Thread: Coffee table gift ...

Originally Posted by Waldo

What's the timber Afro?

I cut up one of the "lesser" English Elm slabs I had lying around.

The stretchers at the bottom will be Silky Oak.

Nice bench dog.

Originally Posted by tea lady

Nice bench dog.

Stanley's likes smelling and poking around the workshop but as soon as there's a noise he runs to the furtherest end of the yard for cover. He's a total wuss!

Darksiders ... I need your help.

For some reason unknown to me, I thicknessed up each piece of the top individually. As a consequence, they're not all exactly the same thickness. A few are, but a couple are approx 3mm too thick. For another reason unknown to me, I didn't do anything about it before gluing them up.

I don't have a 600mm thicky (except the one resting on my neck), nor do I have access to a large drum sander. Hand tools seem like the only approach to flatten the board.

Now I have the justification needed to purchase my first decent hand plane! The wood is pretty tough and can be prone to tear-out. I'm happy to sand and scrape after it's flat so I don't think I need a smoothing plane for this. Would a jointer be too large for this specific job? Is it the Jack Plane I'm after to get things "pretty much" flat?

Advice is most warmly accepted.

Cheers,
Af.

P.S. I've searched and read heaps about hand planes over the last year and have my general/larger selection pretty much determined. I just need to know which type of plane would be best for "correcting" this particular top.

Take it around to a local joinery and have it run through their drum sander/thicknesser, it shouldn't cost anymore than $55 to get taken down to thickness

Personally I would use my belt sander but then it is an excuse for a new tool... guess the choice is pretty simple really

After calling every door, window and kitchen manufacturer on the Peninsula, I finally found someone with a thicknesses wide enough to take 600mm! Tom Russo of Peninsula Wood Machining happily flattened the top for me for a few bucks. I'm picking it up tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, I've started putting the frame together. Will start the bending on the weekend so wish me luck!

Tapering the legs. I left 60mm clear at the top and tapered from 35mm down to 25mm.


4 tapered legs. Each has two tapers on the inside edges. I'll add the third taper once I know exactly how I'm joining the stretchers to these.


"Mortised" parts. Yes, it's a Domino. Is that cheating?


Dry fit of the base. Still a little work to do but it comes together nicely so far.


Cheers,
Af.

Whose make of taper jig is that Afro? And what length of stock can you run through with it?

Originally Posted by Waldo

Whose make of taper jig is that Afro? And what length of stock can you run through with it?

I'll bet ya a VB he got it from Carba-Tec

Looks good so far AB.

Like the timber> What is it?

I could go a VB a bit later, pity I'm all out.

Yep, taper jig is Carbatec brand. Only used it a couple of times and it does the trick.

I went on a "bending spree" today. Started by picking up every clamp in the box at Bunnies, made my bending form, took a few deep breaths and bent some wood. The hardest part now is waiting 24 hours to see if it worked!

Looking good.