Building a Shaker Table

Last weekend, I took a class in furniture making at Woodcraft. The project was to make a small Shaker-style table out of cherry. The instructor was my friend Jeff Fleisher, from whom I had taken a previous class.

We began with rough 4/4 (1 inch) cherry boards that had been run through the jointer one time to help them acclimate to the humidity at which we would be working. We started by deciding which sections of the boards to use and marking them up. Then we cut them to length before running them through the jointer to get one smooth side. After that, we ran our boards through the planer to smooth the second side and reduce the width to 3/4 inch. Finally, we cut our boards to proper width by ripping them on the table saw.

As soon as we could, we glued up three boards side by side to make the table top. We then set these aside to dry overnight.

Next we moved on to the legs. These were made from 8/4 (i.e., 2 inch) boards cut into 2X2 widths. We marked up the ends of the boards so the grain would run at a 45 degree angle so it would approximate being rift sawn. The reason for this is so the grain would run straight along the length of the leg and also to add strength. In some cases, this required us to cut the legs lengthwise on a band saw with the table angled in order to achieve the desired angle of the grain. Once we had one edge cut to the proper angle, we jointed that edge, then rip cut the other edges on the table saw until the legs were square.

The legs are tapered on the two inner edges to give the table a lighter appearance. To taper them, we used a jig that Jeff provided. The jig held the legs at an angle so we could run them through the table saw at the proper angle.

Once all the parts were cut to final dimensions, we moved on to joinery. The method used was mortise and tenon. We used a mortising machine to cut the mortises on two sides of each leg, then cut the tenons on the apron pieces using a dado blade in the table saw. This is only one of several methods of making tenons, but it was easy and worked quite well. I will adopt this method at home, now that I've done it. It makes me wish I hadn't recently purchased a tenoning jig; I'll have to find a way to sell it to get my money back. After cutting the mortises and tenons, we cleaned out rough areas in the mortises with a chisel and trimmed the tenons with Jeff's Veritas shoulder plane until they fit snugly together. Then we sanded the parts and glued the legs to the aprons, completing the table assembly.

Next we turned our attention to the table top. Any unevenness was smoothed off using a scraper. This worked well to get rid of glue squeezeout, but I found it really hard on my arthritic thumbs and I was unable to do as much of it as the project needed. I eventually finished the job at home using a random orbit sander. The final stages of construction were to cut the table top to 18 inches square on the table saw, then by standing it on end using a special tall fence, we cut 2 inch bevels on the bottom of the tabletop which has the effect of making the table appear lighter, a nice effect.

The final step was to sand the top and attach it to the frame, which was done using figure 8 hardware.

We did not have time to put a coat of finish on the table so this will be done at home. I'll use the recommended oil-based sealer, followed up with four to five coats of an oil-urethane top coat. I hope to have the finishing done within the next week.

This was a really nice project. The table is lovely. But more important to me is all the knowledge I gained about furniture construction. I learned a lot, some from doing things right, some from mistakes I won't have to make a second time. Now I feel I'm ready to start designing and building my own furniture. Thanks, Jeff.

Making a Mallet

I had been making jigs to use in woodworking and decided what I really wanted to do was to make something "real." I remembered a simple band saw project in Mark Duginske's Band Saw Book for a wooden mallet. Knowing that I will soon be using my chisels to clean out mortises and the like, I decided a mallet would be a good next project.

I started with some rough soft maple and walnut and jointed and planed them smooth. Then I cut the maple into three short pieces and glued them together in a stack. This became the stock for the head of the mallet. While this was drying, I cut the handle from a larger piece of walnut. I cut the tenon on the walnut on the band saw with no difficulty. Then I cut the handle to shape to fit my hand and ran the whole piece through the router table using a roundover bit to ease the edges.

When the glue had dried on the maple, I cut the stack to final shape on the band saw. Then, I made the mortise on the mortising machine. I cleaned out the mortise with a chisel until the handle tenon fit tightly into the mortise. Finally, I glued the two pieces together. And the project was done! I now have a sturdy and, I think, attractive mallet that should give me good service.

Could I have done anything differently? Definitely. My chisel was not sharp enough and I did a lot of unnecessary work paring out the mortise. I cut the thick stack of maple with a 3/8" band saw blade; a 1/2" blade made for resawing would have cut better, I think. And, I might have improved the looks by sandwiching some walnut in between the maple boards (or vise versa) to create a more patterned look. But, hey, it was all about getting practice with my machines and developing a sense of accomplishment. And that I got.

