– Chris Wong
Pitt Meadows, British Columbia

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Forming Back Legs

To get this project underway, start by tracing Rockler’s seven patterns (or plotting points from the gridded drawings) onto 1/4″ MDF or plywood and carefully cutting them out to create full-size, durable templates. Sand their edges smooth.

Next, glue up seven double-thick blanks for the front and back legs, arms and a spare “test” arm from 1-1/2″-thick stock. Blanks measuring 6″ x 39-1/2″ work well for the back legs; start with 4-1/4″-wide x 24″-long blanks for the arms. When the glue dries, plane the seven blanks down to 2-3/4″ thick.

Use your rigid templates to trace the leg and arm shapes onto their blanks. When laying out the arms, make sure the angled back end forms a 16° angle with the bottom flat edge of the blanks and the “flat” behind the front ball end of the arm is parallel to the blank’s bottom edge. For now, cut out just the back legs at the band saw, sawing about 1/16″ outside the layout lines.

The next step will involve template routing, but these leg and arm workpieces are thicker than standard flush trim or pattern bits can reach in a single pass. To solve the problem, I used Rockler’s 1-1/2″ Double Bearing Shear Flush Trim Bit (item 27867) for this operation in two configurations — with the end bearing removed as a “pattern” bit, then with the end bearing installed as a flush-trim bit. But you could use long, single bearing flush trim and pattern bits instead, if you own those bits already.

Either way, mount your back leg template to one of the back leg blanks with double-sided tape. Install a long piloted pattern bit in your router table and, with the workpiece oriented so the template is facing down, trim around the leg to match the template using the bit’s full cutting length. Feed the leg workpieces slowly along the bit to prevent chipping and tearout, especially when the bit must cut against the grain.

Now switch to a long piloted flush trim bit and raise it until the bit’s bearing will ride along the routed portion of the leg from the first routing pass. Flip the leg blank over (template-side up) and remove the rest of the waste to complete this template-routing step. (Editor’s Note: Bits with a shear cutting angle, such as the double bearing flush-trim bit shown here, are preferable to bits with cutters that are in line with the bit’s axis, because the shear angle cuts more cleanly against the grain.)

Template-rout the other back leg.

Lay out the arm, side rail and stretcher mortises on the front edges of each back leg, using Rockler’s leg pattern or the gridded drawing as a guide. All three mortises are 3/4″ wide, but the arm mortise is 2-1/4″ long, the side rail mortise is 2″ long and the stretcher mortise is 1-1/2″ long. Center these mortises on the leg thicknesses. Locate the stretcher mortise 3-3/4″ up from the bottom end and the side rail mortise 13-3/4″ up from the bottom. Position the arm mortise 6-3/4″ up from the inside corner where the leg transitions to a backrest.

Use a 3/4″-dia. Forstner bit to drill out the bulk of the waste from the mortises. All three are 1-1/2″ deep. Due to the angled shape of these parts, you’ll probably need to use a tall spacer block or fabricate a raised platform on the drill press table to lift the leg high enough to clear the table. That way you can reposition the leg to suit its bent shape as well as drill these mortises squarely into the leg faces. Back up the spacer block and leg blank with a fence clamped to the drill press table to ensure that the drilled holes remain aligned and centered on the workpiece thicknesses. Then clean up and square each mortise with a sharp chisel.

Cutting Leg, Arm Tenons

Set the back legs aside for now so you can miter-cut the back ends of the arm blanks and the “test” arm to 16°, which forms the ends of the arms’ angled tenons. Then gather up the arm and front leg blanks and head to the table saw to mill their 3/4″-thick, 1-1/2″-long tenons. Install a wide dado blade and raise it to just shy of 1″. Set the rip fence 1-1/2″ from the far side of the dado blade, and cut the long cheeks and shoulders of the front leg tenons. Back up these cuts with a miter gauge equipped with a long scrap fence.

Repeat the process for cutting the long cheeks and shoulders for the back angled tenons of the arms, but this time, swivel the miter gauge to 74° to support the arm blanks from behind; the angled ends of the arm blanks should be positioned flush against the rip fence, which will establish each shoulder cut. Once that cut is made, remove the rest of the waste in several side-by-side passes, sliding the arm blanks farther away from the rip fence for each pass. You’ll need to flip the arm blank over and swivel the miter gauge to 74° in the other direction to make these shoulder cuts on the opposite faces of the arm blanks. Be sure to practice this setup on the “test” arm blank before milling the actual arms.

