It was time to conclude the work on the cross-pieces. First, the outer set of cross members needed to have housings cut in them to receive the Lignum Vitae hinge pieces:
I later decided to deepen the housing on the face (the tenon entry side) another 0.125″, bringing it to a depth of 0.25″. This gives better support for the hinge piece.
Time for a run with the Ichihiro 70mm:
Short shavings were all I could produce from the Wenge, especially on the tangential faces. It finishes pretty well off the plane I thought:
Note the light brown areas in the grain pattern – this is some sort of very soft growth, possibly akin to the earlywood which is characteristic of softwoods, though I suspect that Wenge is a dry-season deciduous.
Once the six cross-pieces were cleaned up, with a few re-sharpenings en-route, I could move on to checking their fit at the tenon ends:
Here’s the little piggies, all lined up in a row:
Seemed like the time to do a trial assembly of the whole frame:
Holy crow, total blunder on these tenons! Look at the massive gaps at the sides:
Just kidding! – the tenons will be double-wedged later, and the mortises are already flared out on the front face of the rail for that purpose. Still, sometimes I forget such things and upon first assembly can jump to the conclusion that something is seriously amiss, then, ‘whew!‘ I mutter under my breath as I realize it is only my imagination.
Next, on to the short side rails for the 0.75″ square mortises which receive the Lignum Vitae hinge pieces:
Once chopped, I check the fit of the hinge piece tenons:
And next I check the cross-piece mortise as well:
The hinge piece needs a little scraping work yet to clean it up (now, it may look laminated, but those lines on the surface are just from the rough router shaping):
A tight fit, but it goes through, so let’s see how the whole assembly looks:
I have yet to do some final shaping to the hinge piece, as far as the lower portion of it goes – I can mull the decision over for a day or two before bringing the chisels out.
More to come tomorrow – thanks for your visit to the Carpentry Way. Post 13 next.