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Woodworking Beginner
Woodworking Beginner
Woodworking magazines provide excellent ideas for carpenters but sometimes the projects are far above the ability of the beginner. Beautiful cabinets with detailed marquetry may pose a challenge to the expert carpenter/woodworker, but for the guy starting off, it is far beyond his ability and experience.
For the start up woodworker a simple but good looking project in furniture making is described without going into too much detail. Far from being a detailed plan on making a table, this article is intended to give the beginner an idea of what actions are involved and what tools are used. There is more to making a table as shown here, but that was not the intention but to give the beginner an idea of the different satges of creating a project.
Let’s assume you want to make a table. The process is the same whether a coffee table or a kitchen table is made, so let’s make a coffee table. Choose a size: make it 4ft x 2ft and 16inches high. Another option to be made is the type of wood. For a beginner, choose something that is not costly and that can be stained to look like a more pricey type of wood.
The table top can be laminated fom solid wood, but that would mean using a power plane, so a veneered board or plywood with the same type of wood as the rails and legs, would be more appropriate. To hide the edges a border can be cut from say a 2″ x 1″ of wood. To make the edge look more fancy a nice pattern can be routed around it. Miter the ends of the border where it meets up with the other parts. Glue the border together as a frame and make sure it is square and then cut the board to fit.
For a coffee table the legs need to be looking a bit more detailed than a normal kitchen table. Turned legs look nice but require a lathe, which might be beyond the means of a beginner, so the best alternative is to taper the legs toward the feet. With a router that you may own (or borrow one), you can rout a pattern onto the edge of the legs or onto the legs themselves just don’t try to be too fancy.
The rails can be made to look more fancy by routing a pattern on them or cutting the bottom of them into a curve or other pattern. If the table size is as mentioned above the table top needs to overhang by about 2″ all round. That means the lengthwise rails have to be cut to 4ft less 2×2″ less 2x the thickness of the legs. The same goes for the end rails but using the width of the table.
For simplicity the legs and the rails can be joined up with dowels. With three dowels of the largest size that will fit the rails and legs but at least 3/8″ dia. per joint are needed. Unless you hav access to a drill press, the drilling of the dowel holes can be tricky. The reason is that these need to be absolutely 90 degrees to the face of the joint. Get little marker plugs with your dowels. these fit into the holes and have a sharp point.
First drill the holes in the rails held in a vice and clearly marked. Hold the drill exactly 90 degrees to the face being drilled. Once the rails have been drilled place the three marker plugs into the dowel holes. With the leg being placed exactly where it must join up with the rail, it is given a tap with a hammer. The marker plugs mark the holes into the legs where the holes have to be drilled.
To put together the frame of the table, clamps are needed. Glue is now applied to the face of the rail where it joins up with the leg, also to the dowels, before pressing them together. Assuming there are only a minimum of two clamps available, these are used to assemble the two side rails with their legs and after the glue has set the end rails are joined with the aforementioned..
Using dowels, the table top can also be fixed to the frame. Care must however be taken not to drill right through the table top, ruining it. A depth gauge can be fitted to the drill to prevent this. The final stage has now been reached and the table can now be stained and varnished and voila! You have made a coffee table.
Author: D.W. Hoffmann, hobby woodworker. For the necessary resources see my website: http://www.toolsforcarpentry.com
Woodworking jigs for the router — Part 1 — Introduction