Now complete the front leg and arm tenons by laying out and sawing their short shoulders and cheeks, bringing the tenons to an overall width of 2-1/4″.

Go ahead and rough-cut the front legs to shape at the band saw. Cut the bottom (mortised) edge of the arms to rough shape, too, but leave the top edges of the arm blanks flat for now.

Template-rout the front legs to final shape, using the same two router bit method as you did for the back legs. When those are done, template-rout the bottom “cut” edges of the arms as well.

Mark the back edges of the front legs for the side rail and stretcher mortises. Bore these mortises 1-1/2″ deep at the drill press, and chisel them flat and square. Don’t drill the front leg mortises in the arms just yet, however — those will get marked and machined later, when the bench’s side assemblies are ready to be fitted together.

We also need to mark the inside faces of the front and back legs for the front rail, crest rail and back rail mortises. Here is when the front and back legs become left and right specific, so choose which will be which. All three mortises are 3/4″ wide. The back rail mortises are 2-7/8″ long; locate them 1-1/8″ in from the front lower edge of each back leg and 14-5/8″ up from its bottom end. The mortises for the crest rail are 2-1/2″ long; they begin 17-1/2″ up from the point at which the back edge of the back leg transitions from a leg to a backrest. Position them 1″ in from the back edge of the leg. The front rail mortises are 3-1/2″ long; locate them 11″ up from the bottom of the front legs and centered on their width. Bore these mortises 1-1/2″ deep, and chisel them flat and square.

Building Side Assemblies

Prepare enough 1-3/8″-thick stock to make blanks for the side and middle rails, stretchers, crest rail, back rail and front rail. Gather the side rails and stretchers, and set the other blanks aside for the time being.

Back at the table saw, mill 3/4″-thick, 1-1/2″-long tenons on the ends of the side rails and stretchers. Then reset the blade to 1/4″ high to cut the short end shoulders and cheeks on the stretchers; the final width of these tenons is 1-1/2″. Keep this blade height setting for cutting the short shoulders on the front tenons of the side rails and the bottom shoulder of their back tenons. But you’ll need to raise the blade to 3/8″ for cutting the top shoulder of these back tenons because they’re offset on the rails. The final width of the back tenons on the side rails is 2″, whereas their front tenons are 2-1/8″ wide.

Next, form two bench side assemblies by dry fitting a side rail and stretcher between a back and front leg. Set the arms atop the front legs and against the back legs, and carefully mark where the front leg tenon intersects the bottom, flat edge of the arm. Remove the arms, and lay out these 3/4″-thick, 2-1/4″-wide mortises. Drill them 1-1/2″ deep, and chisel them smooth and square. Reinstall the arms on their side assemblies to be sure the arms and front legs fit together correctly. Once you disassemble these parts, cut the top profiles of the arms to rough shape and template-rout them to completion.

Use your side rail template to trace its top profiled edge onto the side rail blanks. Band-saw these edges to rough shape and template-rout them to match. Then ease the four long edges of the stretchers and the bottom two flat edges of the side rails with a 1/4″-radius roundover bit to prevent future splinters.

At this point, you’re ready to sand the legs, arms, stretchers and side rails smooth then glue and clamp the side assemblies together using Titebond III or other waterproof wood glue. When the bench side assemblies come out of the clamps, plane, scrape or sand any mismatched joints flush. Mark the outside faces of the mortise-and-tenon joints for a single counterbored #8 x 2″ screw that will pin them together permanently. Position these screws so they’re centered on the width of the tenons and 5/8″ back from intersection of the parts. Drill counterbored pilot holes and drive the screws into them. Fill these counterbores with tapered wood plugs made from scraps of the project wood.

In order to prevent the bottom ends of the legs from chipping or splintering when the bench is dragged around on hard surfaces, it’s a good idea to chamfer their bottom ends. Do this with a trim router and chamfering bit, set to 1/4″ deep. Or form these chamfers with a sanding block, plane or file. Then use a 1/4″ roundover bit to ease the remaining sharp edges of the side assemblies. Sand the profiles into smooth transitions where they intersect at inside corners.

