Mark Kosmowski
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- 1,456
- Location
- Central (upstate) NY
I've already asked some questions about this project in other threads since the questions were general woodworking questions, not just related specifically to the desk I am building. This will be my first piece of fine furniture (as opposed to shop stuff slapped together from plywood of various repute, etc.).
Here are the other threads:
Gluing up the tabletop
Dealing with knots in the tabletop
Flattening the tabletop after the glue-up
Design - yeah, ok, this should have come first before anything else.
Today I made some significant progress on the tabletop. All that is yet needed is final sanding, filling in knot related voids, machining the bottom related to apron attachment and, of course, finishing.
Here is the tabletop as it is now, with the top displayed.
My wife delivered a huge compliment just before I trimmed the ends flush - other then a small two inch bit on the end right on the joint that was just plain lower than the rest of the table boards (either big surfacing tearout or snipe) she couldn't tell where the joint was, and her first guess was actually a quarter inch off.
The black arrow in the second pic shows where a little white stuff is. This is acrylic gel medium that is supposed to dry clear. If it does, I'll be using it to pack knot voids. It will sand off easily, so I figured I'd test on part of the tabletop that needs more sanding anyway.
I don't have a tablesaw. The edges of the table were not perfectly parallel after glue up (about 1/2" off across the 40" length). What I did was to set up my EZ Smart 50" rail at the middle of the piece, a little closer to the reference edge than the edge to be "ripped" to parallel.
Then I used the rear of the router guide base (here I am talking about the rear of the aluminum piece that connects the EZ router base plate to the plastic base that rides the EZ rails) to reference to the keeper edge. This was obsessively checked several times before and after clamping the EZ rail in place.
The EZ rail being in place, I then installed a 1/2" straight bit (Amana, straight cutter, double flute if anyone cares) into the router and router the opposite edge. I used a clever short "controlled anti-climb" on the one side followed by a "whoa Nellie! THIS is the climb cut direction" cut on the otherside before returning to the original cutting direction to finish the routing. I think I confused the "bit rotation direction" arrow with "feed this way" - at any rate, other then a bit of surprise no harm was done.
Just after this point, I decided to measure the width at either end to see if I was successful. This is when I sustained the requisite project injury. Wait for it, it is funny. So I still have the EZ rail and router setup in case I need to take a second pass or something and I'm rotating the tabletop around to get the tape measure under it (can't accurately measure over the rail). Everything is going good and I see that I have about a half a mm (roughly 1/32 inch) difference in width across the 40" width.
I briefly entertained the idea of trying to get it closer when I heard Larry's voice in my head, "Even if'n ya get 'er better now, she ain't still gonna be the same in 6 months." So, I took a moment to smile and laugh at myself, thinking I have done a good job so far.
That is when the whole assembly, tabletop, router and EZ rails started to fall off the RAS table I was using as a workbench! In a panic I moved my foot to try and catch it before it hit the floor. Thankfully, I was successful in this effort.
I caught the tabletop with my shin. Yes, the corner of the tabletop. Anyhow, with the adrenaline of averted impending disaster, it didn't really hurt all that much and ended up only bleeding down my leg a a couple, two or three inches.
After a short break I trimmed the ends using the EZ Smart 32" rail and circular saw. There was a tiny bit of chip out. Maybe I should have changed to the new blade from the blade I have been using for laminate floor cutting at my folks house. To finish up the evening, I applied the aforementioned acrylic gel medium as a test.
Here are the other threads:
Gluing up the tabletop
Dealing with knots in the tabletop
Flattening the tabletop after the glue-up
Design - yeah, ok, this should have come first before anything else.
Today I made some significant progress on the tabletop. All that is yet needed is final sanding, filling in knot related voids, machining the bottom related to apron attachment and, of course, finishing.
Here is the tabletop as it is now, with the top displayed.
My wife delivered a huge compliment just before I trimmed the ends flush - other then a small two inch bit on the end right on the joint that was just plain lower than the rest of the table boards (either big surfacing tearout or snipe) she couldn't tell where the joint was, and her first guess was actually a quarter inch off.
The black arrow in the second pic shows where a little white stuff is. This is acrylic gel medium that is supposed to dry clear. If it does, I'll be using it to pack knot voids. It will sand off easily, so I figured I'd test on part of the tabletop that needs more sanding anyway.
I don't have a tablesaw. The edges of the table were not perfectly parallel after glue up (about 1/2" off across the 40" length). What I did was to set up my EZ Smart 50" rail at the middle of the piece, a little closer to the reference edge than the edge to be "ripped" to parallel.
Then I used the rear of the router guide base (here I am talking about the rear of the aluminum piece that connects the EZ router base plate to the plastic base that rides the EZ rails) to reference to the keeper edge. This was obsessively checked several times before and after clamping the EZ rail in place.
The EZ rail being in place, I then installed a 1/2" straight bit (Amana, straight cutter, double flute if anyone cares) into the router and router the opposite edge. I used a clever short "controlled anti-climb" on the one side followed by a "whoa Nellie! THIS is the climb cut direction" cut on the otherside before returning to the original cutting direction to finish the routing. I think I confused the "bit rotation direction" arrow with "feed this way" - at any rate, other then a bit of surprise no harm was done.
Just after this point, I decided to measure the width at either end to see if I was successful. This is when I sustained the requisite project injury. Wait for it, it is funny. So I still have the EZ rail and router setup in case I need to take a second pass or something and I'm rotating the tabletop around to get the tape measure under it (can't accurately measure over the rail). Everything is going good and I see that I have about a half a mm (roughly 1/32 inch) difference in width across the 40" width.
I briefly entertained the idea of trying to get it closer when I heard Larry's voice in my head, "Even if'n ya get 'er better now, she ain't still gonna be the same in 6 months." So, I took a moment to smile and laugh at myself, thinking I have done a good job so far.
That is when the whole assembly, tabletop, router and EZ rails started to fall off the RAS table I was using as a workbench! In a panic I moved my foot to try and catch it before it hit the floor. Thankfully, I was successful in this effort.
I caught the tabletop with my shin. Yes, the corner of the tabletop. Anyhow, with the adrenaline of averted impending disaster, it didn't really hurt all that much and ended up only bleeding down my leg a a couple, two or three inches.
After a short break I trimmed the ends using the EZ Smart 32" rail and circular saw. There was a tiny bit of chip out. Maybe I should have changed to the new blade from the blade I have been using for laminate floor cutting at my folks house. To finish up the evening, I applied the aforementioned acrylic gel medium as a test.
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