Finish line still not in sight.......but closer

Getting there. Patience is a virtue - at least that's what I've heard.

Joining the two pedestals together actually went better than I though it would. Those really long lag screws hold the two pieces together very solidly, if I do say so myself. And, the good news is you have to look really hard to see them in between in the gaps. Yep, I missed where I really wanted the screws to go, but it turned out ok in the end because, like I said, you really have to look hard to even see them.

Drilling out a plug to accommodate a dowel was also pretty easy to do. Luckily, those 3/4" dowels I bought a long time ago work wonderfully when cut off short and tapped into the hole. Now all that's necessary is to grind down the nubs still sticking out after the glue dries. All in all, a very good morning.

After lunch setup: because the two pedestals didn't join together quite perfectly, one was a little higher than the other. Back to the router planer.

In order to keep the piece (no longer two pieces, eh) completely solid while passing over it with the router, I attached a 3/4" thick shelf scrap to the bottom using 4 deck screws.

Once they were in place, the shelf was attached to the planer table with another 4 deck screws. Very solid! No movement at all! Just what I was looking for.

Next step is to adjust the height of the runners to match the height of the pedestal, make the necessary passes with the router in the sled, and voila....straight and level!

Better check the height, though, because if it goes under 27 inches, the tabletop won't make up for the difference. I've measured the height of quite a few tables, and they invariably wind up at between 29 and 30 inches high.

Well, THAT's a relief. Still have some wiggle room to now do the bottom.

Turned the whole thing upside down, unfastened and refastened in reverse, made the necessary passes with the router again, and voila.....perfectly level. And that's how I get parallel tops and bottoms on all the pedestals I do for tables. Did I mention how much I like this router planer?

Even after leveling the top and bottom, the height is still at 27 1/2". Perfect!

This is why I like the router planer so much. Using pipes, I can adjust the height to just about anything I want to. The only limitation is from the length of the pipes, themselves. For this process, you can see the maximum height of the bottom of the sled is 29 inches. If you look at the corner of the apparatus in the left of the photo below, you can see there's still about 3 to 4 inches I could have raised the sled if necessary. Nice!

Just a couple of photos of the leveled pedestal top and bottom.

Before applying the first coat of stain, there was still some significant sanding that had to be done. Also the dowel plugs had to be ground down and made flush with the contour of the opening they went into.

All that being done, it was time to apply the first coat of Watco Danish Oil "Natural" stain/varnish combination.

All 4 sides with one coat:

I think one coat of stain is all that will be necessary. The topcoats from here on in will be spray varnish as I can't get into all the nooks and crannies even with an artist's brush. So, tomorrow it's off to the hardware store to get some spray varnish.

I think it's coming together nicely. What do you think?

Back in Sequence - more on the Pedestals

Even with the "crowns" placed on top of each of the two pedestals, the concern over balance (or lack thereof) is still there. The tabletop is very heavy, and if someone were to place their hands on the edge to help themselves get up from their chair, the whole thing could tip right over.

The solution? Well, Katherine took a walk up to the shop to see how things were coming along, and came up with idea of "fusing" the two pedestals together to make one central piece. After positioning and re-positioning the tow pieces about a hundred times, they did seem to fit together pretty well. Brilliant idea, Katherine!

Problem was they didn't fit together well enough naturally in order to attach them to each other with any degree of permanence.

So, grinding and shaping looked to be the only way to get the nooks and crannies to fit together well enough to work. First step - scribe some contours and use the lines as guides for the angle grinder.

Not only for the top, but also where the branches and other concave/convex contours wouldn't allow for symmetrical meshing.

Even on the bottom of the two pieces, contouring had to be done.

After several hours of wrestling with some pretty unwieldy and uncooperative pieces turning them over and over, grinding, trying to fit them together, more grinding, trying again to fit them together, still more grinding, the final results were satisfactory - not great, but satisfactory.

Some additional top and bottom planing will need to be done. If you look really close, the tops do not align perfectly with each other anymore - a result of the two pieces not fitting together perfectly.