Making Backrest Pieces

With the side assemblies now complete, rip and crosscut a blank for the crest rail from 1-3/8″ stock. Since the length and weight of this long rail would make it difficult to maneuver over a table saw for cutting tenons on its ends, use an edge guide or a jig and your router to mill the tenons this way instead.

The scrap-made jig I used simply wraps around the workpiece like a collar to align the shoulders of the tenon all the way around. A short piloted mortising bit, run against the edges of the jig, completes the cuts. Rout 3/4″-thick, 1-1/2″-long tenons across both ends of the crest rail blank, removing the material in a series of deepening passes.

Next, trace your curved crest rail template onto the ends of the blank, and carefully bandsaw the bottom (slatted) edge of the rail to shape. Use your rigid crest rail template, if needed, to perfect these curves by template routing. Once that’s done, lay out the 1/2″-wide x 2-3/8″-long back slat mortises along the shaped edge of the crest rail. Mark the middle 2″ slat space first, then lay out the other 12 mortises 2″ apart. Center the mortises on the crest rail’s thickness.

Chuck a 1/2″ Forstner bit in your drill press or a 1/2″ hollow chisel in your mortiser to cut these back slat mortises 9/16″ deep (the outermost two mortises will be deeper to accommodate the crest rail curves; make their depth match the other ten shallower mortises). Square their ends and clean up their walls, if needed, so the slats will fit easily inside.

Complete the crest rail’s shape by rough-cutting and template-routing its top, curved edge. Mark the short end cheeks and shoulders on the tenons, then cut them with a hand saw to bring the tenons to their final 2-1/2″ width.

Make up a blank for the lower back rail next, and raise 3/4″-thick x 2-7/8″- wide x 1-1/2″-long tenons on its ends. The bottom ends of the back rail tenons will also need to be notched to fit around the top ends of the side rail tenons. Mark and cut these 1/2″-wide, 1″-long notched areas with a hand saw.

Refine the fit of the crest and back rail tenons as needed by hand planing until they fit snugly into their mortises in the back legs.

Set the crest and back rails together with their ends aligned so you can transfer the crest rail mortise locations onto what will be the top edge of the back rail. This ensures that the slat mortises will line up well when the backrest is assembled.

Notice in the Drawings that the back slats follow the angle of the bench’s backrest (16°), but the back rail doesn’t — it’s parallel with the lower portion of the legs. In order to mill the angled slat mortises that the back rail requires, first make an angled block for your drill press or mortising machine to hold the stock at a 16° angle to the bit. Affix the block to the fence of your drill press or mortiser with its angled face tilting backward. Adjust the fence to center the rail under the bit, and orient the rail with its front face against the angled block. Set the bit or chisel’s cutting depth to 9/16″, then mill the 12 slat mortises, making sure the rail remains flush against the angled block.

Now cut the back slats to size from 1/2″-thick stock, and test their fit in the crest and back rails by dry assembling the backrest. Check to see if the backrest tenons fit into the four mortises of the back legs. You may need to slightly shorten the slat length to accomplish this. I chamfered the ends of my slats to prepare them for easier insertion during final backrest assembly.

While the backrest is still apart, ease the long edges of its rails with 1/4″-radius roundovers, then sand the rails and slats up to 180 grit. Break the long sharp edges of the slats too.

Assembling the Framework

Create the front rail using the same tenoning and template-routing methods you used to form the crest rail. Make sure that its overall length matches the back and crest rail lengths. Then raise 3/4″-thick x 1-1/2″-long x 3-1/2″-wide tenons on its ends. The tops of these tenons will need to be notched to fit around the bottom ends of the side rail tenons, so mark and saw these notches now. Test the fit of the front rail tenons in their mortises in the front legs; plane them if needed to achieve a good slip fit.

Now mill a 3/4″-wide, 2-1/8″-long mortise into the back face of the front rail, centered on its length and located 1/4″ down from the top edge. Make this mortise just 1/4″ deep. Square up its ends.

Raise a tenon on the front end of the middle rail to fit the mortise you just made in the front rail. However, the back end of the middle rail has no tenon; instead, it will be notched to fit around the bottom edge of the back rail. Use your template to mark, cut and shape the middle rail’s top, curved edge to match the top edges of the side rails.

