Thread: Hall Table Build

My thoughts - which may just indicate that our approach is different, rather then that you are doing anything wrong.

Originally Posted by Glenn.Visca

* dry fit all joints and plane dovetails to flush up the joints.

You know the old saying - 'dovetails (and m&ts) only go together well once'. In case that's not clear, the first time you put them together they will be tight, but each subsequent time you take them apart and redo then they will get looser.

Also, I hate planning dovetail pins, and Ive seen many jobs worsened by mishaps when planning pins. I prefer to use a linisher, well actually a big boy sander, which allows me to remove the pin overhang while scarcely touching the box sides.

Originally Posted by Glenn.Visca

* dye the Walnut drawer fronts WITHOUT sides attached ...

I haven't reread why you are dying them, so this may be irrelevant. But as I noted earlier, walnut has big fading issues, which makes me think if you dye it in a pleasing way now, then after the timber fades the result will be unpredictable and quite likely unattractive. It may also be blotchy. Why dye - just sounds dangerous.

Originally Posted by Glenn.Visca

*prepare sides and drawer backs and maybe give a seal coat of shellac.

why give a coat of shellac to the drawer sides. I would be concerned it will make them stick. Just a little bit, but still enough to be annoying. I've never had a problem leaving them unfinished, or rather just finishing as far as the rear face of the front dovetails.

Originally Posted by Glenn.Visca

* Then glue it all up and a light sand.

Careful of cutting through the dye, especially if you have globs of glue to remove etc. I think the penetration on the walnut will be minute, though I haven't used dye much so not sure about that.

Originally Posted by Glenn.Visca

I don't want to dye the vic Ash sides ... and I don't want any Walnut dust to infiltrate the vic Ash ...

I used to do a lot of powersanding of walnut against pale timbers, and the secret to keeping the dust of one from contaminating the other is solely down to dust extraction. If you can provide enough extraction the white timber will not get walnut dust in the pores, but by 'enough dust extraction' I mean sufficient that when you lift the ROS the drawer comes with it, right off the bench.

Originally Posted by Glenn.Visca

P.S. no sniggers at my dovetails ... first ever attempt ... gaps in places but all are a good solid fit.

Pretty good first try. I would have made the pins a lot longer - as a sort of fault tolerance. You could also remove the gaps by bishoping, if you don't have any problem with that.

cheers
Arron