Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Maple Mania part 7

I wasn't plan on this being a 12 step program but it is starting to feel like it. After giving the aprons a good sanding it was time to start thinking about how the pieces need to go together.

I trimmed the two thick aprons a little longer than I need. Then took time to lay out the locations of some dowels to help with alignment during glue up and hopefully add a little strength. After drilling for the dowels I test fit the two thick aprons and measured for the two thin aprons. After cutting the thin aprons to the final size I once again marked out locations for dowels to connect the thin aprons to the thick aprons.

Then it was time for a dry assembly.
dry assembly
 By doing the dry assembly I found I didn't have enough clamps to clamp it all together at once and to get alignment correct I didn't think I could assemble it in stages. That meant I had to get some more clamps.

After a trip to the store I had enough clamps to start the assembly. I wish I had some pictures of it going together but I was working alone and was in a hurry to get it all together and clamped before the glue started to set.
a more appropriate number of clamps

you can't ever have to many clamps
 I scraped as much glue squeeze out off as possible and then let it all set to cure.

Out of the clamps, you can see I left the aprons proud of the top. They will be evened out when flattening the top.
I then used a hand plane to even the corners of the aprons up and a belt sander to flatten the top.
The top is looking really good


Next the aprons need trimmed to length, some more sanding, attach the legs, and apply finish.

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