With that done, it’s time to complete the full bench framework. Reassemble the crest and back rails with the slats in between, and clamp this assembly together. Dry fit the bench sides onto the backrest and front rail, and install some long clamps to hold the bench together. Tack the crest and back rails to the slats with 1″-long, 18-gauge brads driven in from behind. Then pull the big components apart one last time, spread glue into the leg mortises and onto the rail tenons and clamp up the bench frame.

While these joints dry, fit the middle rail onto the front rail so you can mark the notch at its back end where it needs to wrap around the back rail. Cut the notch 1-1/2″ deep to form a tongue on its bottom back end, and test the middle rail’s fit on the bench. Now drill a centered hole through the tongue for a 1/4″ x 2-1/2″ lag or washerhead screw, extending this pilot hole up into the back rail as well. Install the middle rail with glue in the mortise-and-tenon joint, and drive the screw to secure the tongue to the back rail. Drive a counterbored 3″ deck screw through the front rail and into the front end of the middle rail to reinforce this joint further.

Grab a handful of 2″ exterior screws so you can cross-pin all the remaining mortise-and-tenon joints, just as you did for the side assemblies.

Finishing Up

With the bench’s framework completed, fill all the remaining screw counterbores with tapered wood plugs, saw them flush and sand the plug areas smooth. Now you’re ready to add the final components — seat slats! Rip and crosscut the six slats to size. Test their fit on the bench seat with 7/16″- dia. dowels used as spacers in between (the shorter slat goes in front). If the slats fit well, remove them so you can mark and drill a single counterbored pilot hole near the ends of each of the five long slats, centering these screw holes over the side rails. Mark and drill screw holes for the middle rail as well. Bore four counterbored pilot holes for screws along the length of the front slat, positioning them to avoid the middle rail’s front screw. File or sand the sharp corners of the slats round, then ease their top edges and ends with a 1/4″ roundover bit. Sand the slats smooth.

Now is a good time to apply finish to the bench and slats before installing them, while their surfaces are still easy to reach. I kept things simple by applying two coats of oil-based deck stain.

When the finish dries, set the slats in place, adjusting for an even overhang on the side rails. Extend their screw pilot holes down into the side, middle and front rails, and attach the slats with #8 x 2″ exterior screws. Fill their counterbores with plugs, and trim them flush.

Touch up the finish on the slats to complete your bench. If possible, set it beneath a shade tree or in another spot out of direct sunlight, to help preserve the stain’s color as long as possible. Now have a seat and enjoy the view!

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

Hard-to-Find Hardware:

English Garden Bench Template with Plan (1) #61885
Rockler 1-1/2″ Double Bearing Shear Flush Trim Bit (1) #27867

The post PROJECT: English Garden Bench appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

My stand’s height places the lathe’s spindle at about elbow height for me — right where you want the spindle to be for comfortable turning — and I’m about 5’10”. If you’re taller or shorter, you may need to change the length of the legs and their splay angle to make this project better suit your height.

Building the Leg Sets

Get this project off to a quick start by ripping a blank for the caster brackets and then forming a 30° angle in the middle of the piece. Cut the pieces to length and repeat the process. Then cut two square-ended blanks for the base gussets. Mark each caster bracket for bolt holes, and drill these holes all the way through; I located my casters 1/2″ in from the brackets’ square ends.

If you have a pocket-hole jig as I do, set it up for drilling 2x stock, and bore three screw pockets into the angled end of two caster brackets. Attach a drilled bracket to an undrilled bracket with 1-1/2″ coarse-thread pocket screws to create two caster bracket subassemblies.

A base gusset will strengthen these bracket miter joints; we’ll add those next. Bisect the gusset blanks with a square center line. Place a bracket subassembly on top of the blank with its joint aligning with your marked line and its outside edges at the blank’s corners.

Trace along the outer edges of the brackets, then cut the gusset carefully to shape on your band saw. Use the first gusset as a template to trace and cut the second gusset to shape. Drive six pocket screws through each gusset’s face and angled edges to attach it to its caster brackets.

Head back to your miter saw and pivot it to 21-1/2° so you can cut the four legs to length, mitering both ends of each leg. Set a pair of legs on a caster bracket subassembly with their bottom pointed ends even with the ends of the brackets. Center each on the bracket’s width.

