Saturday I got to spend some time in the shop so I took advantage of it by installing the legs on the federal card table I’m building.

I made bridal joints for the front two legs in addition to mortise & tenon joints for the back to. (Back legs are attached to swing arms.) Then I assembled the pieces together.

Here are a few random photos from the install.

Marking Out Mortise Location

Installing Spacer & Brace For Swing Arms

Gluing Mortise & Tenons

Cutting Pins for Swing Arms

Test Fit Prior To Assembly

Next I’m going to have to mill the lumber for tops…

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Well after 24 hours I unclamped them, gave them a light sanding & wiped them down with mineral spirits.

Sorry the photo stink but it shows off the idea. (BTW The pateraes aren’t that dark!)

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Today I got another chance to get into the garage for a bit so I could work on the inlay table. (That seems I’ll never finish!)

Lucky for me today’s task was short & sweet so there was no excuses for not completing the install of the pateraes into the 2 front legs.

Now the pateraes I’m cheating on. They’re store bought so all I had to do was pop them out.

From there I centered them on my leg & using a small spacer block (to protect the paterae I clamped them to my leg.

From here I used my xacto knife to cut a groove around the paterae. Then after I removed the clamp & cut the line deeper into the leg.

Next I set the depth of my small router plan (I love this tool BTW!) to a bit stronger than the paterae thickness & started plowing out the material.

Using some sandpaper & a small chisel I test fit the piece into the hole. Making sure to keep a nice tight fit.

Then using liquid hide glue, I glue the pateraes in & set a pressure block (with tape on it to make sure the glue doesn’t stick) on top of them & clamp for 24 hours.

Tomorrow when I get home from work I’ll sand everything down & start marking the parts for installation.

Hopefully I also get to spend a bit more time both in the shop & on this project…

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When I made my first federal card table I used power everything on it. If it was in the shop and had a power cord attached, it got used!

I think I can honestly say the ONLY hand tool I used building it was sand paper. (For a few touch ups.)

With this project I’ve tried to gear myself to using more hand tools. Part because the inlay design requires it & part because I thought I’d see how peaceful it could be to work in a shop where, outside of lights and a radio, the power it off.

With that, today I got to spend a little bit of time in the shop cutting in the inlay cuffs & the upper edge banding by hand.

Listed below is a step x step account of how I tackled what last only required a jig & tablesaw. (But I’m not complaining!)

Step 1: Make where you want the bottom of the banding to start. I chose 4″ simply because it was a round number and looked good to my eye.

Step 2: Using a bevel gauge set the the correct angle & an xacto knife, gently score across the grain at your mark.

Step 3: Using a scrap piece of inlay banding for a spacer, place your bevel gauge to the exact location.

Step 4: Use the xacto again to score the upper line.

Step 5: Using a chisel, pear up to the line but draw the curled up piece back towards you to avoid tear out.

Step 6: Once you’ve pared back both sides to the line, use a small router plane set to the depth of the inlay banding to blow out the rest of the material.

Step 7: Test fit the piece.

Going through the exact same steps I also cut in the grooves for the upper edge banding.

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I’m not going to say that I’m converting to into a hand tool guy but damn it was nice and relaxing with just the radio running tonight!

Here I’m grooving out the top and bottom arch of one side. The middle is lightly grooved out for reference at this point. (I need to do this for each leg.)

And here is all that that i glue up in this first step. Once it dries it gets trimmed flush and the middle piece cut in.

Then I get to switch sides and after I cut in the straight lines in. (But for 3 sides of the front two legs and 2 sides of the back two.)

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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.

The next step for me is going to be working on the inlay in the legs but that’s for another post…

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Remember in my blog post “It’s All Done With Mirrors” when I wrote that when I open up a package of sequenced veneer that the first this I do it number the pieces?  Well this is when I explain a bit more of why I do that.

When veneering surfaces you can pick many different styles.  You can use one big piece of veneer or one of the following:

• Straight book matching
• 4-way book matching
• Radial matching (in the case of round pieces)

Here I want to address a potential problem that can happen with both 4-way & radial methods.

When we start laying out for both of these styles we tend to go in numerical order (1, 2, 3…).  But this can come back and bite you is when the seams from veneer piece 4 matches up to veneer piece 1 (in the case of 4-way matching.  Or the seams from your last piece of veneer butting up to your first piece in the case of radial matching.

When companies cut & sequence veneer they slice and stack it in the order it was cut from the log.  The further down the pile you go the more likely your grain patterns change.  Sometimes this differs slightly but sometimes it’s quite drastic.  It all depends on the tree.

So to try and reduce the chance of dealing with this I use The Rule of 2.

The Rule of 2 says that no piece of veneer shall be butted up to another piece higher than 2x from the number you gave it in the beginning?  (Confusing I know but take a look at the two examples below.)

As you can see, at no time does any piece of veneer butt up against another piece of veneer that has a number higher than 2x it’s given number.

