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Making a Trestle Table |
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| The
completed trestle table. |
Like
most woodworkers, I had some lumber I was saving for the perfect
project, some large planks of 8/4 angelique — a heavy,
dense South-American hardwood similar to teak but without the
oil. Apparently, it was reclaimed off an old barge that sat
in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, for almost 80 years. A
friend and fellow wooden-boat builder acquired it and gave me
two precious boards.
After a couple of years, I finally decided to use it to make
a trestle table. I used 5/4 mahogany for the tabletop to provide
a nice reddish contrast to the darker browns of the base.
The Base
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Cleaning
up the tenon cheeks. |
I
first milled up the base pieces, referring to a well-executed
cut list. I rough cut to length and then jointed and planed
until I had all of the pieces showing six square sides. Next,
I laid out the tenons on the two legs and the beam. Using a
sharp marking gauge, I scribed a crisp, deep cut around the
perimeters to register a saw line and help prevent any hardwood
splintering while the crosscuts were being made. While sawing,
I made sure to stay on the waste side of the scribe lines. I
then carefully cleaned up the shoulders and cheeks. You can
use either a chisel or shoulder plane. I used both, and found
the angelique to be quite a bit harder than anticipated.
After attaching a chamfering guide (a planing aid that helps
you cut perfectly formed chamfers repeatedly) to the long-grain
edges of the pieces, I used my low-angle block plane to remove
the saw lines from the wide cheeks on the tenons. I replaced
the standard plane blade with one that had a 50º bevel
that was perfectly suited for this difficult wood.
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Other Articles from this Issue |
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