Clamp the legs in place and measure across the outside top corners of the legs. Make sure this distance is 14-1/2″ or less so the legs will hide under the top boards. Check that the legs line up with one another well, then drive 3″ screws through the brackets and into the legs to secure them.

Next, rip blanks for the upper gussets to width, but leave them a couple of inches overly long. Flip the leg set over so you can mark the positions of both legs on its upper gusset, and cut out both gusset “trapezoids” on your band saw. Repeat as you did with the base gussets, fastening the upper gussets to the outside faces of the legs with more pocket screws.

Assembling the Stand’s Framework

Cut the bottom stretcher to length from a piece of 2×8. Line up the outside edges of the base gussets with the ends of the stretcher, and drive countersunk 3″ screws through the gussets and into the stretcher to lock the leg sets in place.

You can now crosscut both top pieces from a 1×8, set them together on top of the leg sets and drive countersunk 2″ screws down through them and into the upper gussets. Make sure the top pieces overhang the leg sets evenly all around and that their ends are aligned before you drive these screws. Then bolt the casters to the stand.

The last bit of woodworking involves building the ballast box that mounts beneath the stand. Crosscut the box’s top, bottom, sides and ends to length from 2×8 lumber. Now rip and crosscut two cleats from scrap 2x stock; these will support the box top. Screw the cleats to the inside faces of the box sides, 1-1/2″ down from the top. Assemble the bottom, sides and ends of the box with pocket screws. Attach the box to the stretcher with 3″ countersunk screws driven through the box’s bottom.

Add Sand to Finish Up

I used a piece of 6 mil plastic sheet to line the inside of the box, then poured 50 lbs. of coarse sand into the box and leveled it out before securing the top in place with countersunk screws.

You can apply finish to the stand if you prefer, although it really isn’t necessary. Then trick it out any way you like, with a tool rack, power strip, dust collection, task light and anything else that suits your needs. I’ve added a number of Rockler products to mine, and we’re providing a list of them as a “More on the Web” addition to this article.

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

Hard-to-Find Hardware:

4″ Polyurethane Casters, Total-Lock Swivel (2) #23030
Kreg Jig® K4 Pocket Hole System (1) #53310
Kreg 1-1/2″L #8 Pocket Hole Screws (1) #38541

The post PROJECT: Mobile Lathe Stand appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

The key to using these enhancements is to do them well — in both design and execution. Tightly fitting veneer is exquisite, but not if it has gappy and untidy joints. Crisply carved or etched geometric patterns are also interesting when they are well done but distracting when they are not. And that is the crux of the challenge. Do well or do not do, as a Star Wars character might say. So what are our options here for producing these sorts of decorative details?

Embellishment Methods

There are tried-and-true methods of cutting veneer accurately as well as carving with skill and style. If these are in your wheelhouse, we encourage you to go for it. This sort of traditional craftsmanship is worthy of effort and respect.

With the box examples shown here, however, we took a different path. Instead of embellishing with saws and chisels, we used a small laser to burn patterns into the box sides as well as to cut the decorative veneer. Laser engraving still requires learning and practice but of a different sort. Despite what some may think, it also still requires a basic understanding of woodworking, even with its high-tech approach.

Proportions, Proportions

Before we explain how we used the laser, here are more details about the box. While embellishments can lift a project to the next level, if they are slapped onto an awkwardly proportioned box, the project will be less than it could be. And with boxes as small as these are (they’re just 2″ x 4″ x 6-1/4″), proportion is even more crucial. Small can’t be clunky. So we made ours from 1/4″-thick plainsawn maple. We chose the wood for its creamy appearance and relative lack of figure. The top is also 1/4″ maple, with a piece of 1/8″-thick plywood glued to its underside that registers the top on the box. The bottom panel is 1/8″ Baltic birch plywood covered with pressure-sensitive black felt. The felt adds visual interest when the box is opened.

You can find a material list and technical drawings here. There you’ll also find downloadable programming for the laser engraving and veneer cutting.

Before the laser was brought to bear, we finished the sides and ends with a light spray coat of shellac. That kept the maple from becoming stained by smoke from the laser engraving process.