Preparing to Make Jigs

I decided that the first thing I needed to make was a set of jigs to help me get things straight and right. Jigs like a crosscut sled so my corners would be exactly 90° and another that would let me cut keys in the corners of boxes by holding them at 45° to the table saw blade. I also saw a plan for a drill press table that I decided to build. So the first thing I did, then, was to lay in supplies for jig making.

I wanted to make them all out of 1/2" Baltic plywood, which because it is 9-ply is very stable and smooth. I decided I would be using a lot of this over the coming months and planned to get two 60"X60" sheets (which is the way it comes). I also needed some 1/4" hardboard for the top and bottom facings for the drill press table so planned to get a 4'X8' sheet of that. And just for good measure, I ordered a 4'X8' sheet of 1/8" plywood that I could cut into patterns for later use in cutting various shapes.

Fortunately, Heritage Hardwoods is located only about 5 miles from me and they either stock or were able to order in all these items for me. Unfortunately, after waiting through nearly a week of rainy weather for a dry day to pick up my wood, it turned out to be bitterly cold and very windy the day I drove to Heritage Hardwoods. I got my wood alright, but my hands were frozen stiff by the time I had tied the sheets on the top of my car. And in the high, gusty winds, I think I was lucky to get home with my wood intact despite limiting my speed to 25 mph.

The other thing I needed was material for runners that would run in the miter slots of the table saw. I've viewed a DVD with instructions on how to make runners out of straight-grained hardwood, but decided to use UHMW, a slick kind of plastic that comes in the right width for the miter slots (3/4") and can be ripped to the correct depth. I ordered that from Woodcraft.

Finally, I needed some miter slots, T-bolts and screw handles for my drill press table. I also got these from Woodcraft.

So now I'm ready to dive in and make those jigs! I'll report on how that goes once I get into it.

Norm

Visiting Jeff Fleisher

In October, I took a class in Woodworking Fundamentals at the Leesburg, Virginia, Woodcraft store. The teacher for the two-day class was Jeff Fleisher, a master woodworker who lives an hour away from me in New Market, Virginia. Jeff does business under the name of Jeff’s Wood Designs. Since the class, Jeff and I have corresponded periodically about woodworking issues. Recently, he invited me to visit his shop and yesterday I did so.

First, he gave me a tour of his home to see many of the wonderful pieces he has built, some of which are shown on his web site. In addition to doing fine woodworking, he has embellished much of his work with outstanding chip carving, which makes the pieces truly unique and beautiful.

Then we headed out to his woodshop in a detached garage, to see where he works and examine his current project, a desk he’s been commissioned to build. He’s posted photos of his progress on the web. We walked around the shop and talked about each of his tools and jigs. Following that he gave me advice about things I should think about adding to my own shop, including Practical Design Solutions and Strategies (Taunton), the Wixey Digital Protractor, a basic set of chisels and waterstones for sharpening them, and the GRR-Ripper System for holding down work on the table saw and router. Fortunately for my budget, the latter three are currently on sale.

We spent a couple hours of animated woodworking talk and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. He has a standing invitation to visit my woodshop when he’s in the area.

Getting Ready for Projects

Since I got my SawStop table saw in place, I've assembled it and set it up for use, finally making a few test cuts. So at last my woodshop is complete and I'm ready for projects.

In addition to getting the table saw installed, I also had to reset the knives on my jointer. I have a 6 inch Grizzly jointer that I was having a lot of trouble with. Every time I jointed something it came out skewed. So I checked the level on the infeed and outfeed tables; it turns out they were fine. Then I reset the blades. I had a lot of trouble with this, partly because the knives had a lot of grease on them from shipping and they did not move freely under spring pressure. I cleaned them, then set them the best I could with the tool I have. I also used a dial indicator to try to get them consistent, but I have to admit that it was my first time using that tool and I don't know that I got them right. Later today I'll run another board through the jointer and evaluate that to see if I have things set correctly. If not, it'll be back to basics on the jointer until I learn to do it right. Once I have that settled, I'll be ready to roll.

One of the first things I'll be doing is building some jigs to help me get accurate results with my woodworking. So yesterday morning I went to the local lumber company (which in my rural area I'm very lucky to have) and picked up a couple sheets of 1/2" Baltic plywood, a sheet of 1/4" hardboard and some 1/8" plywood for templates.

