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Sunday, July 27, 2014

Cutting the Dovetails on the Rear Apron and Cross Member

 I cut the rear apron from a piece of hard maple that I had in the shop.  It is 7/8 inch thick, so I think it will be strong enough.  Also, the hard maple is more difficult to work but it was there so I thought I would use it.   I suppose I should look up the wood movement between mahogany and hard maple since they will be dovetailed together.   But I didn't, so I guess I am living on the edge!

I picked an arbitrary size for the four tails that I am going to cut, I picked four because that was how many there were in the picture of the underside of the Townsend Card Table.  Here is what the layout looks like:
 I cut them out with my dovetail saw and coping saw to remove most of the waste.  Then I chopped out the remainder with my chisels.

Then I used the tail board as a template to trace the pins on to the mahogany sides.  These are half blind dovetails so it is a little slower to cut out the pins since you need to leave material in front of the tail. You can not saw all the way through.

Then I pared the tails to fit and assembled the rear apron
After that I decided to add the center brace, but I just realized that the front is 3/4" lower than the rear.
So just dovetailing it front and rear would not be possible.  I have to mortise and tenon the rear of the brace and dovetail the front.  So that took a little extra time.
Here's what it looks like now:
If you want to watch the process, here is today's video:
Tomorrow I'll start work in the rear leg support and hinge.

2 comments:

  1. Excellent video today, the videos just keep getting better. The snapshots that review the days work, lead into the video, and are very informative.
    Let's get those hinged rear legs on, so we can see that table standing proud!
    I never saw your dovetail vise before, I need to check that out and make one for myself.
    Well done David.

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  2. Thanks, I think I am learning how to do this. Hinged rear legs should be interesting

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