Classic Arts and Crafts Furniture 14 Timeless Designs-2

1102 02

the breadboard ends, the splines and the way they are attached

with screws behind the plugs.

Our local wood supplier had 3"-square by 30"-long leg blanks

in stock, so I decided to purchase eight of them instead of milling

my own out of^12 ⁄ 4 material. You might need to glue up the leg

blanks from two or more pieces to get the thickness of 2^3 ⁄ 4 ".

The rest of the material all has a finished thickness of^7 ⁄ 8 "

except for the breadboard ends, which are a full 1" thick. I had

wood that was long enough to make all of the top rails out of

one piece and all of the bottom rails out of the other. I kept them

in order to match grain and color around the entire table, which

adds a nice touch.

Which Leg is Which?

After laying out all of the legs and rails for grain direction and

orientation, I numbered each leg on the plan view of my draw-

ing, and wrote the number on the top of each leg to keep them

in order as the work progressed. I also marked each end of the

rails with the number of the leg it joined to.

My fi rst task was to fi nd an effi cient way to cut all the mor-

tises. Instead of using a hollow chisel mortiser, I decided to use a

plunge router along with a template to quickly locate all of the

cuts.

More Mortises per Hour

The fence for the plunge router was used to locate the distance

in from the edge of the leg to the mortises. In order to set the

beginning and end of each mortise, I added a sub-base to the

router as shown below, and attached a^1 ⁄2"-square block of

wood to the sub-base. This size block matched the diameter

of the bit I was using. I placed it in line with the router bit

and square to the fence. The template was made to the exact

length of the leg, with the notches cut at the end points of each

mortise. After the notches were cut, I added a stop to locate the

template at the top of each leg.

I took the four outer legs, and with a lumber crayon, marked

the general location of the mortises on adjacent corners. I

marked the four inner legs on opposite sides. These marks were

to keep straight which surfaces were to be mortised. The exact

locations of the mortises would come from the template without

my needing to locate and mark each one.

I put each leg, along with the template in my bench vise, with

the surface to be mortised facing up. I then routed the mortises,

plunging back and forth until I reached the fi nal depth of 1^1 ⁄ 4 ".

I cut all of the tenons on the rails with a jig on the table saw,

coming in^3 ⁄ 16 " from each face and^1 ⁄ 2 " from each edge to form

the tenons. I used a rasp to round off each of the tenon shoul-

ders to match the rounded ends of the mortises I routed earlier.

To make the cloud lift patterns on the center rails, I made a

template out of^1 ⁄ 2 "-thick plywood, carefully filing the inside and

outside curves at the corners. I then rough cut each of the cloud

lifts with the band saw, and used the template and a^1 ⁄ 4 "-diame-

ter flush trimming bit in the router to cut each rail to the pattern.

I fit each of the tenons, trimming with my shoulder plane, and

then made a dry run assembly of the entire base of the table.

 



FULL-SIZE CLOUD LIFT PATTERN

Width of leg

Leg captured

between fence and

this stop block

The small block on the sub-base is the same size as the bit, placed farther

away than the width of the leg from the fence.

The block is lined up with the bit so that the template can be made to the

exact size and location of the mortises.

Block

Stop

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