#weekend woodworker

16 Brilliant Fine Woodworking

Carpentry is an impact, yet it very well may be scaring for amateurs. Fortunately, our perusers and editors love passing along their go-to tips.

1. Half Pencil Marks Exact Copies

While attempting to follow a precise of the throat plate for my table saw, I concocted this clever method utilizing a customary pencil. I just shaved my pencil into a half-pencil via cautiously pounding it on my belt sander. The level edge empowers my adjusted pencil to ride straight up along the edge of the format. It additionally turns out extraordinary for stamping and afterward forming trims for my carpentry projects. — Tim Reese.

2. Wonderful Bar Clamp Cover

Iron line braces can undoubtedly deface gentler woods or respond with the paste to finish the wood. My answer is to cut a segment of plastic PVC line to measure and place it around the line. In the event that you have a few short lengths, you can space them deliberately to oblige various widths of stock wood. — Tim Johnson.

3. Speedy Blade-Height Gauge

This check block is the speediest method to set the stature of a table saw sharp edge. This one is produced using a 3-in. length of 4×4 slice to the settings utilized most oftentimes. In the event that you need more settings, simply make another square. Then, at that point when it’s an ideal opportunity to reset the table saw cutting edge, these squares will assist you with taking care of business rapidly.

Well, put the table outside in the sun all afternoon to let the heat bleed out any excess uncured oil and sun-darken the wood a little. Then gave it a good final wipe down and finish buffing, let it air out a little more, and moved it into the living room.

Ok... I guess it didn't turn out TOO bad...

There are so many fuckups in this. I'm really kinda unhappy with it.

The top is fucked up in MORE ways now, not just the gouge but apparently there was a warp in the frame so the plywood doesn't sit flush all the way around. And it's REALLY noticeable. Especially at a low angle like when you'll be sitting on the couch in front of it.

Sigh.

I kinda wish I hadn't splurged on expensive hardwood for it. Guess I'm not ready for the good stuff. Not that it would be any less fucked up in cheap pine, but at least it would have been a CHEAP fuckup collection.

Today was challenging.

I got the mitered corners cut for the top and... they sorta fit. But there are a couple spots with a tiny gap. But at some point I just had to settle for something that looked 'okay' because I was shaving away the whole damn thing trying for perfection.

And then I cut the rabbets in the boards, making the cradle where the top panel will sit. And that went super well!

But then I went to cut the thin 'shadow line' groove that would surround the panel once put in place. And on the last long board, my grip slipped on the board as I was running it through the table saw and it jumped... making a nasty, wandering gouge instead of a clean line.

Nothing I could do about it. There's really no way to hide it, either. And I don't have any more straight cherry wood long enough to replace the board. I would need to order more online, HOPE that it shows up straight and not warped, and wait a couple weeks for delivery besides. At the moment, without a trailer, there's no other way to get any here. And I just don't want to keep dragging this out, especially considering all the other mistakes in the project so far.

So I guess I'm just gonna settle with the huge fucking gouge staring at me from the table top. Sigh. :(

I'm just going to press ahead, though. It's still going to be in better shape than what I'm currently using for a coffee table. But it also means I'll probably be building another replacement coffee table eventually, once my skills are better.

I also decided to call it a night, because I'm making stupid mistakes and the next piece can't really afford big mistakes either.

So, tomorrow I'll cut the plywood panel for the top, after I get back from my doc appointment in the city. Then once that's done, I can assemble and attach the top and move on to finishing.

That last photo is just sorta mocking it up to see what the pattern looks like. The plywood will actually rest inside the groove I cut in the top frame and sit level with the top of the frame.

Got the inner risers all glued up! The table top will sit on top of these risers, making it appear to float over the rest of the table frame.

Still need to cut some cleats for the table top to attach to and attach them tonight.

More coffee table progress! Gluing up the legs to the apron.

Working inside today due to high winds, but still getting it done!

Progress on the coffee table!

I had to do some fixing to the legs, because I realized when I did the "tenons" at the top that things just weren't square. Realized my miter gauge was way, way off. So had to do a ton of fiddling around with that to get it as close to 90 degrees as possible, then do cleanup on the tenons and shave a little off the top and bottom to make it more square.

So that was Monday evening. Then tonight I was finally able to start on the side stretcher boards.

This required ripping down some 1x4s to be 1x3s. But feeding 8 feet of board through my little table saw was tricky.

Ended up using my rolling workbench as an outfeed table and my ladder as an infeed support. It was still really wiggly, but I managed to get all three 8 foot boards ripped down and mostly straight.

Then I had to do some tetris'ing, because two of the boards had HUGE (and ugly) knots in them. So I had to figure out how to arrange my cuts to avoid these really, really unavoidable knots.

If there was a supply of cherry boards within an hour drive, I'd just go get another couple boards. But there isn't. I'd likely have to drive about three hours each way to the closest hardwood supplier. I had to mail order this stuff that I've got and it took forever to get here. So I've got to work with what I've got.

In the end, though, one of them simply can't be worked around with cut placement. There's just no way to get the necessary sized boards without one of them having this damn knot.

So, I'm going to use that board as one of the inner risers which won't be seen very easily once it's done. And I think I'm going to rip the riser boards down an extra half inch to shave off as much of the knot as possible, too.