I spent tons of time on my neander-project, a cherry end table with
hand-cut mortise and tenon joints... slaved over a chisel for hours on
end, had to remake two legs due to screwupery, endlessly fiddled with
tenons trying to make them fit decently, and finally glued it up, racked
it into square (I thought), and ran off to do my new years partying (read:
sitting on the couch).
pic: http://www.usedforcomparison.com/table1.jpg
I come back to my project after the festivities, declamp, and lo, my
beautiful table is 1/2" out of square on the diagonals! How can this be,
I cry, and give it a gentle push on the long diagonals. CRAAACK!! and
three of my beautiful mortises tear out, and now my table is floppy.
pic: http://www.usedforcomparison.com/broke.jpg
So, now that I've surpressed my crying jags, I have time to reflect that
perhaps the mortises should have been located 3/8" inland, and my tenons
could just be rabbets, and still look the same from the outside, but be a
lot stronger. As for it not being square after the clamp-up, I dont know
if I didnt measure accurately enough, or just my bad luck, or what. As
for where to go now? I'm hoping I can slather those cracks up with glue
and clamp them, and aside from some ugly scars, be good as new. Who
knows?
Happy New Year, friends :)
-Ian
tmbg wrote:
> against the belt sander, and now I have an angled face that matches the
> angled front of the table, and it sits flush. A dirty hack, but it works
> :)
I haven't managed to build a box yet where the lid was *exactly* square to
the body. Hand planes come in handy for a similar sort of hack.
--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan <[email protected]>
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/
On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 18:39:51 GMT, tmbg <[email protected]> wrote:
>I was actually following a book for this particular project.
Which book ?
If you want a good book on techniques, try Tage Frid's
Don't let it get you down, now you can practice some repair tecniques
not as bad as it looks,square it up and fasten the top with some cleats,dig
out the glue,fill and sand.The legs could be re-enforced with some fancy
cross bracing. This project may have to be dark stained to hide the F/up.
You could always have the bad side facing the wall.Keep going and don't look
back
"He who doesn't make mistakes,... does nothing"
"tmbg" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I spent tons of time on my neander-project, a cherry end table with
> hand-cut mortise and tenon joints... slaved over a chisel for hours on
> end, had to remake two legs due to screwupery, endlessly fiddled with
> tenons trying to make them fit decently, and finally glued it up, racked
> it into square (I thought), and ran off to do my new years partying (read:
> sitting on the couch).
>
> pic: http://www.usedforcomparison.com/table1.jpg
>
> I come back to my project after the festivities, declamp, and lo, my
> beautiful table is 1/2" out of square on the diagonals! How can this be,
> I cry, and give it a gentle push on the long diagonals. CRAAACK!! and
> three of my beautiful mortises tear out, and now my table is floppy.
>
> pic: http://www.usedforcomparison.com/broke.jpg
>
> So, now that I've surpressed my crying jags, I have time to reflect that
> perhaps the mortises should have been located 3/8" inland, and my tenons
> could just be rabbets, and still look the same from the outside, but be a
> lot stronger. As for it not being square after the clamp-up, I dont know
> if I didnt measure accurately enough, or just my bad luck, or what. As
> for where to go now? I'm hoping I can slather those cracks up with glue
> and clamp them, and aside from some ugly scars, be good as new. Who
> knows?
>
> Happy New Year, friends :)
> -Ian
good for you !Shuv her in second gear and keep makin the saw dust!!
:)dp(:
"tmbg" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 15:27:10 -0330, Dan Parrell wrote:
>
> > Don't let it get you down, now you can practice some repair tecniques
> > not as bad as it looks,square it up and fasten the top with some
cleats,dig
> > out the glue,fill and sand.The legs could be re-enforced with some fancy
> > cross bracing. This project may have to be dark stained to hide the
F/up.
> > You could always have the bad side facing the wall.Keep going and don't
look
> > back
> > "He who doesn't make mistakes,... does nothing"
>
> there are three bad sides, hehehe
>
> ah well, I think I can fix it... having the top on with cleats will make
> it a good bit stronger, also the drawer will help some. once I glue it I
> can clean it up with ye olde #4 and the glue joint will hide pretty well.
On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 08:13:04 GMT, tmbg <[email protected]> wrote:
>I spent tons of time on my neander-project, a cherry end table with
>hand-cut mortise and tenon joints.
Layout looks iffy. I'm guessing those are actually clamped bridle
joints rather than M&T - or else they're _very_ short haunched tenons.
Either way, the cheek of the mortice is too thin to have any strength
and the open top makes them even weaker. If it hadn't failed when you
were making it, it would probably have failed in service pretty soon,
either from shrinkage or from a vacuuming accident.
--
Congrats to STBL on his elevation from TLA to ETLA
On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 17:17:50 +0000, Andy Dingley wrote:
> Layout looks iffy. I'm guessing those are actually clamped bridle
> joints rather than M&T - or else they're _very_ short haunched tenons.
> Either way, the cheek of the mortice is too thin to have any strength
> and the open top makes them even weaker. If it hadn't failed when you
> were making it, it would probably have failed in service pretty soon,
> either from shrinkage or from a vacuuming accident.
yeah, I'm realizing that it was a pretty weak joint... the cheek of the
mortise on one leg broke out while I was chiseling it :P I was actually
following a book for this particular project. Most of the stuff I build,
I do the 'new fashioned way', birch ply and edging tape, I'm trying to
learn more about traditional joinery so I bought a couple of books.
On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 15:27:10 -0330, Dan Parrell wrote:
> Don't let it get you down, now you can practice some repair tecniques
> not as bad as it looks,square it up and fasten the top with some cleats,dig
> out the glue,fill and sand.The legs could be re-enforced with some fancy
> cross bracing. This project may have to be dark stained to hide the F/up.
> You could always have the bad side facing the wall.Keep going and don't look
> back
> "He who doesn't make mistakes,... does nothing"
there are three bad sides, hehehe
ah well, I think I can fix it... having the top on with cleats will make
it a good bit stronger, also the drawer will help some. once I glue it I
can clean it up with ye olde #4 and the glue joint will hide pretty well.
On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 19:27:41 +0000, Andy Dingley wrote:
> On Thu, 01 Jan 2004 18:39:51 GMT, tmbg <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> [quoted text muted]
>
> Which book ?
>
> If you want a good book on techniques, try Tage Frid's
'Tables' by Anthony Guidice
ISBN 1-56158-342-1
I'll take a look at the book you recommended, thanks :)
Well, to follow up,
I got it glued back up and reasonably strong and square, and I got the
kickers and runners installed, as well as the cleats, and I built the
drawer... it's square enough so that the drawer slides easily, BUT...
the left apron is a bit longer than the right apron (DOH!) so the face of
the drawer angled relative to the front rails. pushed the drawer up
against the belt sander, and now I have an angled face that matches the
angled front of the table, and it sits flush. A dirty hack, but it works
:)
http://www.usedforcomparison.com/table2.jpg
"tmbg" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
>
> and now my table is floppy.
Depends on the entire situation; be optimistic.
The bad new is that your table is floppy
The good new is that certain body parts are not.
If that is the worst tragedy of floppiness for the year, you are in luck.
Happy New Year.
Ed
[email protected]
http://pages.cthome.net/edhome