Decisions, decisions - should dowels and glue be used to attach the two together? Or should very long lag screws be drilled into the two to hold them together.

It didn't take long to figure out dowels would be problematic in getting them aligned perfectly if more than one were to be used.

So, long lag screws saved the day. Luckily, I have a very long drill bit to use in these instances - just have to be careful NOT to drill all the way through. The final step in this process will be to bore out a little larger hole to accommodate the screw heads and then plug the holes with dowels. Not the most ideal scenario, but the only one I could see that would work.

The last thing to consider before planing them level again is how much to actually take off both the top and the bottom. With the screws in, it is very solid with neither piece moving even a little bit - very tight and secure.

Even with the joining that took place, there's still some concern about the possibility of tipping. That begs the question, then, of whether or not to mount the now single pedestal to a larger round base to stabilize it further and give it more weight. If I do that, more will need to be taken off the top and bottom.

What do you think? What should I do?

Out of Sequence

This post will be short, but oh so sweet! A little out of sequence from what was indicated in yesterday's post, but just couldn't wait.

While working on the pedestals, the tabletop was getting 2 coats of Watco Danish Oil "natural" varnish/stain combination, 1 coat of Zinsser dewaxed shellac (sanding sealer), and 4 more coats of Minwax gloss hand rub on varnish (multi-tasking, don't ya know). The final step (just this morning) was to give it a coat of Trewax finishing wax, buff it out, and it's done!

Now to really focus in on the pedestals!

What do you think of it?

Pedestals

Well, now we're getting down to the nitty gritty - the pedestals for this table.

After a whole lot of searching for the "right" pieces, these two were chosen. The problem? Wasn't sure if they'd be sound enough to use for their intended purpose. The one on the left was really punky. A lot of dry rot. Hoping the core was sound and that there'd be enough of it left after grinding to be usable. The one on the right didn't survive a forest fire. The charring in places was over an inch in depth. Again, wasn't sure it'd be salvageable, but was hopeful.

Bark stripped from pedestal number one. Dry rot deeper than anticipated. Oh, well. Keep going and see what happens.

A LOT of worm holes I'd like to keep, if possible. Adds character to the piece.

Lots of grinding, lots of dust in the shop - still too cold to do this outside. Couldn't save the worm holes. The wood was just too soft in those areas, and would eventually cause some problems down the road. Pretty nice looking piece, though, if I do say so myself.

Eyeballing the second pedestal. Not so sure I even want to try saving this one. Oh, what the heck - give it a try!

Results, results, results. This one really surprised me. There are a couple of structural issues involving cracks that I'll need to address, but overall, this one definitely has appeal.

In looking at the two, the ends intended to be the tops are too small to provide stability for the tabletop. That dang thing is heavy! Don't want someone getting up from the table putting their weight on it to help lift and winding up with the table tipping over into their lap!

What to do? What to do? Aha! Make a crown! It'll involve cutting each pedestal down a bit, and planing the tops and bottoms again, but this should work!

The trick is in finding pieces that come relatively close to matching the pedestals. Not as easy as it sounds! Luckily, two pieces were available, and the fun began.

To plane them down using the router planer, each piece had to be secured to a 2x6 and then secured to the table. No movement! That's a good sign, for sure!

Adjust the height of the sled, and we're ready to rock and roll.

Set the crowns on top of the pedestals, and whaddya know - just under 31 inches total. Leaves some wiggle room to play with in getting the overall table height down to the 28-29 inch goal.

Next step was to attach the crown to the bottom. Luckily, three pipe clamps did the trick. One short dowel helped guide the location of each crown. Some popping and cracking along with a whole lot of glue seeping out all over everything, and everything is good to go.

I mentioned earlier there was a large crack that needed attention. The solution? Drill a very deep hole and use a long lag screw and lots of glue to snug the two sides of the crack back together. In order to accommodate the screw, a larger hole had to be bored out to hide it. Once that was done, more glue into the void along with a dowel used as a plug.

