Battari Shōgi 18

This ought to be the second-to-last post in this series, and today I’ll be showing mostly photos about finishing the piece after yesterday’s adventure in gluing.

After the piece was assembled and the glue had cured, it was time to trim the through-tenons. Some of the smaller ones, such are found at the frame corners, I trimmed off using a flush-cutting saw. For the wider through-tenons on the cross-pieces, I decided to preserve my handmade saw, as the Wenge is not what you might call friendly, and so I got out my Festool small router (OF1010) and used some carbide to waste the tenon ends (a cheaper proposition for sure in terms of wear and tear expense):

Here’s how the tenons, well, one of them at least, looked after trimming with the router:

And after oiling and cleaning up, this is how the tenons look (fairly discrete I hope):

Then it was time for endless rounds of oiling, rubbing, a little wet/dry 400 grit sanding in oil here and there, and rub, rub, rub…:

Here’s another perspective:

As always, trying to capture the surface quality of the material in really flat light is a photographic challenge for me, and one I largely fail at, but this image of the front edge of the bench gives an idea anyhow:

I think the through tenons are not at all obvious to view after finishing, which was the result I was looking for.

With the bench now laying in the ‘normal’ orientation, I was able to nail the top back in place, as it was originally. Of course, nailing in pine and nailing in Wenge are two entirely different propositions. I measured the thickness of the nails (0.0955″) and then selected a 2mm (0.0765″) brad point and got to work pre-drilling:

My brad point drill wasn’t quite as long as the nails, so I used a pair of vice-grips to clip the nails a little shorter:

And then in they went, with no problems at all:

As it turned out, I am short a dozen nails, so the conclusion of that particular job will be tomorrow.

I’ll finish with a few random shots from around the piece, to fill out my self-imposed post quota of 15 pictures. Here’s one of the front corners:

One of the frame hinge pins at a rear corner, the being being made of Lignum Vitae:

I’ve been wanting to show the reader the delightful surface quality of the SYP infil boards after 30 years and thousands of people sitting on them – it’s a highly textured surface and wonderful to touch:

Here’s a view from the adjacent corner:

Another view of the underside of the bench:

One last image:

Looks like I have a little more rubbing to do on that corner! It’s endless.

So, that’s that for the construction of the bench. I plan to install it in the coming week- it will have to wait for a decent weather day, which apparently rules out this coming Monday.

In the meantime then, I think I can return to the land of French sawhorses for the next post or two. Thanks for dropping by today. –> Onward to post 19