Here are my plans, pretty much in the following order, as of now:

1. Make a pair of pen rests for fountain pens from a block of Burmese rosewood I have
2. Make a jig to cut splines in boxes using a plan from Paul Anthony's new book, Complete Illustrated Guide to Table Saws (Taunton)
3. Make the wooden faces for my vise from some maple I have on hand, then face them with some leather I picked up free from my local upholsterer
4. Make a splined box using a plan that appeared in the December 2008 issue of Fine Woodworking
5. Make a sled for crosscutting on the table saw
6. Make a sled for making miter cuts on the table saw, which I'll use for picture frames
7. Make a table for my drill press
8. Make some picture frames to hang my photographs

I'll be writing about my experience with these projects as I go along.

Norm

Assembling the SawStop

My SawStop contractor saw was finally delivered on Tuesday, December 16. I immediately set about assembling it. The first job was to put together the base, which took a little over an hour. After that, it was time for a coffee break.

Then I added the optional wheels. These are operated by a foot switch, which will allow me to raise and lower the saw base from the floor with an easy motion. I'll need that to move the saw away from the wall when I cut long boards and sheets of plywood.

The saw arrived in a number of boxes that contained the saw and table, the fence system (two boxes), the optional cast iron table extensions (two boxes), and the wheel assembly. A very nice thing about the SawStop assembly is that the saw comes with a very easy-to-use assembly poster that is color coded for each step in the process. This color coding matches a blister pack that contains the small parts (e.g., nuts, bolts, washers) needed for each step. This makes the assembly somewhat foolproof and guards against parts getting lost during assembly or the confusion that normally ensues concerning which part goes where. Despite all SawStop's precautions, however, I nonetheless ended up with several bolts that I have no idea what to do with.

After getting the base and wheels together on Tuesday, I had a day of down time waiting for a friend to come on Wednesday afternoon to help me lift the 140-pound saw onto the base and attach the heavy extension wings. That accomplished, I was able to finish the assembly on Thursday by adding the front and rear rails, the fence and the extension table that appears on the right.

The saw is now complete, though it is not ready yet to run. Next I have to adjust all the settings, namely to ensure that the blade and the miter slots are parallel, that the fence is parallel to the miter slots and that there is adequate clearance between the saw blade and the splitter and the cartridge that stops the blade in an emergency, among other things. I hope to accomplish all of that on Friday and actually make a few test cuts.

SawStop makes a larger version of this saw. I got the 36" table. They also make a 52" table, but I judged that I would not have enough room for it in my shop and also limited need for it. After getting the saw into its assigned place, I can see that I made the right choice. That space will work fine for normal cutting. However, when I have a long piece to cut, I will need to bring the saw forward into the walking space so there is enough room on the outfeed side. If needed, I can also turn the saw 90 degrees to allow more room on both the infeed and outfeed sides. Thus the importance of the wheels.

Already I am thinking about projects I want to build using this saw and my other tools. For starters, these include (not necessarily in this order):

• A pen rest to be used with my fountain pens (this actually doesn't require the table saw but it does require a better drill press table; see below)
• An improved drill press table
• A miter jig for the table saw
• A crosscut jig for the table saw
• Some boxes with splined, mitered corners
• Some tissue boxes
• Picture frames

I hope to get onto these projects soon, though probably not until after the holidays. By then, I also hope to have my Delta dust collection unit ready to install so I can run my machines with a reasonable amount of dust control.

My goal down the road is to make some furniture. To that end, I'm scheduled to take a class in furniture-building one weekend in February. I'll write about all of these things as I tackle them.

Norm

Clearing the Air

Everything I have read about shop safety emphasizes the importance of breathing air clean of the fine dust created by woodworking. So I set a long-term goal of installing an air filtration device to help keep the dust down. I did some research and settled on a Steel City model that, as luck would have it, is on sale until the end of the year. I'd planned to order it online and get it via free shipping, but when I was at Hartville Hardware when I was in Ohio a couple of weeks ago, I saw a floor model and decided to buy it on the spot.

Installation was fairly easy. I merely had to install the supplied eye bolts to the top of the machine, drill holes for hooks in the overhead joists and then with the help of a friend I hung the unit from the hooks. You can see the installation in the picture.

My only complaint is that the remote control only works when pointed at the back of the unit. This means that instead of sucking air away from the work area, the reverse is happening, and the exhaust air is blown back toward where I will be working. This may turn out to be a welcome thing in the summer, though.

I have plans to also install a dust collection system using a 1-1/2 hp unit from my brother-in-law, but that will happen next year.

Norm