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First off, this tip is  most beneficial when you have in large sheets of sequenced veneer.  But since I did not have any in hand I pulled out this Woodcraft mini-pack to use for my demonstration.

Indexing: When I open up any pack (large or small) of sequenced veneer the first thing I do is grab a pencil and number the pieces in one of the corners.  Since the manufacture has sequenced the veneer this will help you keep the the pieces in the order that they were cut from the log.  If you intend to do any book-matching with your veneer this will help you in the layout out of that so your growth rings match more closely.  (That we’ll expand on in another posting.)

Book-matching: When I start with a simple book-matching project I like to play around and see what pattern will look best for my project.  Since most burl is brittle and I don’t want to damage the sheets flipping them over trying to find a good match I simply grab a mirror.  This way I can position it anywhere on the top piece of my veneer stack (2 pieces) without worrying about  damaging them and I’m able to visually see immediately what the resulting match will be.

Once I find a match I like I use the mirror as a guide and grab a pencil to put a couple of registration marks on the veneer.  From here I  go to registering the pieces, taping them together, and start cutting them to size to use  with the project.

Quad Book-matching: If I’m going for a really cool look on say a table top I’ll grab 2 mirrors (oh and 4 pieces of veneer) and hold them at a 90 degree angle and can see visually see what that will look like.  By doing this I’m able to move all over the piece (remember the note about large pieces of veneer) until I find the pattern that really pops!

Other Uses: Also by using two mirror you can bring the angle in (under 90 degrees) and use the same procedure to get an idea of how a radial book-match would look.

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So let me start off with this: “Have you ever had one of those days where you shouldn’t be in the shop?”

You know, one of those days where everything turns out to be a PITA?!?

Well today was MY day!

Due to our schedules at home/work it’s been a while since I’ve been able to work on the federal inlay table and I needed to finish up the inlay on the apron.

I’ve had the semicircles on the ends done since my blog entry on Stringing Tight Curves. But since then I had not finished “connecting the dots” so to speak until today.

But I should have known better. I wasn’t in the mood to do it.

And I had other junk to do:

• computer & virus updates to install
• the Olympics was on
• laundry to be done
• yadda, yadda, yadda

But I needed to get this project moving.  Either that or submit my entry to the “Worlds Longest Time To Complete A Project” contest.

So anyway, against my better judgment, I went out and turned the heaters on so the shop could warm up and then started cutting/trimming pieces of inlay to size and made a quick 45 degree jig to help cut the scarf joints so I could glue the pieces into the my apron.

All in all, I only had 6 pieces to fit and it should have taken about an hour to do (taking my sweet time in all) but NO! Everything that could go wrong did.

It didn’t matter how many times I dry fitted the pieces into my apron, no matter how well the scarf joints went together, every time I put glue into the groove trouble would show its face.

I had 4 pieces just break, one that broke once I had it in but had to dig out with dental tools, (because the glue started setting and fit was that tight) way more glue squeeze out then I intended to clean up, and anything else you could come up with!

But in the end of day I got it all worked out but wow what a pain!  So next time you’re not “feeling it” take a hint, it might not be worth it!

BTW as a side note. Dental tools are great for working with inlay but get them from a dentist. The 4 piece set they sell at Rockler are garbage! (Now that’s not a dig at Rockler, just a “impromptu review” of that particular product.)

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While working on my federal table last weekend, I set my sites on inlaying the curved string on the apron. After several attempt at trying to make the radius buy misting the string and using a soldering iron (and breaking each and every string) I gave up.   I was licked and all was lost.

At this point I was seriously wondering why in the world I didn’t just go with three rectangles on my apron instead of getting fancy and laying out curved ends.

So I stomped into the house and started digging up all my books, magazines, printed internet articles, DVDs, VHSs anything do to with inlay methods of work and found – NOTHING!

That was until I sent a distress email to Glen & Chuck asking what in the world I could be doing wrong. (After all I had bent lots of stringing using an iron before.)

Then the suggestion came to think bigger!  So with that I traded in the soldering iron for a piece of pipe and torch.  And the following is a step by step process on how I was able to make the curved inlay.

Step 1: While soaking my inlay in hot water I put a piece of pipe, about the same size of the bend I want, into a vise and heat it using a torch.

Step 2: After the pipe is heated I take a piece of string and using a piece of flashing as a backer I set the middle of what is to become my curve on the pipe.

Step 3: Using constant downward pressure I slowly pull the string around the pipe. (You will hear sizzling at this point.)

Step 4: I hold the two sides together with one hand while rubbing the back of the flashing with my other. (Think of it as trying to rub out a crease. But be careful because the flashing will be hot!)

Step 5: Release the pressure and take a look at your curve. Make sure it doesn’t have any cracks or splits.  (If it does you either did step 3 too fast or the pipe has cooled down too much.)

Step 6: Cut it length and install it.

Once I completed this I went back through all my resources and I found at least 3 different places where this method was demonstrated.  (Why is it you can never find anything when you need it?)

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