Let the Laser Light Shine

Once the maple parts were prepared, we were ready to fire up the laser. We used a benchtop model from Next Wave. It is a 7-watt laser that runs off of the same software package as their CNC routers. While creating the engraving and veneer-cutting files isn’t rocket science, it does require a bit of instruction. But let’s point out that if the crack team of “laser newbies” at Woodworker’s Journal were able to master these tasks, it is within the average woodworker’s skill level too. After you have the programs prepared and tested on scrap pieces, it’s a bit like using a home-quality printer to do the engraving. The engraving does take a pretty long time to complete — about 20 to 30 minutes per end and side.

Veneering the Top

Cutting the veneer with a laser ensures that the pieces fit together perfectly. We assembled the pieces, including the 1/8″ black inlay, with strips of blue masking tape applied across the joints. We then covered the entire top face of the layup in a layer of blue tape before brushing a thin coat of glue on the veneer’s back face and the box top. Clamp these two layers together with a caul that covers the veneer surface — it can simply be a scrap piece of 1/2″ or 3/4″ material. The caul will help distribute the clamping pressure evenly and protect the delicate veneer from the clamps. Allow your glue-up to cure overnight as we did.

As soon as you take the clamps and caul off the next day, get the backer piece of 1/8″ plywood glued onto the back face of the box top right away — otherwise it can start to warp quickly. (We found that out the hard way.)

With that done, peel the blue tape off and carefully sand the veneer surface smooth. We applied clear filler to help eliminate the different pore patterns in the various veneer species and produce a level, smooth surface. Bevel the edges of your box if you wish, by sanding them. Apply your choice of finish. When it dries, stick the felt to the bottom interior.

These little boxes look great with their embellishments. Whether you go “high tech” or build them “old school,” we hope these ideas might elevate your box-making craft to a new level.

The post PROJECT: Laser-engraved Box appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

If you’ve heard the axiom, “If your only tool is a hammer, all your problems start to look like nails,” this is a similar situation. When we attempt to solve a woodworking problem, we often begin with 3/4″ solid wood and plywood as a starting point, and then consider what tools we have on hand. Most of our power tools are great at cutting straight lines, whereas curved shapes are more challenging. And thus we find ourselves with tried-and-true rectilinear projects that solve the problem just fine … but they might start to look really similar.

Multi-use Dado

While Rockler’s Miter Fold Dado Set makes specialized folding joinery, it’s also a top-notch standard dado cutter.

Here the author uses it to cut some substantial box joints in hardwood. The dado blade handled the cuts easily and cleanly.

Shaping Up the Sides, Ends

To help buck our usual conventions, my odd little tray intentionally starts out with lumber that you won’t find in a big box store. I used 1-3/4″-thick hardwood as my starting point. You can buy lumber surfaced to that dimension at Rockler Woodworking and Hardware stores or plane 8/4 stock to that thickness.

Why the thick stock? Well, notice how the sides of this tray appear to be formed by a giant Roman ogee bit. Of course you know that’s not the case, but you might be surprised to find out that all of this shaping was done on a table saw … all of it. I needed to be able to remove significant amounts of stock and not cut into the interior of the tray. The extra stock thickness enables this to be possible, and that will become more clear as you turn these pages.

I kicked the project off by ripping the stock to width and then cutting it to length on my table saw. (Find these details in the Material List.) I came up with the length and width of the tray by using a “Fibonacci calculator” (I would not make this up) I found on the Internet. So the rectangle is formed in the Golden Ratio, and I didn’t need to do math to figure it out.

In an effort to completely leave the limiting shackles of 3/4″ dimensions behind, I decided that the box joint spacing would be cut at 1/2″ and that the bottom of the box and the feet would be formed from 1/2″ material. Constraints be gone!

Because the cherry and walnut hardwood was so thick, these box joints would require removing a lot of material in each cut, so I opted to use a dado set I installed in my table saw. To form the box joints, I used a shop-made jig that I attached to a miter gauge. This is a time-honored technique but does require a series of test cuts to get the machining dialed in accurately. I started my test cuts in some MDF that I glued up to the 1-3/4″ thickness. It is inexpensive, so I could just keep chopping off the ends of the pieces, tweaking the jig one way or the other and then testing the cuts again until everything fit properly. I am not a brave person, so I tested the setup again on offcuts from the actual hardwood stock. When those test cuts proved accurate, I machined my actual workpieces.

