Made a little progress today. The back rail that goes between the leg assemblies is pretty much complete at this point.

The tenons are cut and fitted and the knockdown hardware has been fitted. For the record, this is a painful process.

If you are off at all the knockdown hardware will not thread and I don’t have a drill press or hand drill that is accurate enough for this operation….Enter the round file…  There is more than one way to skin this particular cat and after a brief and savage session with said file, the bolts will thread into the knockdown hardware.  I think if I was to do this again, I would drawbore and pin all of the lower assemblies and just deal with the fact that the base assembly is going to be heavy.  

8 hours ago, StaticLV2 said:

The tenons are cut and fitted and the knockdown hardware has been fitted.

If you were going to do it again? I could see orders coming in @ $4,000 - $6,000 depending on choice of wood. One small ad plus a web presence. The world is full of gentlemen-luthiers with more money than time 

Great thread Michael. 

12 hours ago, Woodman said:

If you were going to do it again? I could see orders coming in @ $4,000 - $6,000 depending on choice of wood. One small ad plus a web presence. The world is full of gentlemen-luthiers with more money than time 

That sounds suspiciously like a side gig

A little daily update, wrapped up the front and back rails.

These were a bit of a challenge and the knockdown hardware makes these trickier than they need to be.

That aside, the base goes together nice and square and once the bit for the vise screw comes in I will be able to drill that out all the difficult stuff will be done.  From there it is just scraping, sanding, and final assembly of the base.

 

Starting on the top tomorrow which should be a crazy adventure!  I am thinking alignment pins might be a good idea for the glue up…

Got my stock for the back part of the top ripped to length today with visions of getting it milled down and glued up today.

This was not to be….

 

With everything cut to 4 1/4” I need to join it, thickness it, and cut to final 4” so I ran the first piece through the joiner and it left a nice little groove.  Something hit the joiner blades and left a nice little divot. So I have been learning about sharpening joiner blades.  And since I didn’t have anything to sharpen said joiner blades with, a sharpening jig was devised.   

After some trial and error blades are sharp, and set, and I ran a test piece which I am pretty happy with. (joined face is down)
It is time to get some lunch and maybe pick up again this afternoon

That is the same jig I sharpen My planer blades with. Do I need to check the shop to be sure the jig is still there?

A few years ago, I bit the bullet and, installed Holbren's spiral planer head on my DeWalt. With the individual carbide cutters. Probably the most productive 5 hours spent on that upgrade. Although, I never attempted to sharpen the original HSS blades. 

For me it was never sharpening the blades that was a problem, it was the hours spent trying to get the dang things squared up in the planer.

So the big auger bit came in and I was able to bore the hole in the front leg for the vice screw.
For what its worth, over 1” auger and you probably want a 12” brace, the 10” was a strain.  There is probably an old rule of thumb about this.  

 

Back on the bench topic, the base is now ready to assemble… but not so fast self.  If you are going to drawbore and PIN those joints, you need some dowels…  Conveniently, the blanks for the back part of the top make for a nice pounding surface when clamped together and sitting on a sawhorse.   Back to putting square pegs in round holes    

43 minutes ago, StaticLV2 said:

So the big auger bit came in

Don’t you just love those projects that need new tools!

Every facet of this project has required new tools… And learning, lots of learning

 

I am already looking at methods to clean the top up because there is no way that I am running a 180lb slab through the planer by myself.

A joiner plane seems like it may be in order… or is that on order…

12 minutes ago, StaticLV2 said:

Every facet of this project has required new tools… And learning, lots of learning

 

I am already looking at methods to clean the top up because there is no way that I am running a 180lb slab through the planer by myself.

A joiner plane seems like it may be in order… or is that on order…

Yep that is a must have

The right leg assembly is sanded, glued up, and pinned.  Pretty sure that isn’t going anywhere

Test fit of the whole base assembly 

Looking good. See you are using Draw bolts, I used those too and made the attachment of stretchers easy and can be broken down If I am still able to lift the top. Well no actually that would be someone else and my next move will be the eternal one.

 

Funny looking at prices in estate sales I suspect the family will just about give it away when the time comes, unless I sell it before that time.

2 hours ago, StaticLV2 said:

Test fit of the whole base assembly

Looking awesome Michael.

9 hours ago, Gerald said:

Looking good. See you are using Draw bolts, I used those too and made the attachment of stretchers easy and can be broken down If I am still able to lift the top. Well no actually that would be someone else and my next move will be the eternal one.

 

Funny looking at prices in estate sales I suspect the family will just about give it away when the time comes, unless I sell it before that time.

Yeah i am going to have to finesse the Draw bolt fitment a bit or just drawbore and pin it, that is still an option

 

I decided to use the knockdown hardware after all, I had a moment of inspiration and chucked a round file in a drill.

That was enough to finesse the final fitting of the knockdown hardware and almost took less time than it did to tell.

Pictures for posterity in case anyone runs into this in the future.

Had a slightly easier time of things today, with the joiner actually joining again, I was able to get the stock for the back part of the top milled down to spec and ready for glue up which I will probably get to after dinner.

 

I will need to use some of the off-cuts to make some cauls but the top is looking very flat already.  If I can keep it like that, it will save me a lot of planing and scraping in the final steps.

 

Pretty happy with the progress so far today.