Making The Back Rails

Written by Dave Topics:Blog, Dave, federal, Inlay, Projects, Woodworking

Sunday I decided to start working on the back rails for my table so when I headed out to the shop I I milled up the following parts to size.

1 – Spacer 3/4″” x 3.5″ x 5″
1 – Middle Stretcher 3/4″ x 3.5″ x 9″
2 – Swing Stretchers 3/4″ x 3.5″ x 14″

The length of the swing stretchers didn’t really matter I just knew 14″ was long enough for this stage of the game. Later I’ll need to cut them down and mill a tenon on each to attach to the legs.

With my parts milled it was time to start doing some layout work. The swings stretchers work by the way of hinged fingers so I marked a line 1 1/4″ from the edge of boards & laid out 5 equal spaces at 11/16″. (Click the photo for a better view)

From here I raised my table saw blade to 1 1/4″. Using an extended fence on my miter gauge, I nibbled away the slots in between the fingers making note to cut on the waste side of the line.

(Note: Depending on the type of blade you have in your table saw, you may need to go back with a chisel and do some clean up to the top of the spaces.)

After doing a dry fit I dug a penny out & used it to layout a round over on the ends of the fingers & using the spindle sander I rounded the corners.

I then did another dry fit but this time I clamped the 3 pieces to an auxiliary board (to keep the pieces from moving) & made my way over to the drill press it to bore 2 holes for the 1/4″ dia. steel rod that holds the parts together but also lets them swing open when needed.

Then using 2 drill bits as pins I did another test fit and found that when I tried to swing out my stretcher they were rubbing against the middle stretcher.

So using a carving chisel I cut out some relief for the fingers so they could swing open.

At this point I realized that I didn’t have the steal rod. So now I have to head out to Home Depot to pick one up but here’s a pic of the pre-assembly.