As you might expect, box joints this long may need a bit of convincing to slide together … with a mallet. After a dry fit, I glued and clamped the parts. Be sure to check that your tray is square at this point, because there’s no going back once the glue cures.

Cutting Coves and Angles

When the clamps come off, it’s time to add some shape to this heavy-duty glue-up. I shaped it by combining a cove cut down the middle of the sides and ends, followed by a couple of angle cuts on the top and bottom edges of the assembly. The end result gives a fairly classic urn-like flow to the box profile. You may be wondering, why shape the sides after gluing the pieces together? My reasoning for this is that I was worried that the box joints might tear out on their long edges if they did not have other material for support during the machining stage.

To form the cove, I used Rockler’s Cove Cutting Jig in the table saw. You can see the basic shape I cut in the Drawings. Because my assembly needed to stand vertically, I had to move the featherboard hold-down out of the way. And after I had the jig tightly secured in the table saw’s miter slots, I swung one of the articulating metal arms out of the way as well. I left the dado set in the saw for this cut, but you could switch to a standard saw blade if you wish.

I raised the cutter for each of three passes on the faces of the tray. Make the last cut very shallow and feed the tray slowly to save yourself a lot of sanding.

With the coves cut, I took the dado set out of the saw and installed a full-kerf 60-tooth blade instead. By cutting two different angles into the top and bottom edges, I could complete the tray’s gently flowing shape. The bottom angle is formed at 20 degrees, and the angle at the top is 45 degrees. I used a miter gauge to help control the piece while I was making these cuts to safeguard against binding and kickback.

Once the sides and ends were cut to shape, it was time to get busy sanding. The nature of the cuts I made and the lumber I chose meant that there were some serious burn marks to be removed. And the cove needed to be sanded mostly by hand. To do that, I wrapped sandpaper around a sanding sponge and employed some elbow grease. I started with 60-grit paper and did not skip a grit until I was done at 400 grit. I sanded both the inside and outside of the tray. In truth, once I got the burn marks and blade swirls removed with 60-grit paper, each successive grit did not take a lot of time.

Next, I made the bottom panel and feet from 1/2″-thick walnut. The bottom is sized so that it steps back from the edges of the sides and ends, adding to the shape of the box. To create a shadow line, I cut a 1/8″-deep rabbet into the piece. See the Assembly Detail for its orientation.

The feet are 2-3/4″ square, with two of the edges cut to a 45-degree angle. Sand the bottom panel and the feet so you can get ready for this project’s final steps.

Finishing Up

Assembling the remaining parts could not be easier. Start by gluing the feet to the corners of the bottom. When the glue cures, glue and clamp the bottom panel to the box assembly. Try to minimize the amount of glue squeeze-out on the inside of the box — it’s fussy to remove later.

The last step is to apply finish. I chose wipe-on Waterlox because it pops the grain of walnut and cherry so well. Flood it on, let it soak in and wipe off the excess. Follow the directions and apply a minimum of three coats. Here’s where your careful sanding regimen really proves its worth.

That’s it … you’re done! And you’ve freed yourself — at least temporarily — from the usual “3/4” paradigm”!

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

Hard-to-Find Hardware:

Cove Cutting Table Saw Jig (1) #22395
Precision Miter Gauge (1) #53310
Miter Fold Dado Set Plus (1) #51966

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Download Brief Additional Instructions and Technical Drawings for Creating This Box.

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Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

The post Walnut and Cherry Tray Drawings and Materials List appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

– 4″ Polyurethane Casters, Total-Lock Swivel (2)
– Kreg Jig® K4 Pocket Hole System (1)
– Kreg 1-1/2″L #8 Pocket Hole Screws (1)
– Excelsior Mini Lathe (1)
– Dust Right® Lathe Dust Collection System plus Lathe Chip Deflector (1)
– Lathe Tool Holder (1)
– Pen-Turning Ergonomic Carbide Turning Tools, 3-Piece Set (1)
– Nova G3 Reversible Chuck Bundle with 3 Jaw Sets and Case (1)

Click Here to Download This List as a PDF.

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Click Here to Download.

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