square stock, so I took the time to set up a feather
board when ripping to width.
I mitered one end of all 4 pieces, and then I set a stop
block up so I could cut the corresponding sides to the exact length, without them getting pinched between the fence and
the blade.
I needed to cut a really deep dado to accept the mirror and supporting
back panel, so instead of trying to hog out that much woodwith a stacked dado set, I did a 2 pass cut
on the table saw.
The 1st cut was to establish the width of the
dado.Then I reset to the fence and
blade height to cut the depth.
This mirror was so heavy it made me grunt when I lifted it, so
I decided to reinforce the corners with floating tenons.
I clamped the pieces together to add a little stability
while I cut the mortises.
Since band clamps are primarily useless tools I opted to
attach some temporary clamping blocks with CA Glue.These blocks gave me something substantial to
clamp to, and they don’t hide the miter on the outside corner like a band clamp
does, so I can be sure the corners are tight on all visible edges.
I added some paper under the glue joints to protect my
pristine looking assembly table and checked the diagonals for square.
Once the glue dried, I broke off the glue blocks and went to
work cutting the back panel to size.
I squared up some alder for the back inner frame
Marked them to length
Cut them to length
Added some pocket hole screws so I could secure the inner
frame to the outer frame.This gave the
whole piece some rigidity and strength to hold that large of a mirror.
Then it was time for some assembly, for the inner frame I
just used some glue and brand nails
I dropped in the mirror,
Painted the back components black so they would disappear in
the shadows
Dropped in the back panel.
And Finally I Dropped in the back inner frame and secured it
with pocket hole screws.Here you can
see that the inner frame is inset, this is what will give the illusion that it
is floating off the wall.
The whole thing is hung from the wall by the inner frame on
a French cleat.
Thank you for making it to the end of the video, if you want
to see what I am working on in my shop for upcoming videos please follow me on Instagram,
and of course like subscribe and hit the bell