Once the glue set, it was a simple procedure to cut off the dowel and sand it flush to the contour of the pedestal.

And here are the results of all that effort.

And here is the second pedestal also ground down to look almost like the crown and the pedestal were meant for each other.

Tools used were the angle grinder pictured above and a long necked electric die grinder. Switching from the angle grinder chainsaw wheel to flap sander happened more than once in this process, and the results were more than satisfactory. The grinding attachments for the die grinder included a round carbide tipped ball and a longer, narrower 2 inch carbide tipped crevice rod (shown in photo above). One of my next investments will be to get a couple of fine grit grinding attachments as these two are course and leave way too many striations that I can't get to with any kind of sander including my hands.

Next post will include more progress on the pedestals.

Glue-up.....to Dowel or not to Dowel - that is the question

Ok, so this is the part I've been dreading probably most of all - the glue up. The reason? I'm never sure the edges are going to line up perfectly because that damn glue makes them so slippery.

I've heard there really is no need for dowels or biscuits when gluing because the glue is actually stronger than the wood itself. THAT really sets my mind at ease!

All the pieces and parts are ready (at least as ready as they're going to get). Now it's a matter of putting them together and deciding to go ahead with the dowels. I have a dowel jig that worked on another project I did a very long time ago with pretty good results. Wonder if I might be able to get similar results this time around? Well, gonna give it a try because slippage is not an option here, and the dowels will line things up and hold them in place if done right.

2" long by 1/2" diameter dowels should do the trick. Just remember to mark the pieces all the same when drilling the dowel holes. Otherwise they won't line up and the process will need to be done all over again.

Sure do wish I had more clamps than I actually have! Wait, maybe a ratchet tie-down will work. Give that a try as a last resort.

Each piece and part is going to have to be done individually which will take a lot of time and patience.

Can you believe the glue instructions say to only leave the clamps on for 30 minutes? Don't want to "stress" the glue overnight. Seems like it's just not enough time, but every time I take the clamps off, the glue seems to hold just fine in previous projects.

Well, here we go. First up - one side rail attached to one of the cottonwood center slabs. Get all the glue applied and spread out on both surfaces as uniformly as possible. Slowly tighten the clamps alternating from one to another to help keep the pressure as uniform as possible. Hear some cracking and popping as the two pieces are slowly pushed toward each other. The gap gets smaller and smaller. Finally, they meet, and the glue squished up through the seam. Quick, get a wet paper towel and wipe up the excess as much as possible! Keep tightening until it seems the clamps won't go any further.

Wait.....wait.....wait.....

30 minutes go by. Still seeing some "liquid" properties of the glue, not sure if it's time to take off the clamps yet. Leave them on for another 15 minutes.

Finally take them off, and VOILA....one side rail attached to one cottonwood center slab!

Repeat for the other side rail and cottonwood slab:

Did I mention, the ratchet tie down idea isn't something I'll use in the future? It's too hard to get it situated just right, and too difficult to ratchet down to an equal pressure to the clamps.

Now for the center rail of juniper. Attach it to one side first. Let cure overnight.

Attach to other side next. Let cure overnight.

Now begin to worry about how to attach the end rails because the 4' pipes used so far aren't long enough to accommodate a 4' long tabletop.

Brain fart! Use what you already have. Don't worry about spending the money to invest in 5' long pipes. Use connectors to "extend" the length of the 4' pipes! DAMN, this might just work!

Well, I did have to invest in two 1/2" pipes 60" long for my smaller clamps. The grips weren't long enough to allow a connector contraption similar to the 3/4" pipes. Oh, well.

Set up:

Thought I might be able to do both ends at once, but the weight of the tabletop was just too much.

One end at a time. Let it cure overnight. Patience, patience, patience.

Now, the other end. Pull it in slowly using equal pressure on all of the clamps.

Both ends - DONE!

Pieces and parts no longer pieces and parts.

Next up - starting to work on the pedestals.