On Monday, July 20, 2015 at 1:40:45 PM UTC-5, John McCoy wrote:
Sonny
Lately, I tried hand cutting mortises, for loose tenons,
I think this is why floating tenons is a "modern" technique.
If you're working by hand, it's much less effort to cut one
mortise and one tenon, than to cut two mortises and a longer
tenon piece.
John
Yeah, and in conjunction with what Leon said "that you can't blame your tools if your project does not come out right" and working "with the right machine."
Long explanation, here.
Other things involved in my thinking and with this table project (reminded by Leon's mortises and tenons, again), kinna brought all my issues/problems to the fore..... *Issues/problems with this particular table project.
I initially thought my table project was fairly straight forward... and it is, but subsequent (changing) circumstances didn't allow for my execution of the building processes, as simply as I had envisioned, because of those unforeseen, unanticipated changes.
I had/have no written plans, only a visual idea of the finished product. Then, I visualized-worked backwards, in my mental planning, as to each task to be done, in order to accomplish the end product. With each individual task, I did measure, calculate, mark, scribe, etc., but the general plans/schematics were in my head.
1) The table top boards: Rough cut 2" thick, 11'10" long, about 19" wide; air dried for 2 yrs before beginning work; After drying, they were planed to 1 3/8" to 1 1/2" thick. There was some slight variation in the planed thickness, along the length of each board, because of 1) the large size of the boards and ....
2) Despite the boards being stickered, well, when air dried, and, after having been planed and the mating edges jointed, there was still some slight warping/waviness (not bad) along their lenghts. I had thought the irregular surfaces could be corrected, at least to some extent, with the mortise & tenon applications.... the remainder of the correction being to sand the surfaces, along the mating edges, until even.... And, essentially, this has happened. However, there has been some unexpected other "influences" that has crept into the mix.
Unexpected "influences":
1) My initial "design idea", for the table top, was to keep each board separate from the other, i.e., not glued together, because each board is so large and heavy and each board will expand & contract(humidity/temp). Each table top board weighs about 75lbs, I'm guessing. It would be difficult to move that large of table top (the table disassembled), if the three boards were glued into one piece. So I decided to abandon the glued-up assembly and have the boards assembled separately. This separate assembly plan presented another issue, with respect to expansion/contraction movement.... there would be open "cracks" (separation) along the mating surfaces. This/these "opening" events will likely have to be corrected by, periodically, manually closing the mating joints, from time to time. I don't want to have to do this "manual closing".
2) The use of loose tenons came into play for the unglued top boards assembly..... sounds easy enough, problem solved! My hand cut mortises and tenons didn't completely solve the problem, as well as I assumed. The boards are still moving, i.e., expanding and contracting. Would better-cut mortises have helped the problem? Probably, but probably not completely. Should I have invested in a plunge router and jig, as I had thought, back then (months ago)? Back then, I had thought hand cut mortises would have been good enough, so I dismissed the new tool purchase.
For their 11'+ length, I have 7 tenons along each mating edge. Bottom-side view of the table, scroll right for second pic. The tenons are 1"W X 3/8"thick X 2"L.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/438361...in/photostream
I think my walnut table project is worth the effort to get the right tools for the job and/or have the correct skills to perform the tasks at hand.
Leon's cabinet project, again, made for my re-evaluating the things (tools) I need to seriously consider, when doing some projects. I am discovering that this table project is not as some of my past typical, run-of-the-mill "primitives". I need a better approach, better skills and/or appropriate tools, to accomplish what I want.
There have been a few other things, with this whole project, that has not gone as smoothly as I had envisioned. I blame the large size of the boards for some of the issues.... the slab leg units are still drying, moving/warping, a bit; the trestle board is still "moving", also. I ask myself, would having kiln dried the lumber made for more stable lumber? With this project, I am having to tweak my knowledge(or ignorance?) and skills, an in-progress job, in and of itself.
Sonny