Ming Inspiration (22)

Time to check in again with the dining table project. Just throwin' a few planks of bubinga together, willy-nilly. Previous posts archived to the right of the page.

Last time, I left off with a few pictures of the apron joints after rough cut out was complete. That was couple of days work. Next up were the compound-angled half-trenches for the shachi-sen. first we start with layout. Here's one of those perfect opportunities to employ the √2 scale on the sashigane:


Goes to show once again how carpentry techniques, including those with a framing square (more often employed on regular hip rafters), apply just as conveniently to furniture building.

Here we can see the layout of two trenches completed on this apron:


One task that still needed to be done was to trim the tenons to length, which happens to be different between the two on each apron. I sawed off the excess, then later pared the end grain of the tenons to the line:


Sawing for Teens® continues, this time in partnership with a guide fence that I made quick and dirty like:


The completed cut:


Then the chisels come out:


Once I've roughed out part of the trench, I use a Japanese keyhole saw, or ana-nokogiri, to work the uphill side of the trenches:


The saw leaves a little work to do after it's done its bit- first I use a 1mm chisel:


Switching next to a skinny file:


Once there's enough space, I can get a thin chisel, usu-nomi involved in the fun:


A while later, the end of this apron was more or less complete though this step:


Talk about taking the battle to the trenches - this step alone took two days to complete on all apron ends. Gotta be patient.

Another view, this time showing the amount of taper inwards in the trench sidewall relative to the pencil line:


And why not another look?:


Once all 16 trenches were cut, I could take a look at some preliminary fitting:


A view from the inside corner:


All for today. in the next post I'll show how these connections came out, and move along with other steps. These joints are still not complete.

Thanks for dropping in on the Carpentry Way today - comments always welcome. --> on to post 23