Jumping in... After the rebates were made in the frame members I made room for the joinery. A portion of the rebate was cross-cut on the table saw then the waste was ripped on the band saw. I'm trying to cut pretty close because it makes clean up easier and I have 16 cuts to clean up. CAREFUL though it's a lot easier to take material away than put more back!
The clean up with chisel was the one operation where the Shedua worked better than the Kwila... Neither worked well but the Shedua responded better to cross-grain cutting. Even with the work clamped tightly to the bench (supporting the bottom of the cut) the stringy Kwila would blow out.
More mortises. These are the Styles of the frame. Prior to the mock-up I had thought of using slip-tenons aka bridal joints but I found the open joinery to be quite distracting in these "designs". I also like the little steps I'm using with the styles, like a bread board. That would just be silly with slip tenons heh.
One of the biggest improvements in knowledge, skill, and mind-set I got from going to IP was in veneer work. Not that the school focuses solely on veneer, but a more sensitive "style" of veneering is taught. Being familiar with industrial use of veneer I had a distaste for it. The school teaches shop-sawn veneer, use of "bake-ins/ons", added potential for grain graphics, and so forth. Also when you take a look at some pieces, you discover that even the configuration, form, or structure could not even happen in solid wood.
I still don't feel that the veneering process for a whole piece is the most conductive to the way I like to work, but perhaps with time and practice It will work better and better for me. The veneering I'm doing for these tables is pretty simple compaired to my last project though so it's nothing to sweat. This is another case that I just couldn't make these tops the way I invisioned without the help of veneering.
It didn't take too long to put together these lillte substrates. 1/4" birch plywood with 5/16" poplar "bake-ins".
Back to the frames. Yay! I finally just got a start on the tenon fitting. All the tenons in these pieces are "floating tenons". I had always used live tenons untill the Chinese Elm Cabinet stand. I like the feel of live tenons but in some cases floating ones make a little more "sense". These guys can be about as strong as live tenons (in a test I saw I think the live tenon lasted a couple more pounds of pressure) but they have to be fit well. With the use of the x-y table for mortising and carefull machining of the tenon stock the fitting is going quite well and smooth :) They don't quite fit off the machines but are very close. You don't want to be struggling over something as important as joinery when you have 80 joints to make (160 if you count both sides of the joint).
I'm happy getting to this point because it means that something more resembling furniture might show up soon!
2 comments:
I feel the same way. Today I was loosely putting things together and covering the back with a few veneers to give myself something to look at, something that looks like furniture. Ping pong tables are perfect for laying out parts. I need one. That's some nice wood Nick, if you have extra, you know where to find me.
Ha every one comments on the ping-pong table. It happens to be in the "open" part of the basement near my machine "over flow". No one uses it I don't know why it doesn't just get folded up.
Ha yeah if I HAD any left over Shedua I'd give it away.
Post a Comment