Battens and Legs Come Together
2016.6.12
With the tenons now turned / milled on the legs, I felt confident enough to drill the mortises in the battens using the drill press and jig. There was some fussing involved in getting the jig aligned with the drill press in just the right spot. It looks a little funny with the batten hanging way off the jig at an angle, but the toggle clamps hold firm. I put some blue tape on the battens and carefully marked the centers and directions to idiot-proof the process.
I drilled two holes with the battens hanging off to the right. Then I had to move and reset the jig to drill the two opposing holes.
For each leg, I chose which face would aim at the corner, and marked it with blue tape. I tried to choose the middle of three faces where the grain ran pretty straight. Some of the faces were more like face grain. Then I cleaned up the battens a little with the smoothing plane.
I drove the two chosen legs into the mortises in the batten. Then I started cutting the first one flush with the kugihiki saw.
Hm… this was gonna take a while. So I pulled the leg out and set up the compound miter saw. After nibbling a few test cuts in the waste, I went for it. The angle isn’t quite right, but it’s close, and the top of the tenon is just a little below the top of the batten, which is alright in my book. So for the rest of the legs, I kerfed around with the kugihiki saw and then sliced through with the compound miter saw.
Legs III