Beveling the Nightstand Tops

2013.05.17

I planed the edges of the table tops after gluing, taking them down to the final square dimensions.  Then it was time to bevel the undersides, to reduce the apparent thickness around the edges.  The process is similar to “raising” panels for cabinet doors.  I made an auxiliary fence for the skew rabbet plane out of a scrap of walnut, which I attached with a couple stubby screws (there are holes in the cast iron fence for this purpose).

I started with the cross-grain bevels.  To avoid spelching at the far end, I added a scrap of alder between the workpiece and the bench dogs.  The beveled auxiliary fence rides along the edge of the workpiece, thereby tilting the plane and creating the bevel.

2013.05.30

The long-grain bevels involve the same process, more or less.  Unfortunately, right off the bat I had some tearout in a small area near a corner where the grain reversed.

With the bevel established via the rabbet plane as a guide, I planed in short strokes with the jointer plane in the “wrong” direction (relative to the bench), and cleared up most of the tearout.  Because the skew rabbet plane is new to me, and I still find it somewhat awkward to use, I decided once the bevel was large enough to switch to the jointer plane to finish the long-grain bevels.  So after fixing the tearout, I turned the jointer plane around and planed the rest of the bevel down to the mark.

I learned the hard way that getting the bevels to meet in a nice straight line precisely at the corner is a tricky business.  One stroke too many with the jointer plane and they went from too far over one side to too far over the other side.  I should have reduced the depth of cut on the jointer plane, or switched to the smoothing plane to sneak up on it.  Ah well, if it weren’t for me blabbering about it on the internet, no one would ever know unless they bent down to look under the tops.

So, here are the nightstands with the bases and tops together.  The tops are not attached yet, just sitting in place.