Room Divider: Day 5

June 18, 2018 Edward Keogh

WHAT I DID TODAY

Made the other foot for the right leg,
Attached the casters
Created Biscuit Slots for the legs
Clamping Time
Filled the leg holes with wood caps to hide the screws

MADE THE SECOND FOOT

I cut a piece of 2"x2" to 12' long, and created it the same as that last foot by creating a mortise, but in addition I rounded the front and back of the foot so as that you would not stub your toe on the sharp corners so I removed them. Using my band saw and spindles sander to achive this

I really like the rounded profile of the foot.

Here is the side profile of the round-over, I am using my oscillating spindle sander to smooth the blade marks left from the band saw., really love this tool and I use it alot more than I thought I would. You could also use some sand paper.

Here is the right side panel after mking the foot

ATTACHED THE CASTORS

So today I started working on the other foot, I started by cutting a piece of wood to 12".

Then like the other piece I created the mortise that the leg's tenon will fit onto it and that was the same process as before using the drill-press.

I also decided to round the front and back of the foot so as that you would not stub your toe I achieved this by cutting most of wood away using my band-saw and then smoothing the contour with my spindle sander.

Here I am making the 3/8" diameter holes to insert the castor stems for the wheels, I set up a stop block on my drill-press so as that the holes are centered and 1 1/2' from the ends of the foot

Here you can see the top side of the foot.

Here you can see the pair of feet with the casters attached.

TIME FOR SOME BISCUITS

I decided in the design stages of the project that I would strength the leg by attaching it to the plywood panel by using biscuit's and screw's combined with wood glue. If you don't have a biscuit joiner you could just use screws and glue.

I started off my marking the leg and the plywood panel by drawing a line across both parts and then lighning my biscuit joiner and plunging the blade that created a semi-crcle slot into the wood which is where the biscuit will be inserted.

Here is what the biscuit slot looks like on the front piece, the pack piece has the biscuit inside, when you add glue to both pieces the glue swells the biscuit up to lock the biscuit inside the cavity , which strengthens the joint.

This is just before I applied the glue to the pieces, doing a dry fit is always a good idea to make sure all the parts line up to each other. You don't need any scares here because you have limited time to applying the glue and clamping them up.

TIME TO CLAMP

Here is another shot of the glued up panel

Here is the glued up panel with the legs attached, I used a total of 4 clamps to keep everything alighned until I added the screws in the next step.

ADDED WOOD PLUGS

After also adding wood screws to the legs, I usually add mechanical fasteners to add strength to a joint and it also acts as clamps while my glue sets up so as that I can use the clamps elsewhere but don't sacrifice a good glue joint. But using screws has its drawbacks one of them being they look ugly. So I countersunk the screw holes and come back and add wooden plugs to cover the screw heads.

I had a length of 3/8" wooden dowel that I cut up on my table-saw using a crosscut sled, then added glue to the countersunk holes I previously put into the legs.

Here are the plugs, I will leave them proud until the glue dries then come back and use my flush trim saw to clean them up.

Here you can see all the oak plugs, there still proud I will clean them up later.

TOMORROW

Clean up the wood plugs I added
Secure the right leg .
I am going to add a roundover using my palm router to the legs
Finally I need to determine the lenth of the center leg that will be receiving a castor